Go Compare the Confused Meerkats at the Money Supermarket

Picture By Charles J Sharp - Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

There was a time when renewing one’s car insurance involved visiting tens if not hundreds of individual insurers and comparing their quotes to find the cheapest.  And then someone invented price comparison websites which purport, by the power of Grayskull to be able to scour the internet for you and remove the chore.  However, while initially they did seem to be able to avail one of cheaper insurance over the years they’ve seemed to me to all converge on the same values.  Using the main four websites I find I get a divergence in lowest pricing of only 8 per cent.  This seems very odd.  How do so many different insurers get nearer the same price?  And how come the same insurers give different prices on different websites? 

Now it could be, of course, that any sensible underwriter would value my car and I as the same value risk after performing similar calculations and just always end up around the same market price.  However, instinct would suggest that there’s very little competition in the market then.  For some reason those who’s job it is to take risks seem to me to take little risks. 

Matters are further confused by the layouts of the price comparison sites on their quote pages.  These have become ever more simplistic yet confusing.  For example … many sites ask you to choose a “voluntary” excess for your policy but what they don’t make clear is that there is a separate “compulsory” excess.  These vary from insurer to insurer meaning that when the search values are returned they’re in price order but they’re not weighted in any way to show the cost of actually making a claim because the user can only specify the “voluntary” excess.  Therefore the user is not actually seeing a like for like comparison when they look at the list.  If the search machines were honest then the “voluntary” excess and “compulsory” excess would be combined and just be called the “excess” and any insurer who was not willing to insure for the “excess” the customer requested would be excluded. 

Don’t get me wrong this isn’t a fraudulent practice – all the information is there for those willing to read it but it’s presented in such a statistically complex way the only way to work out whose insurance is the best price and value is to transcribe the information to a separate spreadsheet.

The extent this matters, of course, depends on the value of your motor.  If your car is only worth £1000 and you have a the “voluntary” excess of £150 and “compulsory” excess of £250 then claiming would cost you 40 per cent of your car at which point you’d probably be better going for 3^rd party anyway…

Also there are other things that ring alarm bells about price comparison websites.  Presumably insurers are paying to be on there and they all use algorithms to calculate their quotes which while not all the same all have similar inputs.  Therefore they cannot incorporate any new factor into their calculations and their calculations of risk are all universally set against the same inputs – which does not seem the most subtle method of calculating risk. 

Perhaps this is how they all come out with the same answer…?

Also I notice that the sites year on year seem to become ever less subtle and more simplified.  For example you used to be able to ask for quotes without a courtesy car or without personal injury insurance or without breakdown insurance or without legal insurance and the sites would order the quotes according to these items being excluded but now they don’t seem to do this anymore.   Everything is bundled in as “standard” on quotes. 

One has to wonder too how companies that quote without breakdown insurance or without legal insurance seem to come out further down the list than companies with it … again the sites may show us which insurer is the cheapest but that doesn’t mean we’re actually comparing like with like. 

So this year I went outside the main four sites.  Last year (on the advice of professional Scrooge Martin Lewis) I used Quotezone but this year they were more expensive than the main four.  So I tried Direct Line … my quote was in the same area… so I tried Aviva … who wanted to give me a discount because they want to keep me as a customer for different products.  So in the end I did save about £100.  It was like pulling teeth but I intensely dislike the insurance industry and this made me very happy.  Let’s see if I can push it down further by haggling…

What really confuses me though is that if I don't have a crash my insurance quotes should go down next year because by definition I'm less risk ... but they don't ...by default even if I use price comparison sites they go up?  How is this possible when I'm less and less risk each year?

Tonight I shall be at...

A load of old Tosh - iba

So I bought another laptop to replace the one that had the defective motherboard and ...it turned up like this ... with the keyboard not even glued properly over the innards.  Is there something wrong with me?  Because either I'm a jinx or it's just impossible to buy a laptop that works anymore.  So for manufactureres everywhere can I just offer this one idea... You stop worrying about what processing chip it has, what RAM and ROM it's got, what graphics it has and what size hard drive you're offering and concentrate more on bothering to actually assemble the thing.  A computer is a device that can be instructed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations automatically via computer programming - this cannot happen if you just randomly throw a load of parts and a motherboard into a box with little to no thought whatosever as to how they're going to stick together.  It's so sad... I desperately want to give a manufacturer my hard earned money for a decent computer that will last a decent period of time but all they seem to want to do is fob me off with tripe that's fallen off the back of a lorry.  Such a disaster... On well 3rd time lucky.  2nd time talking to customer service representatives who want to bung be £30 to "keep the unit".  Yeah I bet you want me to keep it Debenhams... and people wonder why the high street is dying.

