Hi All, I am new here and looking to draw on your wealth of knowledge. I bought a shower from Victorian Plumbing around 6 months ago that was not fitted until around 8 weeks ago, on having the shower fitted my plumber informed me that although following the instructions to the letter the shower pressure was rubbish despite it being great without the shower attached and the water was not heating up. I complained to VP and they eventually replaced the unit but only after around 6 weeks of too and fro'ing with the manufacturer and not getting anywhere. The problem I have now is that the replacement is displaying the exact same issues. Wondering whether the installation was the issue I had an electrician check it over and he told me to get an engineer out as the power was getting to the unit but the heater element was not warming up at all. Now I have decided to go direct to the manufacturers website and email them asking for an engineer visit, they responded asking for a number of pictures but have not since replied other than to tell me they are chasing the manufacturer. This has been ongoing for around 9/10 weeks now and I'm at the end of my tether. What would you recommend I do from here?

It's me again! Two months ago, we ordered a bath unit (the sink, cabinets and marble top) from Victorian Plumbing. They delivered on time but one of the units was defective. After the silly song and dance with a customer service clown, they sent a replacement unit, at a great delay. We had to send our plumber home after paying him. The replacement unit was also defective... At this point, we are about a month without a bathroom. Lucky the old toilet dish is giving us some graceful end-of-life... They now delivered another unit, which wasn't defective - but it's the wrong one! All this time, we are wasting days with unnecessary CS emails... They have finally pushed me over the edge. I've really tried to make amends with them. Even offered to receive a partial refund, which we even cut in half because we wanted to get it over with... However, they very strongly insist on spinning us through CS and aggravating us with "we do apologise but you can go away Sorry for any inconvenience" Everything via email and I keep those. I have finally decided to lean on on them and told them they must do right by us or we will sue them and claim for legal expenses, court fees, statutory interest, etc... Question: regarding legal expenses, can I hire my friend, who is NOT a solicitor (he is an employee for a bank) to help me with that and then claim for the money I paid to him? I could really use his help with handling this matter as I suffer from Autism and I sometimes go totally catatonic A solicitor in my town is 250+VAT p/h and my friend would charge 200 net p/h Also, as a bonus, we'll take comfort in knowing that the offending party didn't just spin us up for the whole process of suing them only to eventually pay us exactly what they owe us. Effectively meaning we are at a net loss because we got what we paid for, but after a significant delay and stress on us.

Hi, Life is full of issues and only this forum eases the pain:) Here's my problem: Back at the end of December 2012, i had a pipe burst in the bathroom, at which i called the Able Group emergency number and booked a plumber to come and fix the burst pipe. The plumber arrived within 2 hrs, saw to the problem, replaced a plastic fitting, paid him £150 through credit card. Everything was fine up to today when the same problem happened again. Switched off the mains water supply and on closer look the same fitting as per plumber failed. So rang Able Group, spoke to a customer services advisor confirming my case and what had happened. The response i got was to wait in all day, and that i would receive i phonecall confirming the attendance of the plumber to assess the situation and if at fault will be fixed free. Now that conversation took place at 9am and its now 8pm and no further calls or communication took place. Naturally i am fuming as i have been home almost all day with no water and had to resort to friends and water bottles.I do not know what my legal options are: So what is/are your advice? a) Request chargeback and re-book a plumber from somewhere else b) Ring Able Group and complain + complain to the Trading Standards Any help ideas are welcome (and sorry if the above is long winded) Thanks

The Able Group - Unable to fix anything & unable to refund... I need to vent a bit about this emergency call out plumbing service. I booked them to investigate hot water flushing back into a cold water storage tank. They sent an obviously unexperienced plumber, who ignored the requested job, & fitted a ball cock instead. The tank flooded again. They sent another plumber who turned down a thermostat, & ignored the original job. The tank flooded again. They billed more than was agreed to my credit card. They refused to refund & I'm having to request money back via chargeback & go through small claims / trading standards. Terrible customer service, terrible quality tradesmen, terrible experience.

I had a problem with my water cylinder. A friendly plumber said that the water cylinder was faulty which is under 25 years warranty. Manufacturer said that it can't be the cylinder and suggested I call professional or pay them £99.99 call out charge. At the same time I had my boiler serviced so I asked the guy that came, to take a look at the cylinder. His diagnose was that it is the expansion vessel. £112 to replace. Well... tough luck I thought and asked him to do the job. They turn up this morning with the new vessel and replaced it. I though all should be OK now, but NO DIFFERENCE!!! Still no hot water! Now, the big question is: Should I pay them for replacing the vessel or not? It appears that the fault was incorrectly diagnosed and the £112 replacement was not necessary. I am not sure what to do about this cost now. I will ring them on Monday, but I can probably expect that they will request £112 payment anyway. Please advise any one what are my rights and what should I do. Thanks

Hi Everyone, This is my first post, so i hope i have put this in the right place. I am hoping for some information on claiming costs and compensation back from Barclays / insurance Just to summerize.... I have boiler insurance through an additions active account. my boiler started leaking on the 16th of December while i was in hospital for a bad back, i phoned the home SOS number and they sent someone the next day. He arrived and said he would have to order parts but we could still use the boiler if we kept re-pressurizing it when it cut out which is what we had being doing. I rang a couple of times on the lead up to Christmas and was told the parts are on order and an engineer would ring, they never did. Then i rang the day after boxing day as we had also been flooded by a neighbors property on this day and was told the parts had not been ordered and that they would be on the 4th of January as the engineers report had not been handed in. The boiler packed in completley on the 3rd of January which we told them about. After my partner waiting in every day since and ringing everyday and the company promising call backs and visits almost everyday an engineer finally arrived on saturday the 15th but had ordered the wrong size seals. The engineer promised he would get the parts on monday and fit them monday afternoon. for which i had to bring my mother over to wait in the house for them. Again i rang around dinner to get an update and they said they would get engineer to ring, again they didn't. i rang again at 4.00 and was told that the engineer wouldn't get the parts till Thursday now. so i am still waiting. Apart from all the messing about i have an 8 month old son in the house and am having to us 2 x 2kw heaters almost constantly, which is going to cost a fortune to run plus my partner has had to miss a couple of important meetings. I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction as to what i can claim back from the home SOS when they have finally fixed it. Thanks for any advice you could give.