on August bank holiday Monday my shower screen exploded. Whilst having a shower it genuinely spontaneously combusted. At no point during the shower had I touched it. I'm covered in little cuts and my bathroom literally looks like a bomb site (literally not just literally) We spent most of bank holiday clearing it up and I called both the manufacturer and the retailer when they opened on the Tuesday. Manufacturer tells me to call the retailer (fair enough Sale of Goods Act etc) but I wanted to know if it had happened before. Receptionist when I mentioned what I was calling about said "oh yeah that's happened a few times. I think it's the weather". Speaking to the customer services bloke he insists it's never happened on my model apparently, although very rarely (but not never) on other models. Retailer asks me to send photos which I do. No acknowledgement by email of having received them or what kind of refund/compensation they will offer I bought a new screen and had it fitted (paid the plumber £45). Since then I've cleaned the bath several times and it has lots of little rough jagged bits where the glass has scratched it. Plumber has quoted £550 to refit the bath as it has boxing at the end. That's before we buy a new bath. He has tried to 'wet and dry' it to smooth it out but it's still rough. Retailer called to me to say the manufacturer says it's out of its 12 month warranty so no refund although they'll sell me a new screen at trade price. I think that shower screens should never explode whether within 12 months or 12 years! I decided to call my home insurance legal advice line who advise I have a claim under Sale of Goods and negligence. I write a letter before action to the manufacturer and retailer and get a letter from the manufacturer today saying without prejudice they'll offer me a new screen replacement. Now the way I see it they've kind of shot themselves in the foot because I would have settled for that before getting legal advice. The advice says the manufacturer has been negligent and is therefore responsible for the damage to property (screen and bath) and personal injury (my cuts). My letter before action set out the costs for the new screen, fitting it, new bath, fitting it and personal injury compensation. They've obviously been frightened that I've got legal backing and are offering the minimum to shut me up. Their letter says "In very rare circumstances we do occasionally get defective pieces of glass. However these, as well as being rare, are very fragile; most of them have already broken by the time we unload the goods in our warehouse. I would consider it beyond the bounds of possibility for a screen with an intrinsic defect to survive being shipped to our warehouse, being picked and loaded in our warehouse, being transported to the retailer, unloaded and handled at the retailer, transported on to site, installed and then used for four years. For a screen to shatter the way yours has would need some agent acting on it after it was installed. In view of all of the above I would say the screen has shattered for some other reason than an intrinsic defect" Some clear facts only I can verify. It was fitted by an experienced plumber. No one was touching it at the time of the explosion. The conditions in the bathroom at the time were no different from any other day. What reason other than a defect is there? It's never been knocked or hit hard and certainly not at the time of explosion. My concern is twofold. Firstly I want to know why it happened so it doesn't happen to me again and secondly if there is a hidden problem it should be found so other people are safe. By fobbing me off in the manner above it suggests the case is closed as far as they are concerned. There's no defect therefore no problem. But I know I didn't touch it! So I know it could happen to someone else! I've posted to ask for advice about pursuing it further. Obviously I can call my legal advice line but I wanted other consumers' experiences of chasing companies based on defective goods issues so I know what lies ahead in reality rather than the clinical version I will get from the legal line. Thank you in advance.

My son bought the e-cig with usb charger ect on Fiday 19th July. Around 6.30pm my son started to charge the device then nipped out to the shops while his girlfriend got in the bath. A few minutes later there was a loud bang then the upstairs smoke alarm started to go off. The exploding device had set two bags on fire in the bedroom, my sons partner tried to throw the burning bags into the bath water but couldnt as they were too hot however, she managed to drop them near the bathroom and doused them with bath water. The bedroom carpet is burnt as well as the stairs. I have contacted the trader advising of potential faulty devices and this morning was on the phone to consumer direct who are treating it seriously. Keep you updated. PW

after uni I was hard up and I ended up with two HSBC debts, one was a bank account with an overdraft limit of £1750 and the other was a credit card with a limit of £1500 (I think). I was careless and miserable at the time so I just stopped paying attention as I couldn't pay anything back and had £0 coming in each month (couldn't even sign on). Last time I checked before I stopped paying attention the bank account was at around £2000 and the credit card was at about £500, £700-800 max (I knew I couldn't afford to pay anything back so I didn't use it). Over this time I was getting debt letters and two numbers I noticed in particular were £2100 and £2900, these I presumed being the bank account on it's own, and the bank + credit card combined. This is when HSBC were having companies try to reclaim the debt on their behalf. A couple of years ago when I was working I bit the bullet and spoke to them (DLC) and I've been paying them off ever since. I haven't spoken to them I've just being paying them. All this time I thought the debt was the the whole thing at £2900. I recently started getting phone calls from another debt collection agency called Lowell who told me I owe £2900 (this is after not hearing anything for years) i told them I was already paying it off with another compnay but they told me that they own the debt. I assumed some admin error I spoke to DLC who told me that I'm only paying them up to £1900 (must have misheard or something, it was a long time ago) and that I've only got one more payment to make. Whereas the debt had been described before simply as "HSBC" the girl on the phone this time called it "HSBC Credit". I confirmed that they are collecting the debt on behalf of HSBC rather than owning it. What should be my next move? I'm assuming now that the £1900 I've nearly paid off is my credit card and the £2900 is my bank account. It sounds like they've applied some really big charges to get each account to expand by about £1000. There was about a year between me stopping making the payments and first speaking to the debt collectors I don't see how it could have gone up so much and where have they been? They've always had my number. If I'm going to make some kind of hardship claim I'd like to do it soon as I'm expecting a pay rise soon (fingers crossed) and this other debt will be paid in full shortly. Really appreciate any help, I don't mind paying what I owe but I don't want to spend another two years in debt to pay for some bankers weekly cocaine habit.