Computers and communication

The papers say Tiscali is a company teetering on the edge, crippled with debt and fighting for its life. It's an Italian business with 3 million customers in the UK. It offers the full package; phone, broadband and digital TV, at some of the cheapest rates around. But these are tough times for Tiscali - they owe half a billion euros. So, while they try and sort themselves out, have they forgotten their biggest asset of all, their customers?

While news of Tiscali's troubles rocked the City, racehorse trainers David and Sandra Brown were feeling cut off because their Tiscali phone line had stopped working in their Yorkshire farmhouse. The phone is vital to their business, and also enables them to keep in touch with their disabled son who suffers from myotonic dystrophy - a form of muscle wastage. Their son likes his independence and has his own house, but if he falls down which can happen, he can't get up. Sandra told us: "It's crucial that he can ring us." But since their phone stopped working, he can't.

The Browns are now forced to rely on their mobiles, but the reception in their area is very poor and their phones only work outside. Meanwhile, Tiscali can't tell them what's going on with their landline.

They've been without their phone line for almost a month and have tried ringing Tiscali about it nearly every day. They're finding it so difficult that they've considered cancelling their contract entirely. Sandra says: "I think their customer service is terrible. If we ran our business like that we would be bankrupt."

Phone and broadband have been cut off
The Browns are not the only ones having problems with Tiscali. The Reverend Kevin Lewis from Crawley is at the heart of the community and needs to be contactable day and night. But he too has had his Tiscali phone and broadband cut off leaving his flock without a shepherd.

Kevin explains: "So much of what we do involves communicating with people whether, it's arranging meetings or getting together with people, whether it's arranging pastoral visits or arranging funerals."

It's been more than 40 days and 40 nights since he was cut off, and he's made more than 40 phone calls to try and get it sorted. It's not cheap calling its customer service department either as it uses higher rate numbers.

When he did get through to customer services, Tiscali claimed that he'd cancelled his account but Kevin says this isn't the case: "Every day I'd have to drive a mile up to church to make the phone call, be told the same thing, having explained the same situation, speak to somebody who didn't know how to solve the problem and it was literally like hitting my head against a brick wall."

But Tiscali wouldn't budge and maintained that he'd cancelled. The company said Kevin was no longer a customer. Kevin became so fed up that he signed up with someone else.

Hundreds of complaints
Every month we receive hundreds of complaints from Tiscali customers tearing their hair out over the way the company's treated them. Some of you are completely stumped about what to do next. Stick it out and trust Tiscali to put it right? Make an official complaint? Or should you just cut your losses and cancel your contract? We decided to set up a Tiscali trouble shooting clinic in the hope that we could answer some of these questions.

We invited along some unhappy customers at the end of their tether and three experts to offer advice on what they should do. We brought together a commercial and IT lawyer, a telecoms specialist and an expert in comparing broadband deals. Soon we began to get answers for everyone that attended.

The Browns were told that their problem should have been fixed within 48 hours. Mark Weston, our legal expert told us: "The general law says if you're deprived of the fundamental benefit of a contract you signed up to, you have a right to terminate that contract." Mark went on to advise: "When you complain, try and do it in writing and keep a copy of everything you send in."

Surprised and disappointed at poor customer service
By the end of the day our experts were surprised and disappointed by the tales they'd heard of Tiscali's poor service. Just as our Tiscali clinic closed, Vicar Kevin got an unexpected call from Tiscali. Kevin explained that Tiscali were now saying that he would be getting a cheque as soon as possible. Cheekily, Kevin even asked if it was a coincidence that Watchdog was involved. The man on the phone from Tiscali declined to say whether or not that was the specific reason why he'd got involved, but said that it had brought it to his attention.

Whatever the state of Tiscali's finances, if customers walk, there'll be no business at all and nobody wants that. The company has to remember that their customers are just as important as their creditors.

Tiscali's response
We're very concerned by the complaints raised to us and thank Watchdog for bringing these to our attention. Having reviewed the specific cases provided, it's clear that we've not provided the standard of care we'd expect for these customers and for this we sincerely apologise.

However, we're confident that the cases passed to us are now in hand and we're committed to working with Watchdog to ensure any other customer case is resolved promptly.

We've a large customer base in the UK and the vast majority of our customers receive a good quality of service, so we're certainly concerned when cases like these are brought to our attention.

