Why won’t Currys repair my iPad?

My 14-year-old son had a mishap with an iPad.

I took it to the local Currys shop for repair and then received a text message stating that because of “excessive damage” it would not repair the product.

I followed the appeals process and explained in more depth how the damage had occurred.

Now I have received a letter rejecting the claim again and giving a few more examples of how Currys perceives that the damage was caused.

I had paid £4.50 a month since 2015 for this service plan to cover “minor and major mishaps”.

Now that I need a repair Currys is simply refusing point blank to assist me. The item has not been neglected or misused, there has simply been an accident.

Can you please help? LINDSEY ADAMS, MERSEYSIDE

Your son was sitting on an office-style chair that had roller wheels. The iPad slipped off his lap, he moved the chair back and ran over the iPad.

The letter you received from the Currys PC World KnowHow team said, rather offensively I felt, that it thought the damage sustained had not been consistent with your description of what had happened.

It said the iPad seemed to have been bent over the edge of a solid object. Surely that is consistent with what you had been saying?

I wondered whether Currys had taken a step back and actually considered the facts.

It has been a long haul to get a resolution, but now Currys PC World has provided vouchers worth £339 for a suitable replacement as an identical iPad was no longer available. The damaged one had cost £289. You are both delighted with the new one.

A Currys PC World spokesman said: “We are sorry that Ms Adams experienced problems with the repair process of her damaged iPad.”

You have politely refused to buy a new service plan. I feel this is ridiculous and derisory.

Is there a way in which you can help me to untangle this please? GG, SOMERSET

You first contacted Friends Life about taking your pension as a one- off payment in September 2015. You then went to the Falklands on an extended visit and, although you tried to handle the matter from there, Friends Life continued to write to you at your address in Britain.

Nearly two months after my involvement it agreed to pay £5,498 for the taxfree lump sum at issue and a £16,185 net payment in the way you chose, which included interest. It has agreed to do this because you had contacted it before your 75th birthday.

Relevant forms were then sent for you to fill in. It also told me it was paying £750 in recognition of the trouble and upset caused.

Friends Life said that when you first contacted it, it incorrectly assumed you were now a resident in the Falkland Islands. As a result it sought to obtain all the ID it needed to make an address change on its systems.

This involved writing to you at the UK address it had on the files. The case got caught up in what Friends Life described as a “checklist process” and was going around in circles.

You have at last received the pension money. However, although I was assured by Friends Life that it had paid you the £750, it turned out that it had not done so.

With further chivvying, two-and-a-half months after it had been promised, it has now been paid.

You have also been sent some flowers.