All sorted, got a letter today with a settlement of £3k. awesome, and all for something i didnt even know about.No hassle, no quarms, good job Lloyds

I have a Vauxhall Meriva which spontaneously combusted from the battery/ABS area under the bonnet on saturday just gone. It is a 2005 registration, serviced, nothing aftermarket, well loved and cared for. I do nothing under the bonnet. At 9am i went out to the back garden and smelled burning. Looking up the drive, it was smoking like a champ from under the bonnet. I moved my other car away from it and phoned the fire birgade. Then it went up properly, essentially taking the front end off the car. I am fully comp on the insurance but now im £250 excess out of pocket, plus ill have to get a new insurance policy, loose a 5 year NCB and there will be about £1k to pay off the finance if they give me a reasonable payout. Ive reported this to Vauxhall and gave them allsorts of information but as i didnt get it serviced at a main dealer (i got it serviced at a Renault main dealer, where i bought the car two years ago) i expect them to tell me to poke it. The car is being assessed as a total loss or not tomorrow by my insurers but i presume they wont go onto detail to see whats caused the fire, just what the general reason was? Have i got any kind of leg to stand on for reclaiming any kind of losses?

Hello everyone. Im writing this as a bit of a last ditch attempt. I took out a house insurance poilcy with Brit Insurance, through the brokers Auto Direct. I started the cover on the 1st of September 2009 on a years policy. Come around the middle of August 2010, i got a letter stating that my new quote for the next year would be X, and this would automatically carry on should i take no action. As the quote was more than others, i phoned them and told them not to let it carry on as i would be using another company. So come October 2010, i got a direct debit payment taken out by them. thinking this was the last payment for september, i then cancelled the direct debit and let it slide. About two days later i got a letter from them asking why i had cancelled the direct debit, and to get it sorted. I phoned up, explained i had specifically told them not to continue it, and they said on the phone it was cancelled and all sorted. A week later i got a letter demanding £76. Upon phoning them, i got put through to their debt recovery dept - which the amount had been handed to as the policy was closed with an 'outstanding balance'. The woman was awful, i mean, really awful. Basically pushing and pushing for me to pay. Then, and this is the odd thing, she told me if i had a poicy with a new insurer the only way to waiver this £76 would be for me to provide proof i had insurance with someone else from the 1st of September 2010. She could not satisfactorily tell me why. I argued that me having insurance was a personal choice - i didnt have to have it - and whether i did or not would not rectify their error. So anyway i got a copy of my current insurance cover, and phoned them the next morning to get an address to send it to. As my insurance cover for this year started on the 18th of September 2010, and not between the 1st of September and the 14th (some kind of grace period apparently), i would still have to pay the charges. I sent this coversheet anyway with an angry letter on military headed notepaper (im in the Royal Navy). Any challenges to this have been replied to with "its your insurers policy, not ours, we need a payment". I got another call today asking for the money, and if i didnt pay up it would be referred to a debt recovery company. The charges are for £15 admin charge, £50 cancellation charge, and the rest is my actual insurance bill from the 1st of September 2010 to the date which they cancelled. At no point was i informed i would be charged, i just thought they had sorted their error. They maintain i didnt call and tell them i didnt want it to roll over. I have no proof, but i did. Can anyone help please, after their manner on the phone im nervous about phoning them.

My god, that is related to distance selling! Like the internet as is that paragraphs title which people have told you all along! Therefore it reverts to the SOGA as above! Unless im missing something, they are correct and you sir, are not. I dont feel good about it or anything i just want the facts without you getting a strop on over something you have either a) misread or are b) misquoting.

That quoted URL shows you are wrong. This relates to distance selling, over the internet. As do the 14 more i have found.

How can i not accept the interpretation i prefer when i two contradictory viewpoints? The one you are saying is incorrect actually has a reference too, from the SOGA. Please can you site where your view is laid down, for my records, so i can make an educated decision as to what to do. I have already explained to you buzby, twice, that I'm not happy with Venture full stop after this debacle. That is the reason I don't want anything more to do with them and will take my business elsewhere. If they had done the job correctly in the first place, i would have had this item in time for Christmas - the order was placed around the 21st of November. Because they couldn't be bothered to to the job correctly, failed to QA the order, did it wrong from the start, whatever - I now have to explain to my wife she doesn't have a Christmas present which i appreciate has no grounds for complaint with them, as you have already mentioned it was only verbally agreed - but it has injected enough spite in me to not want to line their pockets anymore. Offtopic anyway - can i get a refund or not? If i can, what can i quote?

