In June, a reader called Liam was cold-called by Bord Gáis with an offer to service his boiler for €99. "I accepted, and an engineer duly called to the house to service the boiler. I wasn't home at the time, but my wife gave him access. The boiler was nine years old, and it had never given a moment's trouble," he says.

The engineer signed it off as being in perfect working order. “That evening, we noticed that we had no hot water, and when I checked the boiler, it would not come on. I phoned Bord Gáis the next day, and I was abruptly told that it was ‘nothing to do with them’. I explained that the boiler had been working perfectly until their engineer serviced it. Eventually they agreed to send an engineer out the following day. He told me the boiler was beyond repair, and he gave a diagnosis of what he felt was wrong with it.”

Liam was sceptical, so got a local plumbing contractor to take a look. “Their engineer agreed that the boiler was dead, but he diagnosed a totally different fault. The bottom line was that I had to pay €2,400 for a new boiler,” he writes.

Then he received an invoice for €99 from Bord Gáis, “who were asking me to believe that the very minute their engineer finished working on it, it died, and this was a complete coincidence”.

The company started sending “texts, phone calls and letters demanding payment. Every time they called, I explained my case, and I asked them to reconsider, but they were still looking for full payment.”

He says they have now employed a firm of debt collectors “and in their most recent letter, dated October 14th, they say they are now issuing court proceedings against me.

“They are threatening to increase my debt, including legal costs and interest. They are threatening to enter my name in the Public Records, and they say this will adversely affect my credit rating. They are also threatening to apply for a judgment order against my property if I don’t pay.” He says that to call this heavy-handed would be an understatement. “If they do choose to go to court, I will take it all the way.”

We contacted the Bord Gáis Energy, which then “reviewed the details involved” and agreed “as a gesture of goodwill to remove the charge for the original boiler service”.

Vodafone box sending all the wrong signals 

James Neylon contacted us "in despair" because of problems he has been having with Vodafone. He has a Sure Signal box from the operator, which is supposed to use the broadband network to boost his phone coverage

in blackspots. However, it “has not worked in almost three weeks and I need it in my home, as I have little or no signal”, he says.

“I spent four days on the phone with them only to be passed from one person to another. They have tried to convince me the box is not working because of poor download speed. This is not the problem. I have tried so many times to explain that, but they just won’t listen.”

He says the box was “working perfectly well up to three weeks ago with the same download speed. Their costumer service team have to be the worst I have ever encountered – they either did not know what I was talking about or they didn’t care.”

We contacted Vodafone, which assured us it was now “working to resolve this issue”.

Scam designed to look like a PayPal transaction

A reader, Breeda, contacts us with a cautionary tale. “I sold a pair of very expensive sandals online last week,” she writes. “The deal was done and the lady in question asked for me to send a PayPal invoice so she could send me my money.”

So she did. “I got an email from PayPal to say the buyer had paid and that, once I confirmed how I sent the item, the funds would be transferred to my account.”

Breeda posted the expensive sandals by registered post. “Since then I have got a load of fake emails from PayPal saying she overpaid me and I won’t get my money until I rearrange a refund. I spoke to PayPal and they have said they don’t have an account with that woman and that all the emails were a scam to get money from me. Do I have to live with the loss of the shoes now?”

Unfortunately, there is very little that can be done, and the chances of Breeda getting the money or the shoes back are nil. Fraudsters are very skilled at dressing up emails to look like they have been sent by reputable sources. Extreme vigilance should be exercised in all online transactions.