Normal service

There are so many examples of what follows day to day that we are in danger of thinking that it has become the norm. This is one of too many at the moment though.

We have sent what should be a fairly routine case for issue at that high-tech hub in Salford, the County Court Money Claims Centre. Client is trying to recover a debt from a limited company, failing that from one or other or both of the husband and wife directors who have guaranteed their company’s liabilities.

As in so many cases, we ignored our programmed reminders to chase the court for a notice of issue.  We have not quite yet conceded defeat and amended the software programme but more often than not now we give it another couple of days because of the grudging acceptance that it takes over a week for this centre of excellence to even get the details of new matters loaded “on the system”.

In this case we had a telephone call last week to tell us that we would need to make an application.  Why?

The explanation was that we are trying to issue against the company at the same address as the guarantor defendants.   It is a residential address. Yeeees...

We are not given any explanation by reference to rule or practice direction.  We are just told that we will have to supply a different address or make an application.

Following discussion with a deputy district judge, the staff member tells us that we ought to know the rules.  The advice from the DDJ is to consult amongst other things “The Green Book”.

What – you mean the County Court Practice that was rendered largely if not entirely obsolete about 15 years ago?

Perhaps he had in mind the HM Treasury guidance for public sector bodies on how to appraise proposals before committing funds to a policy, programme or project.

Or more likely Government guidance on vaccination against preventable infectious diseases in the UK. 

Either would be more apt in context.

So we are still not given chapter and verse as to why the court office sees fit to ring us up and tell us that we have the wrong address for service on the company.  We have helpfully drawn attention to the fact that this is the registered office address, whatever else they might think.

They check that now and yes it is all fine...

Well what a waste of time that was (again).  And now we have notices of issue confirming that the proceedings were indeed commenced one day last week.

Only trouble is that all three notices of issue have gaping blanks for the date of posting, the date of service and the date by which the defendant has to respond.

Another letter, and another long wait, another string of telephone calls where somebody has to speak to a resident judge who will perhaps suggest that we should instinctively understand and accept responsibility for them getting it all wrong.

Fantastic.  You couldn’t make it up. 

Promises, promises...

I noticed this evening a headline from the Law Society Gazette proclaiming - on the basis of a report from a motor insurance price index that car insurance premia are at a 5 year low.

See the article at Whiplash reforms cut insurance bills to five year low, analysts claim.

We can expect this to be hailed as a success story and justification for the assaults on the rights and capabilities of accident victims to pursue claims for compensation. 

It won't just be the historic attacks that are justified but those to come. Insurers will point to this as a trend and say there is more good work to be done.

Hang on...

Let me say first that I'm suspicious of the statistics and propaganda to date but frankly there is traditionally so much spin from the liability insurers that it's a huge chore to analyse it. Meanwhile, most of us want to look to the future for all good reasons.

It's far more important in that context that the industry and the market is not sucked into some sugary sweet belief that the future is all rosy now and we can trust the ABI to keep steering us to insurance Nirvana.

At a conference in Chelsea just over a fortnight ago - see yesterday's post - I met and listened to David Williams of AXA on this very subject. Whether or not he realises it (we've clashed many times on Twitter) I recognize him and the company he represents as having a good deal more integrity than most players on the Dark Side.

I heard the view he expressed two weeks ago about the likelihood of current levels of premia being short-lived. Those comments were recalled in a brief exchange we had later.

Here it is...

@LawyerAdamPenn @JuliecarJulie @8BallPete @BritishInsurers but they have fallen, 9-12% on average, clearly you are in denial for some reason
— David Williams (@AXADavidW) March 25, 2014

@legalchap @LawyerAdamPenn @JuliecarJulie @8BallPete @BritishInsurers agreed. Frequency reductions haven't come through but here's hoping
— David Williams (@AXADavidW) March 25, 2014

I don't doubt that David Williams and AXA have their fingers on the pulse and if he is willing to say, in the face of sceptical accusations that it's all short-lived, that it is - then I find it difficult to believe otherwise.

So - look out for the ABI hype on the back of today's story and reflect. Better still, spread the word.

Men come screaming...

Time flies and it is a fortnight today since I was sitting in a crowd at Stamford Bridge. Not a football in sight that day.  Instead, stars from the premier league of the litigation world kicking around opinions and ideas at the Modern Claims Conference 2014.

These are harrowing times for many litigation lawyers, particularly in the personal injury world, being shot at from all sides and paid progressively less for the privilege.For many, a large part of the problem is in actually securing work in the face of a ban on referral fees, the slashing of portal and fixed fees in relation to many claims and the bar on recovery now of additional liabilities from the losing party.

Meanwhile, the numbers of ABS grow and insurers happily carry on with whatever they are doing behind closed doors with their claims managers, their panel lawyers and their friends in the world of rehab.

In the midst of it all, up pops the relatively new public face of the Association of British Insurers (ABI) James Dalton with his latest idea.

He put it in terms that it is time for a public debate about whether people should be awarded any compensation for low value, very minor injury claims. The suggestion is that victims of such accidents should be provided with rehabilitation, but no cash.  Dalton says that is a “legitimate public policy debate for society to have and for politicians to decide on”. He added that he is not offering the answer to the question, simply suggesting that it should be raised and discussed.

