Update: Issue resolved! We finally found some time both of us to sit down, prepare recording equipment, all the info they might ask and a copy of OFCOM's "General Conditions of Entitlement" at hand... We were prepared for a passive-aggressive exchange but perhaps we landed on a rep that just didn't give a fork. While their SMS and Web service blocked our PAC request, the rep on the phone didn't refer to any of our disputes in the past and just manually sent me the PAC over SMS. I stayed on the line a minute until it was indeed received. I will say he started with "in order to send a PAC request, you will need to send an SMS to 65... and, for that, you will need to top up" - at which point I quoted C7.26 from GCoE "will provide the PAC number free of charge" and then suddenly it had occurred to him that he can just ask us the date of birth of the account holder to satisfy that it is indeed us... Called Vodafone, provided the PAC and the switch has come through A day will be required for all the technical stuff to fall in place but I feel like we are out of the woods... Still, a negative score for Lycamobile for making this so dramatic... They do have some attractive packages and I would have been happy to come back and use when needed, if it wasn't for their terrible treatment of customers until now. Thanks to all who have contributed, of course!

They say to send an SMS with PAC to 65075 - we already know this. We can't do it, because the number is absolutely blocked for in/out (text, voice and data). They also say, like all the other sites: "LycaMobile, your provider, must give you your PAC" - It's nice to know that they "must" but what to do when they refuse anyway?...

I thought voice recording is not admissible in court? I don't think they actually use the word punish. It's through my partner, who barely speaks English. Problem is by the time I am back home, their CS will be closed. She can't handle it herself. If that's the only way you can help, I will work from home tomorrow

Update: we cannot ditch Lyca. We need a PAC code for this and they do not provide it because the number is blocked by their punishment measures. In our second call to customer service, they said it's actually £70 to pay first and then they decide whether to unblock or not. - Which only sounds more like they have all the power and no accountability or regulation!

My partner has a number with Lycamobile. She has had it for +10 years as a Pay-As-You-Go deal. The duration of tenancy in this number is why she needs to keep this number (although we are obviously considering to switch out of Lyca in light of the current problem). The first issue was a couple of months ago, when she had topped up with £20 and, within a few days, her balance was about £5 but the number was absolutely blocked (no in/out). She raised the issue with them and got no response. She created an account in their online system and was able to see "Other charges, £15". No explanation (data, calls and text are shown with detail but this charge - not). She then proceeded to raise this with PayPal, through which she topped up. Meanwhile, she needed to unblock the phone (expecting job offer), so topped up with another £20. A few days ago, while still having a lot of this balance left, the number was totally blocked again. Even the online account was disabled. She could not call Citizen's Advice because they require her to validate her citizen status via the phone number they have for her (which happens to be the number that's currently blocked). She called Lycamobile from a different number, where they told her that her account is blocked because they are punishing her for raising a PayPal dispute and she needs to pay £40 just to unblock that number! All of this sounds like Lyca are doing what they want with her money and we don't know who can hold them to account and resolve this in a fair way to both sides. Who can we complain to? Someone who can actually chase them on this?

yes, the insurer admitted liability. I will re-check with the solicitors about their costs. I am pretty sure we agreed on a fixed percentage (25%) of the total settlement.

Hi again, there's some progress: The other doctor that the lawyers told her to visit actually agrees that the injury is significant for a claim. The lawyers still said it's still not favourable, if we have a 50/50 distribution about this. The lawyers have given us some advice that I find weird and I think only you could help me understand (lawyers did not elaborate for us). Basically, they said that we should now make a "interim claim" of 1000 pounds from the insurer. This means we claim 1000 pounds now but reserve the right to claim more once we get more evidence. My question is (I am trying to understand the motives of each party): why would an insurer agree to an interim claim? If the the insured party is in the right, then the insurer is not motivated to accept any claim. If the insurer feels the claim has a chance, they would look to settle. But why would anyone agree to pay some money now, without settling the claim finally? Perhaps paying an interim claim makes the insured party appear more favourably at the court?

ok maybe they didn't say "we promise" but, while my partner isn't seasoned in legal practice, I believe that she understood correctly some form of explicit verbal assurance that the "4000" offer is live, not off the table. We got a lot in writing but not that.

