Thanks everyone for your messages of support. Yes I am still ploughing on with my mission against them until I have exhausted every possible avenue. They should not be allowed to get away with treating people like this but it seems like they have the full cooperation of the law and supposed public bodies to protect people from them I contacted my local newspaper about it and they came back to me once and I haven't heard from them since. I will definitely follow up on it with them in the coming months and also contact national newspapers as I think a light definitely needs to be shone on their behaviour and also attention drawn to people's rights when it comes to bailiffs attending their homes. The police are completely uneducated when it comes to the law on what bailiffs can and can't do and they are essentially assisting bailiffs in misrepresenting their powers and even giving out completely false information to the public like that all bailiffs are allowed to enter your home by force! Then when it comes to pressing charges against bailiffs for committing fraud by misrepresenting their authority the police don't want to know! Regards the bailiffs charges, I have never received any correspondence at all from them even though they claimed to the council that they had sent me letters and more recently when I complained to CIVEA they produced a falsified letter in response to my subject access request letter which neither I nor the council have ever received but they claim they sent to me in March last year! Ugh they are so full of crap! The only letters with regards to the charges I have ever received are from the council and now this new letter which Goodwillie & Corcoran produced for CIVEA. I would like to pursue their failure to comply to the subject access request that would be another angle but what is their punishment for that? Also would I get anywhere with it if they are now claiming to have sent me a letter in March last year? They confirmed receipt of my complaint letter and subject access letter on 12th Feb 2010 however their supposed response is dated 31st March 2010 and I have never received this and they have no evidence that it was ever sent or received. According to this new letter they visited 7 times including the visit where the bailiff assaulted me. @Tooth Fairy the response I got from Bromley County court was just that the judge agreed with the previous judge's ruling and that I should consult a solicitor for advice. The letter was riddled with spelling mistakes and to this day I wonder if Goodwillie & Corcoran actually have someone at the court intercepting complaints about them. No explanation of the judge's ruling was ever provided nor any advice on how to challenge or complain about the ruling. I obtained an address to complain to a higher court from hmcs but I have never gotten round to it but as this is proving to be a sticking point and Greenwich council are absolving all blame and responsibility based on this ruling I think I will escalate to the higher court to see if there is anything they can do or if they can at least shine a light on how they have reasoned that a bailiff forcing entry into a home and assaulting someone is legal. @PlodderTom the new letter from the bailiff details the dates the charges were applied. The first two visits were apparently in August and September 2009, the remainder of the charges were applied on 10 Feb 2010. I only ever received a breakdown of charges from the council and not from the bailiff themselves. Yes, I signed the walking possession agreement last year but I understand that has now lapsed as they are only valid for a year not to mention it was illegally obtained in the first place as the bailiff did not obtain peaceful entry to my home.

Hello All, Well the saga continues with Goodwillie and Corcoran. I tried complaining to my local councillor and he was completely ineffectual, basically just obtaining copies of the same letters the council sent to me and saying there is nothing he can do and that I should complain to the Local Government Ombudsman and speak to the citizens advice bureau/a solicitor. Complete waste of time. So I have sent a letter to the Ombudsman who are currently investigating my case but they are saying that if the court decided there was no case for the bailiff to answer then there may be nothing they can do as they don't have the power to act once a court has ruled They are looking into this but I am not holding out much hope. I also complained to CIVEA the supposed bailiff regulator/membership association, who are completely useless to put it politely. They basically said that since the bailiff refutes my allegations there is no case to answer, case closed. So there you have it CIVEA will do nothing to keep their members in check, bailiffs are free to assault people on their doorsteps, barge into people's homes and defraud them of their possessions and impose irregular charges as far as CIVEA is concerned. As long as there are no other witnesses to the bailiffs actions CIVEA are happy to turn a blind eye and even if there were witnesses I am sure they would find some reason not to investigate their members, the whole set up is a total SHAM. So I am back to square one. Going to wait for the outcome of the ombudsman investigation and if that is unsatisfactory will file an N1 form against the council and the bailiff. Can I put in that form costs for damage to my home from the bailiff's visit or should I keep it to the overcharged fees?