Nothing new- the Tom Tom Go 520

Some few years back Tom Tom cynically decided that a load of their old sat navs were now obsolete for no good reason when they worked perfectly …perhaps too perfectly.  However, they were adamant that because of problems with memory (they couldn’t remember the “lifetime” promises they made to me when they sold the product to me) …they would no longer make maps for them. 

Never-the-less they very kindly offered to sell me a new one “at a reduced rate” but unwilling to be consigned to municipal recycling facility my Satnav still struggled on bravely with maps that were several years out of date – confidently advising me to circumnavigate the Elephant and Castle roundabout in the wrong direction.  This was slightly annoying but my Tom Tom GO 520 and I came to an understanding.  At least until the other day … when it started to struggle locking onto satellites at all and decided it no longer understood anything.

Forced to purchase another I pootled over to Halfords website to see what they had on offer and what did I see but a Sat Nav with exactly the same name as my own which supposedly I am trying to replace...?  Are there two Tom Tom Go 520’s …?  If it really is a new product why not give it a new name? 

Perhaps because it’s nothing new… except new expenditure.

HP and the Great Wall of Refund Issues

Finally I have managed to get a refund on the extended warranty from HP for the computer I returned because the motherboard never worked even after they failed to “mend” it.  I spoke to a man who asked my serial number, my invoice number, my article number, my address, my date of purchase and my purchase channel and after collating all this information told me that I needed to email another department.

“Can’t you email them?” I asked.

“No, I’m the technical department.  I only deal with technical issues,” he said.

“But you work for the same organisation?” I replied.  “Can’t you just email between departments?  After all you have their email because you’re going to give it to me?  You do have email.”

“I can only deal with technical matters,” he said.

“But,” I responded, “then why did you ask me for all this other information - my serial number, my invoice number, my article number, my address, my date of purchase and my purchase channel if that’s somebody else’s job to deal with?  You can see the databases that hold that information therefore you are interacting with it.  You’re not just dealing with only technical matters.”

“I asked for the information to check that the refund details are correct?”

“So why do I need to talk to someone else?  Why can’t you refund me?”

“I can only deal with technical matters,” he said.

“But you’re not just dealing with technical matters,” I said, “because you’ve just asked for financial information.”

“Refunds are the job of another department,” he said.  “You need to email them through the address I will give you and they will respond within one to two working days.”

“Do you have a telephone number for this other department?”

“No.”

“Do you know where they are physically?”

“No.”

“You don’t even know where they are physically?”

“No.”

“So … are you behind a Chinese Wall or something? – you literally can’t communicate between departments?”

“What we do in this situation is I give customers an email and they email the refunds department and they respond within 1 to 2 working days and give the customer what they want?”

“How do you know – you have no contact with them whatsoever?”

“I can only deal with technical matters.  I can give you the email.”

“What if I write it down wrong?”

“I will spell it for you.”

“But I’m dyslexic.  Even if you spell it phonetically I might get it wrong.  Can’t you email it to me?”

“Yes, I can email it to you.”

“You can email me but you can’t email someone else within your own company?”

“I will send you an email now.”

We compromised and he sent me an email of who to email.

Grade Inflation with E Halliday MA Principle of St Chad’s College Durham University 1992

Academics and teachers are a curious breed obsessed with grades.  To them good grades are everything…  What they don’t tell you, of course, is that 27 years later those grades will have been made laughable by grade inflation. 

It’s easy to say this but it’s harder to prove this …or it was until the other day when I unearthed by accident this letter to myself from E Halliday MA the Principle of St Chad’s College Durham University written in 1992.

A number of things seem remarkable reading this letter in retrospect.  Firstly E Halliday MA has typed under the University Coat of Arms “EXEMPT CHARITY” in upper case.  Was this the University motto I wonder? or was E Halliday MA who asked me a lot of questions about my freelance writing career worried that I would twig he was a freelancer too and grass him up to the inland revenue?  The mind boggles.

Did I meet with E Halliday MA at all?  I mention this because although his name appears on the top of the letter it is appended there by sticky label underneath which can clearly be seen the name of the previous Principle of St Chad’s College Durham University David Jasper MA PhD BD. 

I suppose David Jasper MA PhD BD must have seen himself pretty settled in the role of Principle of St Chad’s College Durham for all eternity because he clearly had his own name written on so much of the University stationary that E Halliday MA had to use sticky labels to cover it up. 

