martymac – Member

62mph on road, sitting upright with howling tailwind.

62 on a mountain bike?? I’d go as far as to say you should throw that Cateye out… It’s obviously completely f*****d. The only way a mountain bike would do 62mph is on the roof of a car.

As a fast descender on road bikes, I can honestly say that low- to mid- sixties are possible, but there are only 2 or 3 descents in the UK that I can think of where you’ll hit those speeds.

The same descent on an MTB, you’d be lucky to break the 40 barrier.

Did you actually suffer any loss as a result of their negligent services (i’m assuming you must have otherwise the solicitor wouldn’t be worried about a neg claim against them)? Presumably you’ll still pursue your own action for that loss then?

I argued that the divorce dragged on for 6 months after it should have been settled and that all negotiations after the initial Form E’s etc was rendered useless because I was forced to renegotiate in person.

He said I would be asked by the judge to quantify my losses (which I knew), so I listed the time I’d had to spend researching and corresponding with the opposition, my lost earnings, and said I hoped the judge would decide how much of the monies already spent should be brought into question (about £10 grand)…

The crux of their argument was that as I’d managed to achieve pretty much the same outcome as originally proposed, I’d not actually lost out. My argument was that I could have saved a shedload of money if I’d done it myself from the outset!

I think I’ll stick with the new bike plan… It was women that got me into this mess, and drugs don’t agree with me. 😉

He said I was very brave to take on a law firm, and actually said he thought I handled things very well. But I’ll never know how confident he was – I suspect he must have known it really could have gone either way.

He did suggest I should try and stay out of the courts in future, I suggested that it might be better for me to stay out of churches… 😀

Cheers, I’m glad I took the pragmatic approach – it could have gone either way in a hearing because no matter how morally “right” I was, there’s always the issue that the judge will have been a former solicitor or barrister and might have a grudge against people contesting fees.

I told the litigator that my principals wouldn’t allow me to increase my offer as it would make me feel that I was contributing to the invoices. He scoffed and said “Oh pleeeeeeease, don’t talk about principals…”

I said “well, you’re a solicitor, you don’t have principals but I’m just an ordinary bloke that’s been dicked about by his solicitor!”

That made him laugh and kind of diffused things a little. I left the court with him and walked through the town having a chat and he seemed like a really nice fella, maybe they’re not all complete ****s!

And yes, shame about the road race result… But on the flip side, I’m thinking an S-Works SL4 with Dura-Ace would look lovely in my bike cave… 😉

Update:

Well, attended court on Friday, the firm that was suing me sent a litigator rather than the solicitor that had screwed up. He asked if I was prepared to settle rather than going into the court, I told him I had a strong defence and was prepared to let a judge decide the outcome.

Then he produced a list of their costs in preparing their case – basically a cost schedule for 2 solicitors, so just short of £2 grand’s worth of work – and told me they’d be pushing for full costs. I said “erm… this is small claims track isn’t it? You’re only entitled to fixed costs for attending the hearing aren’t you? So shall we pop this in this wastepaper basket where it belongs?” The look on his face was priceless!

Waited for 2hrs and then the judge called everyone waiting into the courtroom. He said that due to a particularly busy schedule, most cases would be adjourned but we’d probably have to wait all day to find out.

So, the litigator goes and makes some phonecalls, comes back to me and says they’d settle for half the bill. I told him no, and explained that the most I had to lose was a couple of grand, but if judgement went in my favour, I’d be instructing a solicitor to sue them for professional negligence, so his firm had potentially a lot more to lose than me.

I explained that I would rather not lose another day’s pay to attend court again, so I’d make a contribution of £200 towards the court costs, dispersments etc, but it was to go on record that it was towards costs and not the invoices.

He pulled his face and told me it was an “unattractive offer”, but I told him that to pay any more would be contributing to the invoiced totals, and I wasn’t prepared to do that on principal.

He accepted and drew up a consent order there and then. So, I got the afternoon off to drive down to Surrey to watch the Olympic road race!

I think it was a moral victory of sorts, all I was fighting for was for the “debt” to be written off, but another day in court would have resulted in another day’s lost earnings.

Only problem I now face is that in my mind, I have a couple of extra grand in the bike fund pot!!!

Thanks again for all the advice, it wasn’t half as daunting as I thought.

😀

Sounds like the Greek Olympic folk saw her as a bit of a fly in the woodpile…

Apparently you can replace the bearings with those off a top-end track bike…

Put it on the back of your hand… Makes it far easier. Fact.

Nope, not oriental, bipolar or infertile.

I’m more concerned that Pinkster’s box smells of cat piss…

I’m concerned. My jizz is odorless. It works perfectly well, but doesn’t smell. Am I unusual??

And what does these people’s jizz smell of? (and don’t say Bradford Pear Trees).