I was wondering if anyone can assist me in reclaiming charges on my student loan? I don't so much want to reclaim them but to request for them to be removed. Some arrears occurred because of a delay in deferring the payment, I sent in documentation to prove I was not working at the time so eligible for deferrment but I was waiting for my job seekers claim to go through so I had no official docs confirming my status so the SLC refused to defer the loan until they received suitable docs and arrears accrued in the meantime. I set up payments to clear down the arrears but had to cancel them as I could not afford them any more as I lost my job. Since then charges for sending letters and so on have been added to the account amounting to about £300 and I am now being chased by CCM or some debt collection company to that effect. Is there any way to write to the student loans company to ask for the charges to be removed or for it to be referred to the financial ombudsman? Has anyone had any luck with this? Would this come under the same ruling as the banks unfair charges decision? Please help.

Update on the current situation - with xmas and new year I hadn't quite got round to writing my follow-up letter requesting full refund of the repair fee. Well this Monday the damn fridge decided to pack up again Both fridge and freezer not working, all food ruined that I wasn't able to cook/eat. I suspect it is the thermostat that has gone again. I did raise an issue when the new one was installed about the fridge freezing when the thermostat was only set to 2 and whether it was working correctly. The engineer assured me that this was all perfectly fine - total BS as I suspected. So just over 2 weeks past the 3mth guarantee they offer on their repairs the damn thing has packed up again. Luckily they have offered to send out an engineer to identify what the problem is. If they identify the same problem then I expect it will be repaired under their warranty. However I have lost faith in the damn thing altogether now. How long is the repair going to last before the fridge packs up again? Not sure if I should request some sort of contribution towards a new fridge instead??

So what do you suggest I do now?

They were initially helpful to begin with but the last time I spoke to them they were telling me I don't have much hope without an independent report from a technician confirming that the thermostat failing after 2.5yrs was not normal wear and tear - however the appliance has already been repaired by a Comet engineer I didn't get an independent report 'cos Comet insisted I HAD to use their own engineer.

Yeah I figured they were trying to just fob me off, so what next now send them a letter declining their offer, requesting full refund or court action (for the 3rd time!)? I will have to get on to Which to see if I can get a hold of their report on manufacturers estimations of their product lifetimes and also get the details of the BEKO managing director so I can quote him as an expert witness in my case.

What is the EU Directive is there somewhere that I can find the details of this? I was under the impression that the sale of goods act offered greater protection than the EU Directive?

OK so after a number of letters back and forth with the Comet director I have now been offered a £49 refund on the £99 repair fee I paid as a 'gesture of goodwill'. I am still not entirely happy about this as I wanted a full refund as I believe the goods were not of satisfactory quality and did not last a reasonable length of time hence I should have been entitled to a free repair. Not sure whether to take this offer to keep on pushing for a full refund. They are probably trying to fob me off. Your thoughts people?

How do you request the manufacturer to appear as an expert witness? I tried to contact the manufacturer of my fridge for details on reliability but they point blank refused to supply any info, would be good if there is some way of getting them to give their opinion in court. Please advise. Thanks

Hi Nannyjen, Did you arrange for Comet to come and assess your fridge freezer? Any joy?

I'm going to write Comet one final follow up letter then get onto Which about the report to take things further.

Yes I will be very interested to see if this comet guy comes back on this, I will be very interested to hear his response. CC'ing in Watchdog, Trading Standards and Which is a good idea although I have already e-mailed my case to watchdog. What should I write in the letter 'copies have been forwarded to Watchdog, Trading Standards and Which or just put a small cc note at the bottom of the letter? I am going to e-mail Which to ask them about getting a copy of their report on home appliance longevity. Perhaps I should write to a newspaper as well, I already e-mailed the guy at the Guardian who wrote the article on the sale of goods act but no response from him as yet.