Was E Halliday MA on an economy drive or did he simply get some form of schadenfreude in sticking a sticky label over his predecessor’s name? 

Who can tell?

I remember going for the interview distinctly because I had to stay overnight at the college in order to get the feel of the place.  However, while the idea was clearly that we should spend all night in the college there being no prohibition on going out on the town alone I did the latter …only to discover that there was not much of a town to go out on.  There was a cathedral on top of a hill, some shops that were closed and it was very cold.  I ain’t spending 3 years here I thought… not that they weren’t nice people.  Apart from the lecturer in the Physics department who barked at me while watching me fill in a short test form “You should know the answers before you come here!”  Unfortunately I didn’t and so the Russell Group was immediately formed to prevent any repetition of such an educational disaster.

But most interestingly of all …the offer in 1992 was that one could get on the course with CCC whereas 27 years later it seems that A*A*A is required.  It seems to me then that university offers increase by an alphabet letter every 13.5 years.  The question is what will happen to this system in 13.5 years time in 2032 …?  For now we’re at A*A*A there is no higher alphabet letter to go to?  And no more *s save one.  Perhaps then like car number plates the system should start going back down the alphabet again until it reaches Z*Z*Z* before going back up to A*A*A again…?

An open letter to the Chamberlain of London

Dear City of London,

                                    I write with regards to payment of Penalty Charge Notice CL55350099.   I wish to complain to the Council that the money has been obtained by deception.  Firstly the wording of the letter is wrong.  It says “Failure to pay the charge in full before the end of the 28 day period may lead to the charge increasing by 50 per cent to £195".  However strictly speaking this is a 300 per cent increase.  Therefore motorists are forced to pay the fine by deception and unreasonable threats.  The letter further pressurises the customer to pay within 14 days at the risk of the fine increasing rather than challenge the ticket.  However, the small print on the City of London website which is not on the letter tells a different story.

“You have 14 working days from the date of the ticket to make an informal challenge at the discount amount for tickets attached to the vehicle or handed to the driver.

The case will be placed on hold until we respond; if we reject your challenge, you will be re-offered the discount amount for 14 days from the date of that letter.”

Therefore the letter is deceptive in suggesting to the reader that they must pay within 14 days without challenging the fine or risk the fine increasing.  Whereas actually if the driver appeals the fine within the 14 days the 14 day clock is started again and the driver is informed in writing whether their appeal is accepted or rejected at which point they can still pay at the £65 rate.  This automatically forces anyone for whom it is impractical to revisit the locus in quo within the timeframe specified to not challenge the ticket.  Therefore the money taken is being obtained by deception.

The letter then advises the reader that they must not pay the fine if they intend to dispute it which I have done.  However, I would point out that payment is not a one-sided affair.  I sent you a cheque which is a push pull method of payment and asked you to take payment at your discretion.  This means you must make a decision to cash the cheque and be responsible for making such a decision.  I submit that the decision to cash the cheque was so outrageous in its defiance of logic or accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question to be decided could have arrived at it and that the only reason you cashed the cheque is that no one had applied their mind enough to question the procedural mistakes outlined above and therefore I would like to apply for my money back.

Yours sincerely

Anthony Miller

Ohhh do the referendum

You vote EEC in
You vote for EU out
In Out In Out
Shake it all about
You do the referendum and U-turn around
And that's what it's all about
Ohhh do the referendum
Ohhh do the referendum
Ohhh do the referendum
Hard Border, Brexit, Backstop, Shout!

Parliament debates how to fit a quart into a pint pot

Yesterday in Westminster MPs from all parties met with the Prime Minister in order to discuss how a pint pot could be made to contain a quart.  Boris Johnson speculated that a quart when accelerated to near the speed of light might occupy less space than a pint while Jeremy Corbyn said that not trying to put a quart into a pint pot would be a betrayal of all the people who wanted to drink their beverages in imperial quantities.  Mrs May speculated that by using a quart that was carbonated some extra space could be made by waiting for the bubbles to evaporate.  However the DUP said that once the gas had evaporated the quart would no longer be a quart and they would only accept a pint.  Mrs May replied that not getting a quart into a pint pot would have grave consequences.  Some people suggested a second pint glass might be used but Mrs May said the public would not accept 2 pints instead of 1 pint and when given such a bribe might think they had been lied to.   The European Commission's chief spokesman Margaritis Schinas said that "It is obvious that you cannot get a quart into a pint pot". Pushed to speculate what might happen if a quart was into a pint pot, he said, it was "pretty obvious you will have some spillage".  However, the Irish government has repeated its stance that it will "not accept any spillage from any pint pot in order to accommodate a quart".  Neither will the DUP.