Text-based question and answer services are the latest way to look clever. For about £1 you can text a question and a few minutes later receive an answer. But we've heard that some of the answers sent by some of the biggest question and answer services are wrong.

Watchdog looked at three big names in the market: 118 118, which is the market leader; Texperts, which is now owned by 118 118; and AQA 63336. The AQA stands for 'Any Question Answered'.

Ben Archer is a keen rugby fan, and relies on texting 118 118 to find out local rugby results because he doesn't have access to the internet over the weekend. But when he texts them asking about his team in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, they text him answers about a team in Bury, Lancashire.

He says he realises no one's perfect, but that if 118 118 is providing a service it should be accurate.

Watchdog experiment
To test the companies' accuracy, Watchdog conducted an experiment last week. We texted 20 general knowledge questions to 118 118, Texperts and AQA 63336. We sent the same questions twice in case the companies replied with an incorrect answer the first time. So 40 questions were asked in total.

The results showed that Texperts sent us the correct answer to the 40 questions only 65 per cent of the time. On some occasions it told us it didn't have enough information to answer our query. Once, the answer it gave seemed to be for a completely different question we hadn't asked.

118 118 correctly answered the 40 questions 72.5 per cent of the time. It sometimes answered one question with a wrong answer, but when we texted the company again it sent us the right answer. On one occasion it gave us an answer that we'd made clear in our question we didn't want.

AQA 63336 were the most accurate of the three companies, answering 92.5 per cent of the 40 questions correctly.

When 118 118 and Texperts can't give you an answer they won't charge you. AQA63336 will give you a refund. If you can prove the answer they've sent you is wrong, all three will give you your money back.

Celebrities versus the companies
We tested three clever celebrities against the answers we'd been sent by the companies. We assembled a crack team comprising quiz maestro Keith 'Cheggers' Chegwin, Cambridge graduate Konnie Huq and all-round know-it-all Iain Lee. We asked them the same questions, though we only asked them once rather than twice. They also had access to the internet, as the text companies do.

Our celebrities didn't beat AQA 63336, but they did answer 18 out of 20 questions correctly, giving them a score of 90 per cent. Better than both Texperts and 118 118.

AQA 63336's response
We've 1,000 mostly UK based-researchers who together answer an average of 15,000 questions a day, and have seen peaks of up to 25,000 questions a day. Since launching AQA 63336, the world's first text Q&A service on a premium text code, we've answered over 17 million questions from 2 million customers.

As a company we always try to provide great customer service, and as a company our top goal has always been to provide a high quality service. All questions texted to AQA 63336 are answered by human researchers, who strive to provide not only the right answers, but answers written in the Queen's English in a way that's warm, positive, and often witty. By being a human-based service we provide great value to our customers, but we've always recognised that because it's a human-based service, we'll make mistakes. There are, of course, some questions where there is no right answer, or answers are disputed. However, if we do get the answer wrong, we will always apologise, refund the customer, and importantly correct the information that's been given out. As a note, we currently only get one customer complaint per 10,000 answers sent out.

As we've said, all questions texted to AQA 63336 are answered by human researchers, who strive to provide brilliant answers - answers that are fast, pithy and accurate, but always fill up a text message, and often provide additional information that will wow our customers. There are occasions where it's possible to have more than one right answer to a question, so sometimes we do give different answers. As mentioned earlier we are a human service so also we can occasionally get it wrong.

Response from 118 118 and Texperts
Due to the recruitment of new staff, less experienced employees have made some mistakes. This is being addressed by further training and supervision.

Our own internal quality control shows that we're achieving more than 90 per cent accuracy. The vast majority of questions carry no ambiguity. The clever questions posed by the BBC simply do not represent the actual range of straightforward questions received by 118 118 from the public.

We acknowledge all questions but do not reply to certain questions that incite defamation, racism or other forms of discrimination, or for information that might constitute civil liberty issues, unwarranted invasion of privacy, or for information such as medical or financial advice that requires specialised, qualified advice.

In the event we're quite unable to answer a question, we do not charge for our response. Note that this is different to AQA, where the user is automatically charged for asking the question, regardless of response. We do not charge on the inbound question.

We're very careful to only advertise Ask US Anything, and not Any Question Answered, because we recognise not all questions can be answered. We believe we are being wholly honest in our claims and up front about what we can and cannot do. We further believe the sweeping advertised claim of AQA, Any Question Answered, would require a score of 100 per cent to meet expectations.