Nope.

I see your point. I hope our legal help can get this covered somehow. Speaking of that legal help, any way to get some traction regarding their earlier verbal promise that we can get those 4000 guaranteed, or more?

1. She's a senior carer with all the qualifications and certificates. She is trained to operate all moving and handling equipment 2. She has actually proactively assessed the risk and informed: the care company, occupation therapist, the head nurse and the family - in writing, that the woman is not equipped to walk on her own in the current setting. She has a written statement from other carers who said they will not work for that lady because she's at risk of collapsing any moment. I believe there may be some form of agreement from the official people (OT, care company...) that the equipment is not suitable but I am not sure of this documentation. 3. She did not receive statutory sick pay. As a matter of fact, the care company were very quick to deduct 200 pounds for uniform, which we got back by threatening with ACAS 4. She is only able to do light work such as baby-sitting. And she does that 2 days per week.

We can withdraw from the case at any time without fees.

Sorry, I was actually encouraged, on a different issue, to actually name the companies I am dealing with. I will make sure to avoid name dropping unless instructed so.

My partner is a carer. She has been sent to work for a lady who wasn't equipped with the correct device to keep her upright. She fell on my partner and my partner suffered a back injury leading to incontinence, pain and time off work. We took the case with xxx LLP, who wrote a letter to the employer and got a response, offering 4000 pounds as final settlement. xxx advised us to reject that offer, saying, over the phone, that we can always fall back on the 4000, but they believe we can get much more. Since then, my partner has been to Royal Berkshire Hospital, where the doctor said he doesn't see any injury and any pain she might have is a result of earlier injury. Her incontinence might be an infection (totally rubbish). Now it feels like the case might fall through, as the doctors do not want to confirm her injury and we see the 4000 pounds as a better-than-nothing solution. However, when we WROTE to xxx, they said the offer is off the table and we can't fall back to those 4000 pounds. 1. She will be seeing a doctor from xxx privately to assess her but I reckon a judge might be more interested in an NHS doctor rather than a doctor from an interested party? 2. What can we do in regards to xxx making us think we could get at least 4000 pounds and now they are implying we can come out empty handed? 3. Any other advice regarding the situation in general will be appreciated I will just add that the reason my partner was injured is that she grabbed the falling lady and saved her from rolling down the stairs. And that my partner is truly injured. It took her 2 weeks to admit that she's incontinent because of the shame.

yes

The units were manufactured incorrectly. My guess is they work with a very cheap producer.

Yep, same day they got the mail: UPS guy rushed to us to pick up their rubbish and partial refund suggested by us sent via PayPal. Funny that they remained utterly incompetent till the bitter end because they didn't warn us about the UPS guy - lucky my partner was there. Also didn't inform us about the PayPal, so I was revving up to write them another bombshell - lucky I checked PayPal before that. Amazing how stupid their customer care people are. Must have cost the company a 200-300 pounds in transport, damaged goods, man-hours... Had they shown any sign of benevolence at the start, we both would have ended more or less in the green and happy. Thanks for supporting us again. Happy to donate.

Mentally: fully willing and not anxious at all (as I know I am in the right and I've already met a judge before about my defective laptop) Skill-wise: I am happy to have learned from your advice on previous cases and I can sail through this solo. Very shameful it had to resort to this, if they were a little more interested in my problem, they would have saved me AND them a lot of unnecessary nerves. I will send the letter and let you know if any bumps arise.

So, just in: for the fourth time that I've told them I am not going to repackage this, they say that if I don't repackage, their driver won't pick it up. I really don't feel I should be repackaging this. Especially since they have done absolutely nothing to come our way, why should I spend 2 hours breaking my back with a 40kg cabinet and who knows how much packaging material?

No, it covers some bad tiling, which was done before we even moved in My idea is more like threaten them with what I hope is a very real possibility of: me hiring a garbage contractor and charging them for this cost I paid (likely suing them if they don't reimburse). And then they might come to their senses and actually own up to some of the problems they've caused us

Well, there aren't other vendors for what we need. It needs to cover a bad tiling work so it has to be this exact size. Also, because we've wasted so much time dealing with them, we just couldn't wait more living in a shambles and decorators leaning on us, wanting to finish the project and get paid... So what we are really looking for right now: 1. They will deliver a 3'rd unit (which I bet my life will be defective as well). We will choose the least bad one of all and touch it up. 2. We want them to pick up all the wrong and defective units 3. Without us wasting hours repackaging them I reckon this might be a pretty humble expectation. I am not trying to get rich from this. How can I be realistic about being without a bathroom? Sure, we had to play hopscotch around exposed floors, sit carefully on the detached toilet bowl... Nothing with an invoice...

