FLASH FLOODS in northeast NEED ADVICE PLEASE

xxflossyxx

hi there everyone,

the northeast tyneside was hit with flash floods and i really need some advice for a friend, she works at a company which provided her with a home computer which amongst everything else this PC is severely water damaged, she pays so much every week until its paid off kinda like a hire purchase i think, well she isn't even half way through paying for this PC, her company states that has to continue paying until fully paid off. are there any options or well anything she can do not just about having to continue paying for something never to used again but can she get another PC..............with her job she does go into work but she does need to have a home PC due to the work she does, she doesn't have a clue about what to do and im at a total lose myself, which is why im posting this, any advice is greatly appreciated.

thank you and takecare
xxflossyxx

Jaynne

That sounds to me, and I'm struggling to remember the name of the scheme, to be one of the salary sacrifice schemes where you buy a PC and it comes off your wages saving you tax. Good old Gordon stopped it a number of years ago.

In this case the PC has nothing to do with the employer it is your friends in their own right and it should be regarded more as a fancy financing scheme rather than anything else. If the PC is now out of order and your friends employer needs them to have a PC at home to do their job they should supply her with one even a temporary one until she can get it replaced under insurance.

I work in IT and it's not an uncommon occurrence (PCs breaking not being flooded). I'm sure the company will have some spare PCs banging around the place or whoever does their IT support should be able to supply one. We once had to kit out half a dozen PCs at a time for an office that was broken into - a bit of a struggle as we were only a small business and normally only keep a few loaners at a time but we managed.

If I'm wrong about the salary sacrifice then why is your friend paying for her works PC? She needs to look in her contracts to see who is responsible for insuring the PC and they will need to claim it on. Still that just comes down to whose insurance it is paid out of. In the mean time her employer should still provide her with a temporary PC.

As a side note there's a reasonable chance the PC might still be functional though it depends on what parts were flooded. If it was only a little bit the hard drive may well have survived and the rest could conceivably be cleaned and work again. If it went all the way under though or its a laptop its almost certainly a goner. Besides which an insurance company will likely just buy her a new PC which will be faster than the old one so it might not be wise to repair.