We're proud of our new service, which has become the market leader very quickly. We accept there have been some teething troubles, but believe the service is delivering an important service to the British public, and look forward to ever higher levels of accuracy and usefulness.

We're obsessed with our phones in the UK. With over 74 million handsets, there are more mobiles than people. To make them all work, there are 51,000 mobile phone masts dotted around the UK. Between them, the phone operators tell us they've got Britain covered. But is that really true?

Watchdog has been contacted by viewers who say that there are lots of black spots where you still can't get a signal. It can be a real pain if you're on the move and even worse if you can't use it in your own home. If you've signed up to a long contract you can't get out of you could be paying for a phone that you can't use.

David Wilson is a trader on the futures markets. He does a lot of work from home and relies on his mobile. When he got a new handset on the Three network, he was frustrated he couldn't get it to work. When he complained to Three they sent him another phone but that didn't work either.

David didn't think he should have to pay for a service he wasn't getting but Three refused to cancel his 18-month contract. He stopped his direct debit payments, but then Three threatened him with debt collectors. David is angry that he's having to pay for a service he can't use.

David told us: "They say you've got an 18-month contract, and that's the end of the story. They're not willing to negotiate. I don't see why people should have to pay for a phone that doesn't work where you live."

Website coverage checker
Like all the big operators, Three's website lets you check the mobile coverage in your area before you buy, so you know that when you sign that big contract, you'll get what you're paying for. When we checked David's address online, we were told there should be a reasonable signal but David says there isn't.

Signal problems don't just affect phones. The mobile broadband packages you buy for laptops rely on the same transmitters.

Penny Connorton moved to London, and wanted mobile broadband to keep in touch with her grandchildren back in Devon. The reason Penny signed a contract with Three was because the company told her she'd get decent reception at her new address.

"The assistant was very helpful, he looked at my postcode and said that signal was fine in that area, it wasn't the top signal but it was OK," Penny explained.

But Penny can't use her mobile broadband at her new address something she only discovered after she signed the 18-month contract. She's tried to cancel but Three says she can't.

Signal testing gadget
Watchdog asked frequency engineer, Simon Page to test the signal at Penny's flat. The signal was very weak inside her house and still very low outside.

According to Three's website, there should be a good signal around Penny's flat. But Simon Page says the websites are only based on predictions.

Simon says: "You're looking at a computer simulation of coverage. It's not actually measured; they can't go out and measure everywhere. It's a guide, the data says it's a good signal, but it's not necessarily the case."

It seems the information on the website isn't accurate - not much good when you're deciding who to sign up with.

This doesn't just happen with Three, Watchdog has had similar complaints from customers of all the major mobile phone companies. But Watchdog spoke to someone who took his complaint further.

One man took on Orange and won
Tom Prescott had an 18-month contract with Orange, but couldn't get a signal, at home, work, or just about anywhere.

Despite this, Orange wouldn't let him out of his contract - so he went to court to claim back the money he'd paid, for a service he hadn't received. Orange's legal team didn't even turn up to the hearing. The court found in Tom's favour and he was awarded £500.

Watchdog spoke to Three
Regarding David Wilson's case Orange said:
"Mr Wilson's account was subject to an error that led to restrictions on his account that prevented calls being made and received. We'd like to apologise for the service Mr Wilson received and have now refunded him."

Regarding Penny Connorton's case Orange said:
"All mobile coverage checkers estimate the likely coverage in an area. Radio signals are affected by a range of local factors including buildings and other objects that can make it more difficult for some people to receive a signal in their home. In view of the difficulties that Mrs Connorton has experienced with her mobile broadband we will be refunding the payments she has already made. As she can use the modem in other areas we have agreed with the customer to convert her account to Pay As You Go. This means Mrs Connorton can use the service but without any ongoing obligation to top up. As part of a network upgrade, coverage is being enhanced in Mrs Connorton's area next month and we hope we can improve the reception in her home."

When Watchdog spoke to Orange about Tom Prescott's case, the company said:
"Orange would like to publicly apologise to Mr Prescott for the poor level of service he received trying to resolve the network coverage issues he has experienced. It should not have been necessary for the case to have reached the County Court and we will be reviewing our policies to ensure other customers facing the same issue are handled in a more appropriate way.