I have a tree in my wood that smells of cat piss, is this what you’re smelling. I’d be rather concerned if my jizz smelt of cat piss…

Did Garburn Pass last Tuesday and it was a similar story on Troutbeck side. I’d say some of the damage is worse than that last pic of yours…

Unbelievable, but I bet the Red Sock Brigade will still blame the bikers!!!

I’m traveling down from the NW on Friday night to stay with friends in Hazlemere. We’re then cycling to the route on Sat.

Where will be the best place to view? (sorry for the semi-hijack…)

They’re usually riven at daft angles so you probably won’t have a nice neat edge. They’re all different thicknesses too, that’s why your builder has rendered right up to the lip…

I don’t remember ever hacking Silver off… You’re not my ex-wife are you??

Cheez0, hearing is on Friday morning but not heard any more from the opposition yet. Had an informal chat with my property lawyer last night, she said their “drop hands” letter is perfectly standard, and they’ve done it so that “if” I lose, they can say to the judge that I ignored their legal advice and continued to go to court. If I “was” to lose, then that could be deemed unreasonable in comparison to their lovely, thoughtful and public spirited behaviour.

I’m 100% confident that they ballsed up, and I’m 100% confident that I can present my case in such a way that no judge would say I’m liable for all of the bill owed. I think it’s just a matter of letting them decide.

Fingers crossed I get a judge that has a grudge against sharks in pin-striped suits giving the whole legal system a bad name…

I can prove that they chased up previous correspondence within 5 days in the past. I’ve also been advised by a former employee that they use a system called Proclaim, a case management package which they use to keep on top of this kind of thing.

Either way, it flies in the face of their client care letter in which they said “The firm aims to offer all of our client’s (sic) efficient and effective service and I am confident that we will do so in this case”.

Such shoddy use of apostrophes should have set my alarm bells ringing…

Again, thanks for all the good luck wishes! It seems a lot of people have had bad experiences, but I have to agree with others that there are some bloody good ones too. I was just very unlucky to get a bad one for my divorce!

Crankboy, correct: I’m saying they should have chased me up if they thought I hadn’t replied – it was after all, the culmination of 18 months of wrangling. And secondly, even when I forwarded the email again on 3rd March, they failed to send them the letter!

But… I… MUST… REMAIN… CALM… 😉

I suspect their letter has somewhere at the top of it “without prejudice” or similar. Note that WP correspondence is generally not admissible to court.

They didn’t put that on their letter. How can I introduce it into the proceedings? Would you suggest I ask the judge if insisting on a hearing is “unreasonable”?

Jerome, it’s quite a complicated case. Negotiations had reached a point where I kept ownership of my rental portfolio that I’d had when I entered into the marriage and my wife kept the former marital home. I would also keep my current business premises that I’d acquire during the marriage.

I just needed to demonstrate that I could refinance that property in my sole name and we could go our separate ways. The existing lender said they would remortgage it in my sole name and sent an offer letter, but my financial adviser warned me that this would impede my ability to buy a house on my own and advised me to restructure some business loans to include the business premises, therefore giving me a higher personal borrowing potential.

I discussed this in detail with my solicitor and asked him to advise the opposition what I planned. He wrote asking if he could show them the letter from the existing lender, and I emailed him back to say yes. They had a system failure and lost that email (it was at the beginning of Jan 2010). I was of the belief that they had carried out my instructions and I was waiting to hear back (this often takes weeks and weeks). Nearly 12 weeks later, my solicitor’s colleague, chasing up loose ends while he was skiing, rang to ask why I’d not responded.

I re-forwarded the email with express instructions that they apologise for losing my email and to carry out the instructions.

By July that year, my ex-wife’s solicitors had withdrawn the proposed consent order and attempted to put my business premises on the market because I was “obviously unable to secure finance” – that couldn’t have been further from the truth, but over 6 months after asking me, he still hadn’t shown them the letter that proved finance was available, or explained what I planned to do.

At that point, I sacked him and renegotiated the entire consent order from scratch. They’d smelt blood and tried to force me to sell the property and halve the equity which would have resulted in me loosing around £45,000.

Phew, and that’s just the potted version!!! Basically, he wants me to pay the final bill, I’m saying I won’t due to the hassle it caused me and the fact that we basically rewound to the beginning of all the negotiations, but with an impatient opposition!

Thanks for the advice… I’m getting the message that I need to keep calm? 🙂

OMITN, I’m glad you dropped in as your advice at the mediation process was very helpful.

I’ve just replied to their recent letter declining their kind offer to withdraw my defence. I also reminded them that my desire to have the case decided by a county court judge was not “unreasonable conduct” and that I reserved the right to refer to their letter as evidence of their attempt to intimate me. Grrrrr.

Thanks Cheez0, I fully intend to! 😀

Higgo, it’s difficult to quantify, but I intend on spending this week working out how much billable work was “undone” by the negligence.