I ran the concept past my teenage son at the weekend.  I explained to him that what this means is that if you have an accident and you are injured then insurers will (in theory) organize physiotherapy or whatever is required to sort out your minor injury but there will be no compensation for loss of earnings, pain and suffering, disability etc. 

My lad looked genuinely startled and asked me “what – is the man on drugs?”.

Well, no, he isn’t as far as I am aware and I wouldn't begin to suggest it but I agree with the spirit of my son’s spontaneous reaction. It made me think of the words of Elvis Costello:

“Men come screaming, dressed in white coats

Shake you very gently by the throat

One’s named Gus, one’s named Alfie

I don’t want to go to Chelsea”

This is madness. Even relatively minor injuries can result in a month or two off work.  The effects of that for a self-employed person or someone whose employer only pays SSP can be devastating, especially on top of all the other expenses and hassle that go with it. 

Are we seriously going to contemplate a society and culture where people are not required to compensate others for the damage and loss that their carelessness inflicts?

We are only here because insurers say it is too easy for people to obtain compensation by fraudulent claims.  In fact, it is only made simple because insurers find it cheaper to pay up and then use the statistics generated by their own perverse behaviour to try and convince us that virtually all small claims are fraudulent.

In the same way, insurers have historically stirred up the myth of compensation culture by creation of an entire industry that profits from the sale of people’s information without their knowledge or consent, taking at every opportunity payments that many consider contrary to the as yet under used 2010 Bribery Act. See How it works - car insurance

The ABI, through Mr Dalton, tell us that they deal in statistics rather than anecdotes. The problem with statistics .....ok, enough said.  The parliamentary Transport Sub-committee made that one clear enough last summer - Hey diddle diddle

The repugnance of anecdotes, so far as insurers are concerned, is that they are real stories and obviously so - Foxes and chickens, Livin’ Aviva loca

What’s more, they demonstrate behaviours of, in corporate and ideological terms, of a fairly small cross section of business which expects to wield enough integrity to put its feet under the table at 10 Downing Street and make its views known.

Is this truly a debate that we should have?  Why?

Perhaps it is suggested now because of expectations that a lot of people might be willing to take a short-sighted view of anything like this, as long as they are told it might save them money and they are not injured today. 

Added to that, there is a government which has proved itself willing in the past to do insurers’ bidding, and is looking for support in the run up now to the next general election. A government that cares very little for people with ‘low value’ claims.

We can easily foresee what the ABI and HMG will classify as ‘small’, can’t we? Five grand. 

For all those people who think that they might save a few quid by putting their hands up for something like this, look back at what has or has not happened even in recent times.  Note again the criticisms of the parliamentary sub-committee.

Have regard also to what David Williams of AXA said at the same conference – that premia would be rising again soon because the assumptions on which reductions had been made during the last twelve months had not turned to reality.

Well, the cuts in legal costs became reality and the ban on referral fees – at least for claimant firms doing their business out in the open – also happened so what went wrong with the plan?

It‘s quite simple.  It did not produce enough extra profit for the insurers.  It never will. The lions share - no, they don't and they won't.

I suggested a few weeks ago that the lunatics were taking over the asylum - Fun boy three From what I heard at Stamford Bridge a fortnight ago, that process is ongoing.

Access denied

Figures published yesterday tell us that the number of employment tribunal claims has plummeted since the introduction of fees in July last year.

Apparently, the number of claims fell by 75% in the third quarter of 2013 and 79% in the final three months of the year, by comparison with the same periods during 2012.

It is no coincidence that in July 2013 the government introduced fees payable by claimants both at the commencement of proceedings and prior to a hearing.  The levels vary but for typical and (previously) very common unfair dismissal claims the issue fee is £250 and the hearing fee a chunky £950.

I considered some while ago, before the changes were implemented, the likely impact of requiring dismissed employees to stump up more than £1,000 to bring claims the majority of which are probably well within five figures.  See Fire at will.

Add to the pain of claimants in finding that sort of money when they are out of a job, taking the risk of not recovering it if they lose or have to compromise, the pain of lawyers saying they would like to help but cannot.

 

The biggest problem in many cases is not the unwillingness to take risk or reluctance of the claimant to pay for a good result.  It is – again – the legislation introduced by our government that limits the amount that can be paid by the client to the lawyer out of the money recovered.

Meanwhile, I read that disabled people reliant on as little as £40 per week in benefits will have to pay a fee of £250 to mount an appeal.  This is no doubt a further measure required to stem the flow after too many claimants have to date succeeded with appeals, assisted by those damned lawyers with an overactive social conscience.

How on earth does anybody truly reliant on benefits find more than a month’s “income” to challenge the refusal to pay such a pitiful sum, when they are already in debt and before they even try to find help from law centres and advice bureaux that no longer exist or can’t cope?

Meanwhile in the civil courts we can’t get anything done because of the overload on people who don’t know how to do it. 