"In terms of Mr Prescott's contract, while we do not offer an option for customers to break their contract for moving house, in exceptional cases where a customer clearly has no network coverage at a new home of residence and has been unable to make calls, we will look to resolve in their best interest. 

"While none of the mobile network operators are able to offer perfect reception either inside or out of the home, Orange is committed to improving the strength of our network, which currently covers 99 per cent of the outdoor UK population."

Watchdog contacted the UK's other major mobile companies. They say they have a range of measures to help customers, including the option to return a phone or mobile broadband modem in cases of poor reception within a limited period. The companies also say they're taking steps to improve the information provided by their online coverage checker tools.

When it comes to debt, we've never had it so bad. Personal debt in the UK is at £1.5 trillion. That's the equivalent of everyone in the country owing over £25,000 each. No wonder debt recovery has become such big business.

Debts are now being bought and sold by companies who seem to have no idea why you owed the money in the first place. The result is that many of you are being hounded for money by people you've never heard of for sums that you might not even owe.

One company doing just that is Lowell Portfolio I, part of the Lowell Group, based in Leeds. In the past couple of years we've had hundreds of complaints about the way the company will chase you for money it claims you once owed to some of Britain's best-known companies. In recent weeks we've been inundated with even more complaints - about the way they've been pursuing so-called debt which they bought from one particular big name, the mobile phone network 3.

Letter didn't explain why he owed the money
Chef Stephen Yates was a customer of 3, but when his contract came to an end he moved to a different network and forgot all about 3. Two years later he received two unexpected letters, one from 3 and one from Lowell, a company he'd never heard of. Each letter stated that Lowell had purchased a debt of £211 that Stephen owed 3. The problem was, Stephen had no idea how he could owe the money, especially after all this time.

Lowell's letter did nothing to explain. But the company didn't mince its words; unless he paid up it said it may use "any legal permitted method" to recover the money. Stephen contacted Lowell who still couldn't tell him why he owed the money.

We've heard from more than a hundred fed-up former and current 3 customers who had similar experiences with Lowell. They're being chased for anything from £14 to as much as £800. You'd expect a company demanding your money to fully explain why you owe it but in the cases we've heard, neither Lowell nor 3 were able to provide the records to do that. And worse, some of the people they're chasing can prove there was never a debt in the first place.

IT consultant Phil Glover was a 3 customer until April 2005. He too has had letters demanding money for a debt he knew nothing about. This time Lowell's big threats were for a tiny amount, less than £15; a figure that rang a bell for Phil. When he'd originally cancelled his contract 3 sent an additional bill asking for a further £14.93. Although unhappy it hadn't included it in his final bill, he went ahead and paid and indeed that final payment is clearly shown on his bank statement from that time.

Phil explained all this to Lowell's debt collectors and, after at first struggling to get his message through, they eventually agreed to write off the debt and apologised. That should have been the end of it, but it wasn't. A few weeks after Christmas Phil received another letter, once again from a company working on behalf of Lowell stating that £14.93 was due and that legal proceedings were to follow. Phil was left questioning what exactly he had to do to clear his name for a debt he never owed in the first place.

Steven Yardley, a part-time DJ, closed his 3 account years ago too. But once again he received debt letters just like the others. When he asked 3 and Lowell for proof of the debt, neither one could tell him what it was for. On contacting 3 he was told that they couldn't check the information as the account was too old. All the more reason why 3 and Lowell should properly explain why they were demanding the cash.

Shocking behaviour
Normally when a company can't, or won't, prove why you owe them money, we might usually think don't pay it. Steven thought so too, so he didn't hand over his £50. That was when Lowell really turned the screw. When Steven recently attempted to switch to a better deal for his utilities, he was shocked to discover he was refused due to the fact Lowell had raised a default on his credit history. In other words, it had damaged his credit rating by saying he had failed to pay a debt. Shocking behaviour, considering Lowell hadn't proved there was a debt and that Steven had never owed it in the first place.

When Watchdog investigated, both 3 and Lowell admitted it had got it completely wrong, Steven didn't owe anything. It has now written off the debt and removed the default from his credit history. Pity it didn't do that when he called the company.

