Thanks for that John. I assume that thats the ruling now regarding advance payments. It certainly wasnt when I was trying to get a refund. Motability stated that the ruling that applied then was any advance payment was none rufundable and they would not and did not refund any part of it. In view of what you indicate it clearly isnt so much of a worry if you do decided to select a more suitable car that required an advance payment, thats usefull to know.

Dont get the wrong impression !. A motability car with Insurance, Vehicle Tax and Maintenance included is a cheaper option than you going out and buying the same car on HP or with a loan. That said, I wrote the warning of the loss of our advance payment in 2001 of £2350 because of an incorrect assessment which can and does happen. You should establish if the same rules apply today re none refundable advance payments and if you cant afford to lose the money then stay with a vehicle that doesnt require a deposit !. Also as has been pointed out be aware that the Government is intent on re-assessing people and if that could possibly happen to you then again dont have a vehicle requiring an advance payment if you cant get it back and consider that if you are re-assessed and you lose the motability car you will have a few short weeks to try and buy some other transport before the motability car is taken back. Its unfortunate that there's no Motability 'Official' willing to reply to some of the points raised here as it would certainly calm a few fears.

Well in our case it was a 'bog standard' Zantia saloon car. As with all the cars if your full monthly DSS payment doesnt cover the full cost of the car you have to make a none returnable 'advance payment'. For the vehicle mentioned we had to make an 'advance payment' of £2,350. The none refundable aspect was when we had our car, whether they have changed the rules since then and now make a refund I dont know. They didnt then and Motability wouldnt make a refund stating the rules were that any advance payment was none refundable. And I am sorry John I dont fully understand what you meant by 'always pro-rate the down payment and refund'. Have they changed the rules do you know, regarding refunds on advance payments ?.

My disabled wife would benefit enormously from a Motability car. Unfortunately because of a bad experience with Motability in 2001 we vowed never again to use the charity. Her circumstances were that she had a Motability car replacement after her previous 3 year lease had expired and she paid an advance payment of £2350 for the car. About 7 or so months after making this payment and taking delivery of the vehicle the DSS notified her that due to a doctors medical report ( which turned out to be an error on the doctors part ) her claim for the higher rate of mobility was to cease. As you must be in receipt of the higher rate of mobility benefit to qualify for a Motability vehicle she was advised by Motability that as she no longer qualified the vehicle must be returned forthwith. The collection of the vehicle was arranged for 4 weeks later. You may be able to imagine how distraught we were as we were not only going to lose the only means of transport but also our none returnable advance payment of £2350 for an obvious medical mistake. My wife was wheelchair bound and could not walk as she had suffered from MRSA that had ‘eaten’ her spine away and had to have major surgery to have 2 iron rods inserted into her back and she is in the same condition today in so far as being unable to walk. I wrote letters and telephoned Motability explaining the doctors error who had incorrectly stated my wife was able to walk unaided. They were sympathetic to the degree that they extended the return of the car by 2 weeks but on the due day they turned up and recovered the car. They ignored the facts we gave them and they indicated that ‘the rules said’ ……….and there was no flexibility shown on their part whatsoever. We lost our £2350 advance payment in so far as Motability would not accept any liability despite a hospital administrator contacting them to explain the situation. Four weeks later the DSS acknowledged there had been a medical error and the higher rate of mobility was re-instated and my wife still qualifies for it today. We never got any money back from Motability or a replacement car. The above details are true and I write it as a cautionary tale to those of you considering making an advance payment. I don’t know if Motability have changed the rules since then but I would certainly be making sure before I parted with any money.

Well the final outcome is an e-mail from Bob Darke ( copy below) and one from Samantha Grey from Bob Darkes office apologising for all the inconvenience and domestic upset caused. Whether Mr Darke has ACTUALLY been made aware of the failings in his organisation I dont know. I wrote him a letter marked personel as well as an e-mail. Only they know how often OnCall are letting custoners down. Despite the apologies its put me off buying from Comet and I definately wont use OnCall again via an extended warranty simply because of the personal aggravation I've had from my wife over this as though I was in 'cahouts' with Bob Darke to cause her as much upset as I could, as if !. Response (Cara Winstanley) 20/12/2011 Dear Mr B I have sent a copy of your email to my office for them to complete a full investigation into the matter, of which we will endeavour to respond no later than 3 working days. If we are unable to give a complete response within this time we will contact you direct with an update on the situation. In the meantime if you need to discuss anything urgently our contact number is 01482 xxxxxx. Thanks for taking the time to write Bob Darke