Gyles Brandreth and the Royal Posterior

It’s easy to make logical arguments about the totally undemocratic nature of the Monarchy but Republicans often struggle for a good emotional argument against the ludicrous real life soap opera that is the British Royal Family.  So I feel it important to say that yesterday I discovered a killer one – it’s called Gyles Brandreth.  

My first experience of Gyles Brandreth was in the 1980s when he seemed to be permanently glued to TVAM’s sofa in a series of loud jumpers.  Later he went into politics and respresented City of Chester with a similar level of vacuity.  He spent a lot of time too in Countdown’s dictionary corner.  If you’re wondering how anyone manages to have such a varied career when their main skills are talking flimsy whimsy the answer is that he was President of the Oxford Union in Michaelmas Term 1969.  Yes, it’s our old friend Oxbridge privilege.  All of these things are forgivable as the Brandreth is by and large pretty harmless…

However, these days when anything Royal happens someone on the wireless or the TV drags out Gyles Brandreth from under a stone as a talking head on all matters Royal.  And then a level of bottom kissing that is beyond satire ensues.  If you’re wondering what qualifications Gyles Brandreth has to be a Royal expert the answer is none whatsoever except penning two crawling “biographies” one about the “love affair” between the Queen and Prince Phillip and the other about the “love affair” between Charles and Camilla.  Whether Brandreth has any real intimacy with the Royal Family or just knows some friends of friends of the Royal Family or has interviewed them one thing’s for sure … he seems to verbally climb so far up the Royal Family’s posterior that it makes one wonder if the late Queen Mother didn’t have a colostomy purely to keep her bowels Brandreth free.  

I’m not saying he’s never said anything negative about the Royal Family but let’s put it this way… we’re never going see a book about the “love affair” between Charles and Diana.

According to an eye witness Prince Phillip’s car turned over because he was startled by the sun and not because he was driving like an idiot…

Where the stalking horse grazes...

Hidden away amongst the Brexit Lectures on BBC Parliament is a long boring speech by John Redwood.  Well, someone’s got to make an argument for Brexit … so he does.  For those of you who don’t remember what John Redwood has ever done he was the stalking horse against John Major in the 1995 leadership election.  This he lost after being parodied by the press as even more boring and wooden than the other John – which let’s face it is quite an achievement.  At one point he was derided as Mr Spock which was rather unfair as Spock is half human.  John R’s catchphrase these days is "People used to call me an extreme Eurosceptic. Now I’m a moderate."  The truth is probably more along the lines of people don't call John anything much because he’s boring.

John tells us how many times we were promised not following the EU would end in disaster and following the EU ended in disaster.  He mentions the Exchange Rate Mechanism debacle and how we were forced out of the ERM.  He does not blame the EU entirely for this … but neither does he place a lot of blame at the door of his own party. 

John tells us being in the EU has been devastating for primary industries like coal and steel.  And for those wondering how far bare faced hypocrisy can be taken John (Mrs Thatcher’s Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in July for Corporate Affairs at the Department of Trade and Industry) reminds us that the UK hasn’t a single deep coal mine left – as if this, and indeed he, has nothing to do with ‘80s Tory policies.

John tells us confidently that we can deal with the EU on WTO rules because that is how we strike trade deals with other countries – ignoring the fact that those countries are part of other trading blocks.  I suppose we could join CARICOM but that would probably result in a dangerous loss of sovereignty.  John’s main line of attack was to say that even though it was a zero sum gain the EU hadn’t really boosted UK productivity – something that, of course, is very difficult to assess except through complicated statistical modelling without actually leaving the EU.  Oh well, let’s try that then…

John said the UK economy expanded rapidly after the war but went into decline / levelled out after we joined the EU.  Of course it could alternatively be that the UK joined the EEC because its economy was in decline…?  The most powerful argument he pursued was to do with the undemocratic nature of adopting so much EU legislation.  It would be interesting to see how other trading blocks tend to legislative unity and to what degree.  Well, I think it would be interesting.  Normal people would fall asleep…

On a dark Brexit highway...

Last thing I remember, May was
Running for the door
She had to find the way back to the UK she had before
'Brexit' said Jean-Claude Juncker,
'new representations EU won't recieve.
You can vote out any time you like,
but you can never leave!'