Malcolm Hurlston runs a charity that advises people on debt and is horrified that companies can behave like this. He describes it as "absolutely disgraceful" that people who are perhaps not even in debt are being pursued in this way. Even so, there is action that you can take. Malcolm recommends telling them, in writing, that they must send you written evidence in the form of a statement of account of the debt.

If they can't do that within 28 days, Malcolm says that it won't be able to collect the debt.

We have a template letter for you to download that you can send to any company who ask you for a debt you don't think you owe. We also have an exclusive video with Owen Roberts, head of callcreditcheck.com, on how to tackle problems like this, should they be happening to you.

Bad communication
So who's to blame for all this? Is it Lowell, who aggressively threatened court action and dragged people's credit ratings into the gutter? Or is it 3 who had years to talk to customers about this, but instead said nothing and sold on the debt without explanation? Not what you'd expect from a company whose business is communication.

When Watchdog spoke to both Lowell and 3 they admitted that neither Phil Glover nor Steven Yardley owe a penny. In the case of both Stephen Yardley and Phil Glover, they have removed the debt and cleared their credit history. They apologise and are reviewing their systems and processes to ensure similar mistakes can't happen again.

In our first case, both companies say that Stephen Yates does owe money. Stephen has always said he would been happy to accept this as long as there's proof. Lowell and 3 claim that they do now have further details and will be sending these to Stephen.

3 said that the confusion arose because it has no record of him cancelling his contract and he moved house without providing new contact details. As a goodwill gesture it's reducing the amount he owes. 3 said that when customers don't pay bills it will try and seek payment directly and it's only when this fails that it looks to specialist companies like Lowell to recover the money.

Lowell's response
Lowell told Watchdog: "Lowell Group is in the business of collecting monies validly owed, which we do within strict guidelines set out by the Office of Fair Trading.

"In the small minority of instances where a debt is disputed, collections activity is immediately put on hold while we endeavour to resolve the dispute promptly in order to minimise any potential distress to the account holder. In the case of Stephen Yates, we have investigated his dispute and are satisfied that the monies owed are valid. We do acknowledge mistakes in handling the cases of Mr Yardley and Mr Glover for which we apologise unreservedly. We are currently reviewing our systems to ensure such mistakes cannot occur in the future."

3's response
3 told Watchdog: "In Mr Yardley's case we made an error when closing his account in 2005. We have written off his debt, cleared his credit rating and apologise for any inconvenience. Since 2005 we have overhauled our customer service systems.

"In Mr Yates' case we have no record of any request for his account to be cancelled by letter, email or phone. The direct debit was cancelled by Mr Yates' bank on the 6 October 2006 with balance outstanding. The account continued to be used into November. With money still owed Mr Yates moved home without passing on new contact details, making timely collection of the £211.96 debt difficult. As a gesture of goodwill we are happy to waive the line rental incurred after Mr Yates stopped using his account, however, we are seeking settlement for £99.95 for usage charges incurred before the direct debit was cancelled.

"Mr Glover closed his account in April 2005 and on 4 May 2005 he was advised by phone of an outstanding balance of £14.93 and given options on how payment could be made. As Mr Glover suggests he then made a bank transfer to pay his bill - unfortunately he supplied the wrong phone number as a reference for the payment so we were unable to reconcile the bill. After an extensive review of transactions in May 2005, we have located this payment. Mr Glover's credit rating is now clear. Improvements in our processes that allow us to collect the final payment directly rather than requiring the customer to act means that this should not happen again.

"We're listening to feedback all the time and while we will pursue debts, we regularly review the way we handle all customer issues as we try and make things better for all our customers."

Lowell has set up a freephone helpline 0800 840 1219 for anyone who has received a letter from Lowell about their outstanding '3' account. Lowell asks that only those who believe that they have a genuine query regarding the alleged amount outstanding should call this number.

The helpline will be staffed by a dedicated "dispute resolution" team, from 8am to 8pm Monday to Thursday and 8am to 7pm Friday.

Lowell says that all queries will be logged and that any that can't be immediately resolved over the phone will be fully investigated.

Watch our report about debt recovery agency Ruthbridge.

Click here to see our exclusive interview with Owen Roberts, head of callcreditcheck.com, talking to Paul heiney about credit checks and what people should do if they have defaults on their credit history that need removing.

Click here to watch the top five tips from a debt expert on how to manage your debts.

And download our template letter if you're being asked for a debt you don't think you owe.