Yes and no, mine was freezing things in the salad crisper regardless of whether they were towards the back or front of the fridge. I had the temp set at 2.5 as this was the only setting that would stop this happening previously but now since the thermostat change it is freezing things at 2.5 as well. The engineer that came to look at it told me what sounded like a BS story about how I need to put stuff in the freezer ice tray to prevent too much cold air circulating at the top of the freezer and transmitting the cold through to the bottom of the fridge - rigggghhhhht! He also mentioned that he had the same fridge freezer and that he has his set on 1. I find it rather odd that the fridge freezer has 6 temp settings and ppl are having to keep theirs on between 1-2.5 to prevent the fridge freezing food - seems to me that there is an inherent problem with the thermostats in these units. I recently purchased a fridge thermometer and it is reading approx 5-6 degrees celsius which above the safe level of 2-4 degrees. This is on the new lower setting the engineer put the fridge on of 2. So basically if I turn the temp setting to 2.5 things freeze in the fridge but if I turn it down to temp setting 2 the fridge isn't cold enough!

^ But that is just the thing - I have had to pay for the thermostat to be fitted it has not been fitted free of charge by the retailer. They effectively conned me into paying their £99 fixed repair fee on the premise that it was the only way I would be able to get a refund if the appliance was found to be faulty and not due to me damaging it in some way. They told me that if I got an independent person to repair the fridge they would not cover the repair costs if found to be faulty as they only accept the word of their own engineers. Low and behold I have paid their rather costly fix fee and they are refusing to give me my money back. I am pretty sure the staff at Comet would take offense if I went to their store and put a big sign on this model of fridge saying BUYER BEWARE - fridge likely to suffer costly fault between 2-2.5years, Comet believe this to be a fair amount of time for a £250 fridge freezer bought from them to last. However that is effectively what they are saying. I think the argument here isn't necessarily whether this fault was inherent from the day that I bought it and more whether the appliance is of satisfactory quality for it to only last 2.5 years before suffering such a major and costly fault. Surely the components should be built to last a more substantial length of time?? On a different note I got a reply from Comet's MD saying he is sorry their online representative gave me incorrect info about getting a refund of the repair cost however he believes the customer service centre person that took my payment set me straight on that and that thermostat failure on a 2.5yr old thermostat is the result of normal wear and tear therefore no refund for me or guarantee of replacement should any further problems occur. Nice who said customer service was dead I shall write back to the MD one more time then proceed with a small claim against them. Anyone got any useful info/tips?

how old is your fridge callumsgran? Judging from my own and others reviews on the Comet website this particular model seems to fail at around about the 2-2.5yr mark. All the ones on the Comet website seem to be compressor failure though. Perhaps I should register on comet and log my own thermostat failure. I am curious that you have to put your fridge on setting 1 to prevent it freezing in the back - when you say that do you mean the back panel inside the fridge freezing or food towards the back of the fridge freezing? Makes me wonder if there is an issue with your thermostat as well, this could be an issue for this particular model but customers are not realising it. I want to get a temperature gauge to see what the actual temp is in the fridge as I am concerned that I have to put it on such a low setting to stop stuff in the salad box freezing but I wonder if the overall temp of the fridge iss higher than what it should be.

the item is used in a domestic environment and is not in high use as I live on my own so it's not even like it's a large family constantly opening and closing the door to take food out. The fridge has always been kept in a kitchen and never in a garage or cold place. I first contacted Comet about the faulty fridge via the online help on their website. The agent I had a text convo with told me that if I paid the £99 fee and it was found the product was faulty and was not caused by misuse of the product then the £99 would be refunded. Well lo and behold the thermostat was found to be faulty and the engineer confirmed that there was nothing wrong with where the fridge was sited and that it hadn't been misused or damaged but when I asked Comet for a refund of the repair fee they said no.

Thanks for your reply, I have already written to the MD of Comet. I looked up his e-mail address online last week and e-mailed him on the off chance he might be able to assist as I was getting no where fast with the customer service department. I received an e-mail and a phone call from his office, they said they are looking into it and will get back to me. So I shall see where that goes. I agree with you the thermostat is a part that is always on and is constantly in use to me that makes it a major component and a part that should have substantial longevity. Comet do not seem to think that and are arguing that it is wear and tear and it I should consider myself 'lucky' to have gotten 2.5yrs use out of the fridge freezer before the thermostat packed up. I disagree if I'd known that they considered 2.5yrs use from the thermostat was acceptable before having to pay to replace it I wouldn't have bought the fridge in the first place. It's like they are knowingly selling shoddy goods. At least Mr Ratner had the balls to admit he was selling crap! I am having a comet engineer come back free of charge as i've found the fridge is now freezing things in the salad crisper. From when I first bought the fridge it had this problem but I thought it was just that I had set the temperature dial too high so I had it set at 2.5 of the up to 6 settings. Now even at 2.5 it is freezing things in the salad crisper so I am wondering if the thermostat was faulty from the very beginnning. Re BEKO, my interest in them is in trying to find out some info about the reliablity of their goods in order to support my case. I am thinking to ask Comet for a written report on the fault with the fridge as the engineer didn't give me anything. I paid for them to inspect the fridge so they should provide me with a report of what they assessed the problem to be. The engineer said the thermostat had failed which is what caused the fridge to stop working.