Getting pissed with Adrian Chiles

Being a socially gregarious person last night I got in at 2am yesterday and having driven for an hour thought I’d unwind watching a documentary on BBC Iplayer before going to bed...

Adrian Chiles had been given an hour of screentime to address the issue of drinking too much.  Adrian likes a drink and broke through the measly weekly limit of 14 units (reduced recently from 21 in case people have too much fun) virtually every day.  All his friends did too as his life seemed to revolve around “working lunches” and watching football matches.  I thought I used to drink a lot in my 30s but I was not in his league.  He and his mates were terminally in denial of the dangers of their lifestyle despite the obvious warning signs - liver damage / water retention / expanding waist line. 

Don’t know if that’s a pun but terminal was definitively the word as a man with a graph showed us the direct effects on life expectancy without putting any error bars on it or admitting there may be any other factors as health scientists are prone to do.  Even if it were true it’s still possible to be a statistical outlier - as my GP explained once some people are more easily poisoned by alcohol than others.   It was only a matter of time before the words “If alcohol was discovered today it would be banned,” were spoken by a medical potentate.  And never were truer words spoken.  An army of public health officials armed with non-invasive scanning techniques can now tell us with great surety that we will all die if we keep drinking… and show us all the evidence in real time as we do so…

A doctor rubbed some jelly on Adrian’s tummy, looked at his liver and tutted and mentioned scarring.  Even the thought of cutting down to having some non-drinking days in his week seemed to turn Adrian to jelly … then again after years of 20-60 units a day he had arguably become a bit like a huge jelly already with the associated health risks. 

Perhaps he was struggling with the existential pointlessness of a career in football punditry… did being paid very well to do something he enjoyed leave a hole in his life?  Then I wondered if the hole was alcohol shaped… as I looked around his kitchen and tried to back calculate the cost of the installation.  He seemed to have spent a lot on interior décor and I half wondered if he hadn’t made the documentary to show off his home.  Perhaps he was hoping to sell it?

At one point he spoke cryptically about his problems dealing with employment insecurity and said something about being “kicked off” Breakfast television.  At another point he met Frank Skinner who told him he wouldn’t tell him not to drink but to perhaps consider a period of abstinence and see how it went.  Chiles looked like a child who’d been told to give up chocolate for lent.  I read on his Wikipedia that he has now converted to Roman Catholicism (perhaps he caught it off Frank Skinner) and I had to wonder if he took communion under “both kinds”.

I noticed too on this page that he’d been sacked from covering the footy by ITV as well… And then I began to wonder did he all this drinking as he felt the need to schmooze to get on and he had to get drunk to relax himself around other people?  Or had the booze had a detrimental effect on his career?  Or was there a truth somewhere between these too.  Was this a mea culpa to his own industry?  He reminded me of Bob Monkhouse’s quote that “I’d drink less if God ever gave me a hangover”.  God did indeed not give Bob a hangover – he did however give him prostate cancer and it is believed that over-consumption of the demon drink might relate to a greater risk …

...but then again the demon drink seems to be responsible for everything these days.  Still he made 75 …not too bad.  To cheer us Frank Skinner said at one point that his social life had “never recovered” from giving up booze and I didn’t think he was baiting Adrian.

Personally after some periods of complete abstinence followed by relapse followed by being told by my GP that my bad blood tests were probably a “false positive” but to “watch” it I think I am now actually drinking at the recommended 14 units a week (roughly) and I have to say I think my life has improved somewhat as a result.  As to the effect on my social life fortunately there hasn’t been any because I never really had one anyway.  But I sometimes wonder … if booze is as toxic as the public health officials keep telling us will it one day mean the end of pubs?  They’re pretty much disappearing anyway … and what will we all do instead?  Mr Silky once told me that the secret of understanding the comedy industry was just one fact – “we’re here to sell beer” and clearly the economics of most comedy clubs and indeed the Fridge Festival would go well up the spout should everybody suddenly abstain.  Even if everybody just went down to 14 units I’m sure large sections of the economy would collapse to such an extent it’d make Brexit seem like a minor economic tremor…

So what’s the answer?

“’Go on have a drink’ that’s what they used to say to me,” said Frank Skinner before adding ominously, “but I didn’t.”