I also intend to build a file of my own hours, and how much time it took me from doing billable work in my own commercial capacity.

And I intend to demonstrate the addition stress I was put under…

BR, it was mediation. I refused the offer so now it goes to court hearing. Worst case scenario is that I have to pay the bill plus costs (a couple of hundred quid). But I think I have a very strong case and they’ve really put me through the mill, so I’m going to fight it.

Just knowing the amount of hassle it is for them to bring this case gives me quite a lot of satisfaction, and whilst I may be ordered to pay something, I’m pretty sure I won’t be ordered to pay everything as they really f****d up…

Mike, I’ve been to the ombudsman – they won’t get involved in negligence claims. I’ve done the court mediation thing as well – they offered to halve the bill, but I wasn’t prepared to do that on principal.

why haven’t you taken legal advice?

It’s small claims track. I’ve spoken to my property solicitor informally, but the claim is for about £1600… It would cost more to employ a solicitor to act on my behalf…

I was planning on asking this question as my Arko stick is now more of a coin.

I like Arko, in that it does the job, but I wouldn’t mind paying more for something that smelled nicer and was maybe a bit fancier – I’m a 2-3 times a week shaver so it lasts forever!

Thanks esseletc, to be honest, I wasn’t really expecting to keep it, I’m more annoyed that a company that’s already wasted my time has been so incompetent and wasted even more of it!

Nice? Hmmm… They took an order for an item that wasn’t in stock and took money for Next Day delivery. I waiting in all day for the parcel and then, the following day, they contacted me to say it wasn’t in stock.

To be honest, they really dicked me about, so no, I don’t think they’re “nice”.

don simon – Member

Nothing more demeaning than a sympathy shag, is there?

I wouldn’t know, why don’t you tell us how it feels Don?

I cancelled the order in writing and here’s the response:

I understand what you are saying, we are currently in a difficult position with our website as it does not have the capability to be directly linked to our stocking system, which means it has to be manually updated meaning not all products are updated ‘as it happens’ but we do try to keep as up to date as possible. The system also takes payment straight away when the order is placed online, your payment has been refunded.

I’ve checked, and they refunded my credit card.

You’re getting your “unsolicited goods” and “unconditional gifts” mixed up Donk. As far as the dictionary definition of “theft” is concerned, theft is not on the agenda when a company sends “unsolicited goods”.

Maybe I should email them thanking them for their unsolicited gift and see what they do… What do you think Don?

Just out of morbid curiosity, how do you define “theft”?

I think I’ll just wait and see if they get in touch. If they’ve not asked for it back in the next few weeks, I’ll ebay it…

Sorry Waswas, here’s the full text:

Unsolicited items

Under the Unsolicited Goods and Services Act 1971, (as amended) it is an offence to demand payment for goods known to be unsolicited, in other words, they were sent to a person without any prior request made by them or on their behalf.

Someone who receives goods in these circumstances may retain them as an unconditional gift, and does not have to pay for or return any unwanted goods. Anyone who receives a demand for payment for unsolicited goods should report the matter to their local Trading Standards Department.

I’m an arse with a brand new FREE hi-fi! 😀

From the government website…

Someone who receives goods in these circumstances may retain them as an unconditional gift, and does not have to pay for or return any unwanted goods. Anyone who receives a demand for payment for unsolicited goods should report the matter to their local Trading Standards Department.

Looks like I got an unconditional gift! Happy days, eh Don? 😀

TJ, thanks for the helpful advice. I wouldn’t waste your breath on Don Simon, he has a bit of a chip on his shoulder when it comes to me. He must be seething at the thought of me getting a free hifi!! 😀

Do they have a right to bill my credit card?

This is a company that has already caused me a lot of inconvenience, now they’re going to cause me even more! I’m not really in any mood to go out of my way to “do the right thing”…

Having just watched the video of the Dutch team, I know who I’ll be putting my money on!

To be honest, I don’t think Obree is a genius at all. Fair enough, he got lucky with his “old Faithful” riding position, but this smacks of desperation. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at him using chopped up kitchen wear in an attempt to recreate the media obsession with bearings borrowed from a washing machine.

How do you write oooooOOOOOOoooooo?

Soz Feenster, didn’t mean to sound so patronising!!! 🙂

It’s widely known to be Wiggo’s weakness. He’s a tester by trade, so his talent is to set his metronome for a consistent effort throughout, and he does this far better than almost everyone else in ITTs.

But, and he’s shown this many a time, he lacks the grunt to respond to attacks on climbs.

Froome knows this, so he should not have accelerated away like that. It was pretty stupid, he would have known that Brad would have been unlikely to match, and if he’d thought things through, he would have seen that it just gave Nibali the wheel he needed to gap Wiggins.

As I said, inexperience.