just had a rather long and drawn out conversation with Beko's customer service department who said they don't have any information on average lifetimes for their products and they couldn't possibly provide an estimate. I have requested their MDs details and have also posed the same question to their press department. I can't believe that they won't provide this information. I seem to be going in circles here. Looks like my best bet is to try and get hold of the Which report on appliance lifespans and reliability. I don't know if this on it's own is enough for my case??

I am having a bit of a hard time trying to obtain an independent report as my situation is kind of unique in that the item in question is no longer faulty so there is nothing for them to look at. Although I have kept the old thermostat the engineer removed from the fridge. I phoned up one repairer today who was telling me that 'nothing is built to last these days' and that 2.5yrs from a modern fridge freezer is reasonable and it could be expected for a thermostat to fail in that time period so he couldn't give a report to say otherwise. What a load of rubbish!! Other places I have phoned have just been call centres so they are of no use. I am pretty sure the average person does not spend £250 on a fridge freezer with the expectation that they will have to shell out nearly half the price on repairs within 2.5yrs. If they put this on their products in the store then people would most certainly not buy them. Do I definitely need to have an independent report on my fridge freezer or will info on the general expected lifespan of a fridge freezer suffice in terms of a court claim?

hello just wondering if there is any update on your situation with Comet as I am facing the same problem?

thanks for the link, my fridge freezer is the BEKO CA5411FFW I don't see that one in the thread but by the looks of it others have had the same problem with BEKO fridge freezers. Could I use these people's testament and the reviews on the product on Comet's own website to support my case?

Hello, Hoping someone can offer some help or advice on my issue. My BEKO fridge freezer purchased from Comet in March 2008 packed up a few weeks ago. I contacted Comet and asked about a free repair under the sales of goods act. They said the fridge would need to be assessed by an engineer to determine whether it was a fault or not before they would pay for a repair. I asked if I could have an independent engineer assess the fault but they said it had to be their own engineer at a cost of £99 which includes the repair. Engineer assessed the fridge freezer and found the thermostat had failed so ordered part and replaced it. I requested Comet to refund the cost of the repair as the fridge freezer was faulty but they have refused claiming it is normal wear and tear for the thermostat to breakdown within 2.5yrs and that the thermostat is not a major component. I have been in touch with consumer direct who advised me to send a letter to Comet requesting a refund of the repair cost. On both occasions they have refused to budge and my last resort is now legal action however consumer direct are telling me that I won't win without an independent report or supporting evidence to support my case that a lifetime of 2.5yrs for the thermostat and fridge freezer is not satisfactory. I have contacted the manufacturer to ask what they believe to be the average lifetime of their fridge freezers before faults appear and also the average lifetime of their thermostats, waiting to hear back on that. I am going to ring round a few repair centres to see if they can provide an independent report. Has anyone got any useful advice or tips?

I think you have to pay to file an N1 form right? Can I claim this back as part of my claim against the council/bailiff? I am putting together a letter to the my local councillor - finally, had hoped to get some kind of reasonable response and resolution from the council but to no avail I will see what he can do and if he can assist in getting the overcharged fees refunded, failing that I will send a letter to the council requesting the fees back within 14 days. This thing is dragging on for so long now. If only I could go back in time I wouldn't have answered the door to the bailiff at all and would have saved myself a LOT of trouble!

OK got a letter back from the bank saying they cannot pursue a refund because visa debit cards are not covered by section 75 of the consumer credit act what do I do now? do I have to apply to the court to dispute the fees and how do I go about doing that?