Having sent an e-mail of complaint to Bob Darke with a link to this thread, I have received a reply that the matter is being investigated. I suspect that we the customers are dealing with a large proportion of demoralised Comet staff who are sick and tired of what seems to them to be a hopeless situation that they have no influence over. An attitude change has got to come from the top. Ultimately of course the last word is in the customers hands and those same thoughtless Comet/OnCall Service Centre people who unprofessionally fail to understand why a customer is 'upset' are failing to realize who pays their wages and may well find that they are in a situation where they haven’t a job. Do they care ?. Well just look at the households on this site who are complaining about the lack of service and multiply that by the number of relatives , friends and work colleagues of us 'upset' people whom we will be strongly advising against purchasing repair warranties from Comet and you start to get a picture of people NOT buying either extended warranties from Comet or even a product in the first place. Bob Darke has only been in place since May this year having taken over from the previous CEO who left, no doubt, because the business is failing. This coming year Comet are going to struggle. Why is this fact not obvious to the short sighted people working for them who should be bending over backwards to keep their jobs ?. The first thing a sinking ship ( with £8.9m loss) does to stay afloat is to jettison items. As Gorgie Boy pointed out, Comet appear to have undertaken that exercise already. Who do the OnCall Service Centre staff think is going to be next for the ‘chop’ when the inevitable axe falls in the new year when this French owned companies Q3 and Q4 figures show no improvement and the Euro continues to struggle ?. Oh, and if you were a potential investor would you invest large sums of cash in Comet after being made aware of such customer dissatisfaction as outlined on some sites such as this ?.

As I have suggested previously Stuart, the unacceptable ‘service’ that Oncall is providing is a disgraceful shambles. I refuse to believe that Comet/Oncall management don’t know what an awful state of affairs their repair business is in. Further to my saga, the engineer arrived this time as arranged on the 15th Dec and visit number 4. He had with him the appropriate configured power control board and commenced to fit it. Having fitted the board the machine was turned on to test it, nothing!. None of the programmes worked and a new error (E40 instead of E36) was now being displayed. Clearly the so called ‘configured’ board wasn’t configured , it apparently has to be configured electronically before delivery to the repair technician for fitting. The technician was mystified as to why the machine wasn’t working and being aware of the previous 2 un-configured parts that had been delivered for fitting, promptly examined the sealed box that the new part had come in and pointed out that it stated clearly on the box that the item was configured. Now either someone somewhere in the parts stores is incompetent re configuration procedures, or a member of the same parts store deliberately put an un-configured part into a box labelled as ‘configured’ or the item is a faulty returns item. Whatever the explanation is it seems obvious that Comet/Oncall need to get an urgent grip on the competency of their staff, the failed management of their parts system and if they want to continue in ‘denial’ that there is a widespread problem with their ‘service’ system then they only have to look at sites like this one and others to find a lot of disgruntled customers making complaints and who wont use Oncall again nor probably purchase items from Comet. And my washing machine ?. Its working perfectly as I write. The technician was going to leave the machine as it was in its broken down state with a view to going away and seeking some advice. I asked him to refit the original Power board that he had just replaced and although reluctant, he did so. The machine was then turned on and it worked first time whereas previously I had to select a programme between 6 or 10 times to get it to work sometimes if I was lucky. The ‘fault’ appears to have been no more than a poor wiring connection somewhere which re-installation corrected !. The question is was it a loose wire connection or something more complicated that will fail again and cause a repeat of the last few months nightmare ?. I am sending an e-mail to Comet CEO, Mr Darke, with a link to this thread. I will follow that up with a letter to try and ensure he has sight of my complaint. I will add to this thread in due course with any response received.

Hi Kurvaface, The saga isnt finished yet so I will wait so that Mr Darke can have the benefit of seeing the whole sorry mess in its entirety. I was contacted to day by Customer Services to be advised that the spare part was now available and would be fitted this coming Thursday 15th Dec. Whilst the lady was on the phone I indicated that I had been telephoned the previous week advising me that a repair would be carried out on Mon 12th Dec but despite waiting in all day no one attended. She seemed a bit taken aback by that and indicated that she wasnt aware of the Monday the 12th arrangements. I thought that strange as I believe she was the same lady who contacted me last week because she had a distinctive accent. However that matters not, I await with bated breath to see if 1) they turn up, 2) they have the correct part and 3) it cures the washing machine problem.

The saga continues........ and its not good. On Tuesday the 6th I was again contacted by the area manager who apologised for the situation and indicated that unfortunately the spare part that was required was not available to carry out the hoped for repair on the following day, Wed 7th Dec. He went on to say that in view of all the inconvenience he offered me the option of either awaiting for a spare part to become available or replace the existing washer with the same machine or something similar. I decided to opt for a repair because my machine is no longer available via Comet and neither were they able to offer anything with the same spec. Also I would lose 20 months on my extended warranty ( the value of which is questionable ) which would be cancelled if I went for an exchange machine. So with all the apologies and senior management interest I thought things were now moving !. The following day Wed 7th I received a phone call from Oncall service centre and was advised that a repair had been arranged for the following Monday, 12th Dec. I made appropriate arrangements and waited for the repair technician....and waited and waited. No one turned up, no explanatory phone call and so I am back to square one again. What is it about customer relations that Comet/Oncall just don’t understand ?. They clearly couldn’t care less as you would think that some responsible person in their hierarchy would have kept on top of this unless it is so common a state of affairs that its impossible to manage!. I shall be voting with my feet in future as will as many people who I can persuade not to purchase their extended warranties or even shop there if it can be avoided.