We paid with PayPal

I agree, they got the best of me. Apologies for any excessive bad vibes sent down here. I hope my loving appreciation of your work has not been made unclear! We are in a bit of a pickle, because of now, having wasted all our contingency time provision, we had to install the unit. Therefore, the discussion is now about replacing the defective unit and them taking back the 3 (2 defective, 1 wrong) units. They have recently sent us something like this: "we will send you a replacement and the guy will pick up the wrong unit. You must re-package the wrong unit or he will not pick it up. About the defective units, we will not pick them up, you need to deal with it" At this point, I'd like to mention that I have a written request from them to take out the wrong unit out of packaging in order to send them a picture. I also have a written request, which they acknowledged, that I implore them to inspect the package before sending to me. If it was just repackaging the wrong unit, I'd do that. But take their rubbish out for them? Have they no dignity? I mean, what if I don't have a car to transport the units and boxes to the kip? What if I am elderly and I can't literally lug them around? I've replied that I will NOT repackage their mistake for them (again, if it was just one thing and they were being reasonable about it, I would definitely help out). And if they don't collect their stuff, I will pay a professional to discard of it and charge them. Your thoughts?

It's just that everything we (our household) bought last two years was either defective or misrepresented in the advertisement. We have been very vigilant via PayPal and CC protection, where possible, and ALWAYS got our way with the vendors. In cases where we have been cornered, CAG has helped (once with a broken down car and once with a laptop - thank you!) and I've made a humble contribution to support your good work! But if I were a seller these days in the UK, I wouldn't mind selling any piece of rubbish. 10% of the consumers wouldn't even notice, 50% would notice but (justifiably) choose to live a quiet life, 20% don't know how to press me and the 20% that do know about the CRA: OK, they will send me letters, this will drag on for a few months, I will send an apprentice to push some papers to the judge and if the consumer hasn't agreed to a partial refund (which already leaves me at a profit), I will give them their money back, I'm not a penny poorer. A slap? I wouldn't care, I make money from the above % distribution anyway and since we've settled before the hammer dropped, my abuse isn't even registered anywhere. Citizens Advice / Trading Standards? They are normally giving the consumer even more trouble than I do. If we settled, they don't care about the case, if we didn't, they explicitly state that they can't claim anything on behalf of the customer and they won't do anything to shut my business down. I am just ranting right now, feel free to ignore if you like to stick to constructive discussion I will just finish with saying I've lived in many countries. Some of them "2'nd" or "3'rd world" and I've seen systems where the local equivalent of Trading Standards aggressively pursue bad vendors, issuing fines and shutting businesses down, putting a personal mark on the CEO against simply opening another cowboy shop under a different brand... And legal expenses are claimable there. I mean, what you are doing is great but you aren't a government-funded institute. There is no guarantee that you will exist and be able to help to everyone. Your existence is a miracle that makes shopping in the UK bearable. But the official system is such that a consumer can easily get lost in. I will update here to remove this thread once we settle, which now seems far more likely than suing them. If we could put dent on their financials so we don't feel our modest resistance is not for nothing, cool. If it all boils down to months of arguing to get to the starting point, it's not worth it and it's not our fault but it's the system that doesn't care about vendors who like to "have a go" at the consumers.

Ah, I didn't know I can't claim for legal costs, thanks! It's a bit rubbish really. Right now, the system is tuned to make life easy for the vendors. They can mess up, put the consumer on stress for a few months and, just before the judge drops the hammer, turn all good, give the money back and walk out not a penny poorer. While the consumer will have spent a lot of his (and YOURS!) time and probably all sorts of costs (tracked mail, driving to preliminary hearing, etc..) he won't be able to get back (or at least will probably not worth his time to get back). Anyway, I will change my approach here according to your advise, thanks again!