From what I read from the SOGA this only applies to distance bought goods. Yes. Ive already told you its irrelevant in post #10. It just demonstrates that even IF they managed to get the item correct it would still be damaged. They will replace but will take too long for my liking, up to 4 weeks. I've paid my money (a lot of money), had a bad experience with their customer service, their professionalism and the ability to get simple things correct and as above just want a refund and move on to a more professional company.

Thats what i was thinking.. The damage is inside the frame too which is sealed. You can just see it behind the glass so im not at it. Irrelevant anyway..

So their refusal to refund is acceptable you would say?

No i understand and the fact that they are not ready for christmas is an inconvenience. They are both of the above. 1) They are incorrect and not as ordered 2) They are damaged at the same time. I suppose 1) cancels out 2) as i dont really care that they are damaged; they are incorrect from the start. If it had been say £10 i would have just put up with it. This is £500. I have asked for the refund and have been told no.

Thats what i was thinking. The goods however are damaged/faulty - and not fit for the purpose they were bought for. They are also completely incorrect compared to what i ordered. They also do not have my signature on any order forms, if it matters.

Id have been happy with a replacement but i choose a refund at this stage as they say they cant do one for christmas - and we went into this telling them it was a christmas gift. After seeing their customer service and standard of work i dont want any more of their products. So would i phone my card issuer, say Virgin, or do i phone Mastercard? Thanks for the advice, its exactly what i need.

Ok thats superb. The item was damaged AND incorrect and i informed them immediately. I intend to phone them today. What happens if i do a chargeback, do i then just return the goods to the store? What if my chargeback doesnt get 'accepted' and ive also returned the goods? can this happen? the goods were most certainly not distance supplied, i went in the store to have the photographs taken, paid in the store and collected from the store. In fact, they refused to post them to avoid damage. Which led to another 60 miles round trip to Glasgow in the snow.

hello to everyone, im posting about my current problem with venture photography. i purchased a set of photos, framed for my wife for christmas around three weeks ago. i bought one large photo and four smaller ones. as our house interior is mostly black (chairs etc) we decided we were going to mount the large one on the wall and the other four around it. i paid up front on a mastercard and collected last week. getting the product home, the large frame was gold and the cardboard mounting inside the frame was damaged. i phoned immediately (around 12 hours after collection) and talked to the person who had sold me the items, who became very agitated and explained all the money i was saving. i said it was irrelevant, and it was damaged. so i said i wanted it sorting for christmas as it was a gift. she got more agitated and told me i had to speak to the shop manager. he phoned me yesterday and said a refund was impossible as it was 'customised goods', even when i then explained i now have no gift for my wife for christmas and she will be gutted, as am i. he is to phone me again tomorrow but he basically said i cannot get a refund, and if i were to 'take it down that route' as he put it (i told him i would be going to citizens advice) i would have to speak to head office and they would tell me the same thing. i was also just considering doing a chargeback on the mastercard for damaged goods not fit for purpose.. is this possible or am i the one in the wrong? thanks in advance, im at a bit of a loss with it.

hello to everyone, im posting about my current problem with venture photography. i purchased a set of photos, framed for my wife for christmas around three weeks ago. i bought one large photo and four smaller ones. as our house interior is mostly black (chairs etc) we decided we were going to mount the large one on the wall and the other four around it. i paid up front on a mastercard and collected last week. getting the product home, the large frame was gold and the cardboard mounting inside the frame was damaged. i phoned immediately (around 12 hours after collection) and talked to the person who had sold me the items, who became very agitated and explained all the money i was saving. i said it was irrelevant, and it was damaged. so i said i wanted it sorting for christmas as it was a gift. she got more agitated and told me i had to speak to the shop manager. he phoned me yesterday and said a refund was impossible as it was 'customised goods', even when i then explained i now have no gift for my wife for christmas and she will be gutted, as am i. he is to phone me again tomorrow but he basically said i cannot get a refund, and if i were to 'take it down that route' as he put it (i told him i would be going to citizens advice) i would have to speak to head office and they would tell me the same thing. i was also just considering doing a chargeback on the mastercard for damaged goods not fit for purpose.. is this possible or am i the one in the wrong? thanks in advance, im at a bit of a loss with it.