Hi Rebell11 and GorgieBoy, thanks for your replies. Well visit number 4 occurred today- 4th Dec and the technician was dumbfounded ( as well as me). The part supplied was the wrong one again !. The technician telephoned his manager and discussed the matter after which I was advised that I would be contacted within 30 mins. I was contacted by the Manager within the time indicated and after apologising for the mistake went on to explain that he had discovered the correct part had been removed from the parts list allocated to my repair on the previous Saturday for some , to him, unknown reason. I dont know if that particular part he was referring to was the correct part or not. He has promised to urgently chase this up and come back to me and hopefully, IF the correct part is in stock, to arrange visit number 5 for this Wednesday 7th Dec 11. This 'Fred Karno's Circus' certainly supports what you are saying GorgieBoy, if my experience is typical of other customers trying to get repairs carried out then I suspect Oncall isnt going to survive much longer. I can understand the need to try and cut costs by closing down some regional parts centres but the savings are only going to made if the remaining parts centres are in tune with the correct part ordered by the technician. I still think some basic parts should be carried by all technicians anyway which is bound to reduce some double visits. Any repeat visit by a technician means additional costs in time and transport to both COMET and me the customer in higher insurance premiums. How can 5 visits be cost effective particularly if these 'mistakes' are common. Is it surprising that COMET are struggling financially if a simple matter of a washing machine repair is causing so much logistical hassle ?. And thats not to mention the damage done to customer confidence of shopping in future at COMET. This is my first experience of using COMET's repair 'service'. I think I shall have to give serious consideration as to where I spend my next £190 on an extended warranty.

Hi Katsayce, I have a similar problem to you and I also am annoyed that I paid for an extended warranty from Comet to, I thought, ensure that in the event of a breakdown to my AEG washing machine it would be quickly repaired. I was sadly disappointed and will never use Oncall again by the purchase of Comets breakdown insurance. Additionally, as you discovered, they have changed their telephone number to the revenue making (for them) telephone number commencing 0844 with all the usual delays of enter one for this and two for that and is your machine a Bosch, we are experiencing a large volume of enquiries and an agent will be with you as soon as possible etc etc just to produce revenue. They will never get my business again nor anyone elses that I can convince to do otherwise. On the 14th of November 2011 an Oncall repair technician attended at my home and established that a printed circuit board needed replacing in my AEG Washer-Dryer and it would require a further visit which was arranged for the following Thursday. I cant understand why these repair people cant anticipate from the questions a customer is asked when booking a repair about the fault together with the machines serial number, what the likely fault is going to be and carry an assortment of spares with them ?. I dont subscribe to the 'fob off' reply to that as being there is so many appliances on the market that we cannot carry all the parts or we would need a large HGV to carry the spares with us. Rubbish. They know what the common faults are and from the described symptoms when the initial call is booked could bring appropriate items with them from their own stores at the beginning of the day. I used to do that 40 years ago when I was a gas fitter on call. Granted the number of spare parts required nowadays are far more numerous than 40 years ago BUT it is still the same sort of anticipation. Unfortunately its not a repair technician taking the initial phone call. If it was they could ask the appropriate questions of the customer. Using that method they have got to get at least a certain percentage right which would increase their efficiency dramatically. However, on the next attendance of an Oncall repair man to my home on the Thursday 17 Nov, he discovered that the part ordered was incorrect. As a result he consulted his computer and offered another visit ( number 3) for a week later on the 24th Nov and was the best he could do. I accepted that ( because I had to ) and on the day in question waited for the repair technician...and waited...and waited. He never turned up!. No explanatory phone call anytime during the day in question and no subsequent letter to explain why I had waited at home needlessly all day. I waited a further 8 days for someone from Oncall to contact me with some explanation and a re-arranged repair date. During those 8 days I wrote 4 e-mails to their Customer Relations (enquiries@oncall.co.uk) explaining the situation and asking for someone to contact me. I received no e-mail replies from their Customer Relations, no phone contact and no letter. Today (Friday 2nd Dec) I telephoned the revenue making Oncall phone number and began booking a repair call as though it was the first call out. Eventually the call centre girl indicated that the repair was an ongoing repair and the repair technician would be contacting me on the 4th Dec to arrange repair on that day !. That will be ( if it happens) the 4th visit to simply fit a printed circuit board to overcome the problem, if it does. You may detect a certain amount of cynicism but with the so far display of ineptness and unprofessionalism I am beginning to wonder if my washing machine will ever work. Four visits to repair a simple fault is not what I would call competent nor quick and the contemptuous way they couldn’t be bothered to inform me the customer either on the day or afterwards that they would NOT be attending my home as arranged is disgraceful. Someone somewhere in the Oncall organisation is obtaining a salary on false pretences by pretending they are competent to manage a repair department. When this repair is finally concluded I shall be making a complaint to Comet and asking them do they think that 22 days is an acceptable time to have to wait for repairs and that’s not to mention the cost to me of the 4 occasions that I have had to be at home awaiting the attendance of their repair man.