Update: Letter before action sent 26/02/2014 giving 14 days to respond, by email to complaints department and Sebastian James and hard copy to Hemel Address. Hoping this might kick them into action! The clock is ticking PC World, would love to take you to court over this one ;-)

Thanks dx100uk, I'll get that sorted now. Much appreciated Hazel

Hi, This one is a little different. In a nut shell. I bought a knowhow service 'Fix and Fault' for my desktop. Whilst in store employee stole items from the desktop and gave back to me saying 'irreparable' Sold me a memory stick and downloaded items from hard drive. I then put my desktop through to my insurance company to make a claim. Insurance company contests my claim as internal damage was 'malicious' and have verified missing items from desktop and damage with an engineers report. I've complained to PC world (this was difficult to say the least!) and supplied with evidence etc. PC have offered an amount compensation due to the theft and no provision of service bought (desktop was not sent externally for repair by employee). I believe the amount offered does not cover my outlay sufficiently (I have evidence this with PC World and actual financial cost to me is lower than what has been offered) nor my humiliation with my insurance company etc, so I have very politely requested a revision of their offer. I gave 14 days on 08/01/2014, received an automated response 09/01/2014 and a personally written response 20/01/201 acknowledging my email and forwarding onto the compliant handler. To date I've had no further response from PC world complaints department. This complaint dates back to Oct 2013. How do I progress from here? Should I send a deadlock letter or simply proceed to small claims, do I warn of my intention to go to small claims, or should I seek legal advice from a solicitor? Any help would be gratefully received , many thanks Hazel

Hi dx, surfer Update 3 After waiting 2 days he replied to my letter and accepted one of my first offers which was £750 inc VAT. I got the car Friday morning and test drove it, seemd ok and paid. Then on first drive on the motorway, smoke is pouring out of the bonnet. I could not/ would not take it back to him as I had no confidence in him at all and took it to a recommended independant garage to look at. Their findings are as follows: Head gasket seal split and blown (shoddy job by whomever touched it last but they can't belive that was Ford. Invoice 1 (cylinder head skim) is for an engine that is not in my vehicle Invoice 2 from Ford is repeat of works charged by Invoice 1 My original engine is still in my car and never been removed (no reconditioned engine fitted as agreed for originally and even though he stated that he had to get a special tool to remove it due to welded on screws because of age of the vehicle) Oil filter charged for and not done (unable to confirm if new oil in car or not due to driving the vehicle) Over all inspection, car is a lovely vehicle, they don't know what he did, because all works done are invoiced by Ford, so it appears that either Ford did all the work or have repaired work he failed to complete. This inspection completed by x2 mechanics at this garage and both agree with the above findings. I have informed trading standards of this. I have no fight in me to recover money, however I am happy to give TS any information they may need for an investigation and so is the independant garage, who are a fair bit disgusted at this man and quite shocked at what has gone on. All in all it's cost me £1000 hire car, £750 to not so good mechanic and £80 to reputable garage to get my car back and nearly three months of stress. So this thread can now be closed as it has served it's purpose and I greatly thank those who helped with advice. I have greatly learned my lesson and will never employ anyone again in this way. Now, as I had no choice but to buy another vehicle sooner than I expected to, I do have a lovely little car, been verifed by independant garage as a really nice motor, up for sale...any takers:-D

Thanks dx, most appreciated advice. I did that. He's responded with counter offers which I have declined so far. I'm awaiting a response from him regarding my rejection of his counter offers. He did offer to return the car to original state and deliver back to me though, which I would accept depending on what he would charge for it. But I think that was to scare me, as he has ignored my request for a breakdown of charges for this. At this point I would happily take the car in original state and avoid court, but not with any costs attached (excepting delivery if reasonable). Surfer, I'm going to talk to Trading Standards tommorrow if he doesn't accept any of the offers I have made. I held off as I didn't want to jump the gun, pending him receiving an offer letter. I really don't want to be nasty or hasty about anything.... Update: after a few emails, he offers to charge me £220 plus VAT to return the car to original condition. He also suggested RMIF to help with resolution, I accepted, (but after checking their site I don't see him as a member). He then says he will contact RMIF tomorrow and advise me what to do next! On the same email he also says that he has sent this now to his solicitor to recovers cost of repair of vehicle and storages charges @ 11pm at night.... As all offers have been declined by both parties, I am going to trading standards tomorrow and looks like a court visit in the near future. Do I need to wait the 7 days I've put on my offers in letter before employing the small claims court? Or has the fact that he has declined all offers now voided that time limit? Update Two: Spoke to trading standards advice line this morning and have sent letter stating breach of contract and requesting that he completes contract as per quote or returns vehicle back to pre contractual condition at no cost. I'll update further as and when it happens. But I really wanted to say thank you to dx and surfer. You really have helped. I hate doing things like this and do try to avoid all unpleasantries as much as possible but with your speedy responses I feel more able to do something. Thank you.

