Thank you for your reply. Needless to say I have not heard anything from SP. Here's my first draft of my letter to the CEO. Please feel free to suggest corrections. Once sent, how long do I give them and what would be the next step if I don't get satisfaction. Cheers! Escalation of Formal Complaint Please treat this as an escalation of a formal complaint that I first raised with your Customer Service Team on 29th October this year and attempted to escalate on the 5th November. I entered into a Boiler Care agreement with your company in April 2013 and renewed it in April 2014. Part of that agreement was that I would receive a service visit from you once a year. This has not happened. I first telephoned your call centre last August to ask for a service visit and I received an apology and a promise that a service would be arranged, but nothing happened. Therefore I telephoned again in September and received the same treatment, but again nothing happened. I telephoned for a third time on 29th October only to be told by a somewhat aggressive gentleman that service calls were a “low priority” and he was so obstructive that I felt there was little point in continuing the call. On the 29th October I e-mailed your customer service team describing my treatment thus far and stressing that I was making a formal complaint. A couple of days later my wife received an apologetic telephone call and a promise of redress. Again nothing happened, so I e-mailed a further complaint on 5th November, but nobody has responded. According to your web site, because my complaint has not been resolved, by now I should have a unique complaint reference number and the services of a dedicated complaint handler who should be keeping me fully informed while they attempt to resolve the matter within ten days. I have neither. I would like you to use your influence to obtain for me: 1. A service visit without delay. Not only have you failed to honour your side of our contract but also my boiler is becoming unreliable (and this is causing my wife great distress). 2. Some compensation for both not making a service visit (that has been paid for) in the first year of the contract and the inconvenience that the matter has caused me. Your representative may telephone me on xxxxx to discuss things but be aware that I do not expect to hear anything less than the (timely) proposed date of your service visit and how you intend to compensate me.

Thank you for your responses. I think the best first step will be to contact the CEO and explain firmly but politely the problem, how I expect it to be resolved and what action I’m going to take if the matter is not resolved to my satisfaction. Would you guys please help me with the form of words to use and the sorts of sanctions with which I can threaten him? The situation is that I signed up as a Boiler Care customer in April 2013. The agreement includes the servicing the boiler once a year, but I didn’t one in the first year. I rang them last August enquiring about my lack of service visit and received profuse apologies and a promise that a visit would be arranged. That didn’t happen. I rang again a few weeks later and received the same promises which were again not carried out. I rang yet again last Thursday and was told that service visits “were not a priority”. Given that my boiler is playing up (going out and needing manual reset several times a day), I decided to invoke the complaints procedure. Here it is: Stage 1: Contact us with your complaint They say that “Most issues are resolved after investigation by us at this initial stage”. Stage 2: Customer Care Team They say that “If we can't resolve your complaint immediately, we'll give you a unique complaint reference number and pass your complaint to a member of our Customer Care Team. This person will be your dedicated complaint handler. They'll try to resolve your complaint within 10 working days, keeping you fully informed throughout”. Stage 3: Customer Service Director’s Support Team They say that “To access this stage you must have completed stage 1 and 2 and have a complaint reference number”. I contacted them by e-mail explaining the situation, asking for a speedy service visit and for some compensation for not receiving a visit in the first year of my contract. Somebody rang my wife to apologise and say that something would be done. A week elapsed and nothing happened. I e-mailed them again saying that my boiler had still not been serviced, I had contacted them with my complaint but the latter had not been resolved and I had received neither a complaint reference number nor the services of a dedicated complaint handler. As yet no reply! That’s the situation. It’s very difficult to follow a complaints procedure if the other side are not being cooperative….. With what sanctions can I reasonably threaten Mr. CEO? I note that Scottish Power have been given three months to get their customer service act together!

I have been a Scottish Power Boiler Care customer since April 2013 but they have yet to organise a service visit which is part of the contract. I have rung the company three times asking for a visit. Twice I received an apology and a promise that a visit would be arranged. On the third occasion I was told that service visits "weren't a priority" and left me with the presumption that I would have to wait for my bolier to actually break down before they would get off their back sides. I e-mailed a formal complaint to their customer service address. Somebody rang my wife to apologise and say the matter would be seen to. Nothing happened, they didn't seem to want to answer their phones, I e-mailed another complaint pointed that by now I should (according to their web site) have a complaint number and services of a dedicated complaint handler. I still have neither. What do you folks think I should do? There's little point in following the SP complaints procedure if they won't adhere to it?

Thank you for your replies so far. It would appear then that DM have breached OFT guide lines. What redress is there, if any. Would threatening to report them to the OFT be worth while? Indeed would reporting them to the OFT do any good? edited: spelling

My daughter received a letter from Debt Managers Ltd. pursuing an outstanding amount of £240 ish owed to Next. She telephoned DM yesterday and offered to pay by installments which they said they could not do because they were a debt collecting agency and not the client. She was able to settle in full with the help of a loan from the "Bank of Daddy". Today she received a letter (posted before yesterday) from these people offering her a settlement opportunity- a discount of up to 25%. Whomever she spoke to yesterday must have known this letter was in the post and certainly made no mention of it. She telephoned them today and was left on hold after being given a very patronising run down of how the British postal system worked. Would she still be able to get any money back of DM and how would anyone suggest we go about doing it?