The trials of returning an HP laptop via Nurnberg

What is the point of spending decent money on a laptop, researching the hard drive, screen capabilities, processing capabilities and paying over the odds for reliability if it just doesn’t work?  Why?  The motherboard is broken.  Recently consumer rights law changed so now we have to give the manufacturer a chance to repair unless the fault manifests its self in the 1^st month.  But how long can you plausibly take to repair something?  Is not two weeks a bit long?  And what if the unit is still faulty?  You’d think then they’d just give you your money back.  But no HP insist you waste all your time ringing them and talk to somebody who can do nothing except refer you to another “team”.  HP have a lot of teams because fobbing off customers is a team sport.  When eventually, through liberal use of legal threats, a section 75 credit card claim and continual harassment on social media their resolve began to crumble someone on another team wrote back to say they would generously agree in the circumstances to “buy back” the box of spare parts that resembled a computer.  I duly returned the computer to the Czech Republic which took another 3 weeks as HP use UPS – a courier service that seems to be trying to match surface mail - sorry I mean “international economy” – for lackadaisicalness.  

Yesterday a lady from another team at HP informed me that they had finally received the machine and that I should be being refunded sometimes next week.  What’s the point of attempting to buy anything of decent spec anymore?  In the future I shall only be buying throwaway rubbish … as it seems to me that these days the more you spend the worse the product is.  The proliferation of meaningless reviews on the internet doesn’t help either in determining if anything is any good to begin with and Which are no better – mysteriously not reviewing entire manufacturers.  They don’t seem either to do manufacturer reliability statistics anymore… so what’s the point in them then?

Honestly, what’s the point in anything?

27/11/2018

Dear Sir or Madam,

REFERENCE: HP-5CG8271TQV

I purchased the HP Laptop 17-by0021na from HP. At the point of purchase I paid £799 to HP directly on the 6^th of August 2018.  It was delivered on the 9^th of August 2018. 

The HP Laptop 17-by0021na is not of satisfactory quality.

I reported it broken on the 7^th of November since it suffered from a continual failure to boot properly which had deteriorated to the point where it would not even start using BIOS keyboard shortcuts.  The BIOS too was faulty.  After sending it for repair on this date HP concluded that errors were due to a faulty motherboard. This problem you claimed to have fixed, returning the item to us on the 20^th of November.  A turnaround time of 13 days (nearly 2 weeks) during which the machine was wiped. 

After re-set up – the machine had been blanked meaning complete user re-set-up was required as well as the reinstallation of software and licences – the computer again showed boot problems within the next two days. 

It then began pronouncing error messages to do with the “PCCE SOLID STATE DRIVE” and “Smart Supporting Driver”.  Other missives from the unit warned us “Internal Disk At Risk” and “Early Warning Signs …” and advised us to “Contact Manufacturer”.  As well as showing errors the product has problems with log on and seems unable to remember the PIN with any sense of reliability meaning yet another complete re-setup may be required.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 makes it an implied term of the contract I have with HP that goods be as described, fit for purpose and of satisfactory quality. 

As you are in breach of contract and I've owned the product for less than 6 months and a previous attempt at repair or replacement has also failed, I am within my statutory rights to ask for a full refund of the original cost paid.

I would remind you of Section 23 section 2

(2)If the consumer requires the trader to repair or replace the goods, the trader must—

(a)do so within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to the consumer

It seems to me to be unreasonable to require me to now return the “repaired” product to HP for a repair that may take up to 13 days given that it has already taken HP 13 days to not repair the original product.  I would remind you of section 7 of the act.

(7)A consumer who requires or agrees to the replacement of goods cannot require the trader to repair them, or exercise the short-term right to reject, without giving the trader a reasonable time to replace them (unless giving the trader that time would cause significant inconvenience to the consumer).

It is my view that the inconvenience I am suffering from not having use of this computer is significant and that a downtime period of effectively a whole month is unacceptable. 

Having no usable computer for these extended periods of time is not viable for me and I have therefore passed the point at which necessity requires that I purchase an additional laptop to replace the one that should be working.  This is unreasonable.

I have already generously allowed HP time to attempt to repair the machine and their mistakes but they have failed to fix the machine adequately and I suspect that the original hardware issues have not been addressed. 

I therefore request that HP provide a full refund in return for the return of the goods. 

I await confirmation that you will provide the remedy set out above within 14 days of the date of this letter.

Etc Etc …wait for cows to come home.

I fear I have upset the Chamberlain of London by driving down Mansion House Street

A sternly worded letter ...

...from the Chamberlain of London ...

...informs me that driving from Poultry to Cornhill between 7am and 7pm ...

...is now very naughty...

...still why paint the road or put up a sign when you can just fine?