A mobile phone is stolen in the UK every 12 seconds, so for many people it makes sense to buy insurance for a new mobile in case anything goes wrong. But thousands of people who have bought mobile phone insurance are being misled into buying a second policy just days, or even hours, later.

Watchdog has received complaints about two companies, both based in Swansea: Future Phones Ltd now called Reliance Cover Ltd, and Assure Phone, part of a company called Bluetooth Services Ltd.

Both Future Phones and Assure Phone cold call people who have recently bought a new mobile phone contract. Their sales agents use clever wording that can easily mislead customers into buying a second policy without realising it.

David Lake and his son Steven already had insurance for Steven's mobile phone when they were called by Reliance Cover. They thought they were speaking to their original insurance company and, when they were told that the cost of their insurance was being reduced, agreed to a new deal and confirmed their bank details. They paid an upfront charge of £44.99.

Angry and misled
What they didn't know was that Reliance Cover is an entirely separate company to their original provider and they had been signed up to a second insurance policy. David asked for a refund when he realised, but it took seven weeks for that to arrive, and Reliance Cover deducted £20 as an administration charge. He's angry and feels he was misled.

So, too, does Emily Cole. She got a call from Reliance Cover in November 2008 telling her the cost of her insurance was also being reduced. She thought she was speaking to her existing insurance provider and so agreed to a new deal, authorising the company to deduct the £44.99 upfront fee.

She then received a second call from Reliance Cover, to confirm her details. But Emily was still not clear which company she had been speaking to, or to whom she had given her bank details. She thought it was her original insurance provider, but when she phoned the company to check, she was told it wasn't.

Emily was confused, and because she couldn't work out who she had actually given her bank details to, decided to cancel all her bank cards.

So where does Reliance Cover get your phone number from?

Well, when it calls it knows practically nothing about you. It has picked your number at random from a sequence of thousands of numbers and knows only which phone network you're on. It doesn't even know your name. When it asks you to 'confirm' your details it is actually getting them from you for the very first time.

Undercover sales agent
We sent a researcher to work undercover at the company as a sales agent. The script he was given told him to tell customers he called that their insurance cover was being reduced, which gives the very clear impression that the call is from their original provider.

David Sanders, lead officer in civil law from the Trading Standards Institute, told us that the script used by Reliance Cover is very misleading and gives the clear impression that the company is negotiating a contract that customers already have.

However, at least Reliance Cover's insurance cover does exist.

Assure Phone, part of Bluetooth Services, also claims to offer mobile phone insurance. But the company isn't regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), and isn't allowed to sell insurance. So although the company makes big claims when it calls, in reality the 'cover' it offers isn't a real insurance policy at all.

Replacement phone was second-hand
Chris Foot knows all too well about that. He became an Assure Phone customer after receiving a call in January 2008 from what he thought was his original insurance company. He realised later that he was paying for two policies but kept his cover with Assure because he'd already paid an upfront fee of £69.99. When his phone was knocked out of his hand in September he claimed for a replacement phone. It took over two months to arrive, and when it did it was second-hand. It even had someone else's appointments in the phone's calendar.

Watchdog wanted to put these companies to the test, and a researcher bought a new mobile phone contract from a high-street retailer. Sure enough, we received a call from Assure Phone just days later. During the call we were told that the caller was representing our mobile phone network and that our original insurance cover was being reduced. This wasn't true - the call was very much from Assure and it wanted to sell us a second insurance policy.

Swansea Trading Standards is aware of the problem and is working with the FSA to try to find a solution. It has asked for anyone who has been called by the company and feels they have been misled to contact them.

Company responses
Reliance Cover told Watchdog that it doesn't recognise the portrayal of the way it company operates. It says that its processes and scripts have been developed after taking advice from Trading Standards and other regulatory bodies. It also says that it makes it clear during its phone calls who it is, and gives its name over the phone. The company adds that it makes a second phone call, which it records, in which it confirms its details with customers. It says that it does occasionally have problems but that when it does it fixes them.

Assure Phone told Watchdog that it sells warranties rather than insurance so it does not need to be regulated by the FSA. It said that our call must have come from a member of its temporary Christmas staff it has taken on and that it will be retraining all of its staff fully. It says that it strives to do its best and that customers who are unhappy may be attempting to claim for something not in their warranty terms and conditions.