Anyone please I need more help. Where do I stand? I've attempted to send three recorded delivery letters to the garage, to the address on his invoice (confirmed as correct by him). Two have been returned undeliverable (adressee unknown) and the third has gone to a new address he provided on Thursday 20/06/2013 (sent Friday 21st). I have now recieved an email from him on Sunday (23/06/2013) saying as he's had 'no communication' from me and the car has been ready for nearly 4 weeks if I don't collect by 6pm on Thursday (27/06/2013) he's going to charge me storage fees @ £24.00 per 24 hours. I've written back disputing this as I have attempted to communicate with him and have emails, texts and returned letters (track and trace items) to prove it...I just wouldn't send the recorded letter to him by email. Should I send it by email anyway? Thanks in advance...from a stressed out car less driver

thanks dx, will do More info: I spoke to Ford this morning who said they received the car on the 9th and began work on the 10th finished job on the 15th, with his instruction to do whatever needed doing. I had no idea of this, he told me he put the car into Ford on the 14th and that they were investigating it. He assured me also on the 14th no work would be done without speaking to me first and when I called on the 16th to find out what Ford said -he said Ford were doing it 'gratis' under warranty.

Thanks dx, I was a bit shell shocked at the time, but I did say to him that I didn't ok this work and he said that was Fords mistake, they went ahead anyway, so now I have to pay. After a little bit of trying to educate myself on engines (don't laugh) I think I'm correct in saying (but correct me if I'm wrong please) that you need to check valve clearances on recondtioned cylinder. I don't think he did that, or did it poorly as Ford have replaced all tappets-valves and fitted a second timing belt. (He's already charged me for one with the cylinder replacement.) What should I do now? I don't have the money to pay and even if I did I don't think I should pay for works that are (possibly) caused by his poor workmanship, repaired by someone else and more importantly I didn't agree to. Is it right that a repair that was quoted at about £300-£400 (for a second hand engine) has taken 5 weeks and a Ford garage to fix? How can I go about resolving this? He wants payment asap. Extremely worried Hazel:-(

Hi new here and need some advice. My car broke and I was picked up by rescue bloke, who then took my car for repair, he said cam belt broke and new cylinder head required. I said I don't have much money, he said would fit a used part at around £300-400... and would start following week on it, I also asked him to Mot it at same time, so plus £35.00 for Mot. Thats the beginning! The long and short of it all is that I recieved an invoice for him today for £1315.00. (He has excluded labour costs to 'be fair') Not action for week 1 and 2 in week three he tells me he has part for £140.00 puts car back together and then go to MOT. It fails, he says supsension and Co2 emmssion wrong, but car is driving like a dream! Week 4, The bill is now £700 (think that included MOt and suspension work, but he was vague) and now he says EAC light won't go off and car won't idle after being driven and reverts to limp mode. Week 5, beggining of week says he has my car to Ford for investigation (without my permission) because he doesn't know what is wrong with it 'it's beyond him'. He says, don't worry I won't let them do any work on it until I speak to you. Middle of week 5 He says I spent just over 700.00 so far on repairs, all in, just still sorting out not idling problem. He says that they will fit under warranty 'gratis' (part replaced before with Ford). Today he says (end of week 5) sorry he made wrong calculations when he quoted just over 700 spent so far and Ford made a mistake and worked on it and completed not under warranty (this bill is for 688 ex vat). I said What! He then presents me with a bill which he has also (kindly!) has given me the invoices for works done by Ford (investigation, 22 valves, timing belt) and another garage (cylinder head, some valves and skimming) and says car is ready to go, when will I cllect and pay. This is the breakdown on his invoice: Workshop charges related to your order: Cambelt Repair Carry Out Class IV MoT Test: 1.00 hours @ 35.00 per hour £35.00 (0.00% VAT) 1 T/Belt Kit Ford Volvo Mazda £37.50 (20.00% VAT) 4 Bosch Super Plus HR8MCV+ £7.20 (20.00% VAT) 1 Oil Filter Ford/Mazda £1.60 (20.00% VAT) 1 Air Filter Ford / Mazda / Mini One £3.40 (20.00% VAT) 1 Valvoline Engine Oil (Durablend FE Semi-Synthetic 5W30 Engine Oil (5 Litre)) £9.95 (20.00% VAT) 1 TRIPLE QX Red Anti Freeze 5Ltr £16.98 (20.00% VAT) 1 Technical Motor Industries Cylinder Head Repair Invoice £301.40 (20.00% VAT) 1 Sky Ford Invoice Number 13547166 £688.68 (20.00% VAT) So firstly, where do I stand? I did not agree to works at Ford. He said sorry, but I'm being fair not charging you any labour. (Looks to me like everyone else did the work not him, so there isn't any labour, but not sure.) He told me works with Ford were free, but had I known it was going to £826 inc vat, just for that I would never have gone ahead. I would have said stop and I'll scrap the car. I have a sneaky feeling the works he did originally were not good and wrecked the car further (hence Ford having to fix all as he couldn't work out what was wrong with it) The cars is only worth £1500 running so a £400 bill I would've have paid to keep me on the road, till I sold and bought new car. However I said at the beginning if it was going to be higher I didn't want to do it. I said, 'I don't understand, you fitted a second hand part that should be fit for purpose? It shouldn't need repairing?' His response, 'It's a second hand part, thats what happens' Please can someone help me, I've been in a hire car for all this time at a cost of nearly £1000.00 and really don't have this kind of money....I broke down on the 27th April, the first invoice for the cylinder head repair is dated 8th May and the Ford invoice is dated today- 17th May....What should I do now? Do I have the right to dispute? He's saying he's being reasonable not charging for any of the labour he's done on the car, but I didn't agree to Ford work. Plus also I think his work broke my car more than it was. She didn't have any problems apart from the initial breakdown. Car ran beautifully prior to cam belt break. Also I do not see anywhere anything for fixing suspension problems that it apparently failed on the first MOT. Thanks in advance Hazel