Little things like coping with the delay generated by one court asking us for a case number before they can process our paperwork.  The answer is that it is to be found, cunningly concealed at the top of our letter, alongside the prompt “Your Ref:”

Elsewhere in one of the notorious outer London courts we are trying to find out why, after we acknowledged service and came on record in proceedings and then had four or five exchanges of correspondence with the court office, the staff are now sending correspondence to our client direct.  We are also told that there is no sign of a defence and counterclaim at the court office – so I should like to know who has banked our cheque payable to the Court Service.

Whilst we are mucking about with this joyous stuff, will we manage to take our eye off the ball somewhere else and have some less pragmatic and power-crazed individual striking us out for applying the wrong coloured paperclip to a document one day last summer? Do as I say...not as I do.

What a shambles.

None of this really matters of course because in the main, certainly with tribunal claims and disability benefit, we are only talking about piddling little sums.  We will all sit and wait for the next attack on the small claims limit for personal injury actions, no doubt when Direct Lying and chums decide that the hundreds of millions of pounds of profit they have made this year still isn’t enough.  

What’s Five grand anyway?

Again that will be done by knee-capping the legal representatives, taking away the ability to recover costs from the wrongdoer – to make the polluter pay.

It won’t be done by change in the law.  In all of these areas, your rights and entitlements are still there.  You’re just not allowed to assert them.

"Splendid value"

Well, it’s been a frightfully dull February so far at Spentitt Hall if I say so myself.

As if we hadn’t enough to worry about with the wurzels racking up huge claims to refurb their flooded hovels, those oikies at This is Money went and blew the whistle on the staff who were trying their best to make amends for the alleged underpayment of nearly 800,000 villagers who parked their life savings with us.

Apparently our chaps have been a tad slow in dealing with the matter and it’s taken seven years to reimburse £163 million to around 390,000 of these coves. We’ve now had to promise (cross heart hope to die and all that) to deal with the other half in record time – have it all tidied up by the end of next year and what not.

I’m not really au fait with all this technological mumbo-jumbo but Lady Geek-Geek, as Higson and I refer to her (sotto voce of course) has been on that interweb thingy and found the gruesome detail

Anyway, one’s tucked away just under a third of a mill to cover these claims which are reported to have occurred because of ‘technical errors’ we’re said to have known about since 2007!

Now Lady Brassick’s pulling out what little hair the poor thing has left following all the hue and cry about this alleged data security breach. They’re saying that tens of thousands of chaps and chapesses who’d had a prang whilst insured with yours truly have had their intimate details sold by a couple of domestics.

I’ve given Higson a bit of a grilling on this subject and he’s assured me that everything should be tickety-boo. Although it says quite clearly in our Privacy Policy (might need to rename that, on reflection - ha ha) that we’re allowed to share personal information with our ‘service providers’, since m’learned friends made such a fuss about referral fees or some such nonsense a while ago we’ve had to be a bit careful not to lend credence to any of this “brown envelope” tittle-tattle.

The bewigged ones just won’t leave it alone of course, forever whining about the new ABS project even though it’s perfectly legit. They will harp on about it being all MI6 and “behind closed doors”.

Now Old Aunty’s been rummaging through the dirt and produced this report featuring some chap who had the nerve to say "I assumed this was normal industry practice, that a car insurance company would disclose this information to third parties. I didn't know any better." Really, I ask you.

Well Higson assures me the culprits have been sacked and there’ll be no scurrilous suggestions from the ambulance-chasers that these tiresome telephone calls are a result of anything other than the footmen running a bit of a sideline on the QT.

Lady Geek-Geek remains inconsolable, poor old thing. She’s spent hours on that new-fangled box of tricks of hers weeping over this extract from the grilling that poor Clayden endured, whilst he was head butler, on a trip up to Town last year:

“Q182 Karen Lumley: How do they get the information that these people have had accidents? Do they get them from you?

Dominic Clayden: No. Whether it is a claims management company or whatever, a fraud ringdoesn’t—

Q183 Karen Lumley: I am not talking about a fraud ring; I am talking about people who get whiplash. How do people get hold of them?

Dominic Clayden: You are probably best to ask the people giving evidence later. My understanding is that it is by advertising.

Q184 Karen Lumley: You don’t sell details on to them?

Dominic Clayden: Not to accident or claims management companies, no.

Q185 Chair: Are you absolutely sure about that?

Dominic Clayden: Do I refer claims to solicitors? Yes.

Q186 Karen Lumley: Do you sell those details on?

Dominic Clayden: Not since the change in the law in that situation. I do not receive a referral fee.

Q187 Chair: But you did before then.

Dominic Clayden: Absolutely. We have been a strong advocate of the ban on referral fees and the reduction of the legal fees that go with it. It is the nature of the system. The reality is that, to remain competitive in a market where something is legal, we referred and took a referral fee. We still refer people to solicitors but we do not take a referral fee.

Q188 Chair: We have had quite a lot of evidence saying that insurers themselves often generate claims. The Government have said that they would like to see you, the insurance companies, address behaviours that encourage excessive and unnecessary claims within their own business models. It appears that the Government think that you are the people who are generating the claims. Are they wrong?

James Dalton: As Dominic has said, the system has changed very recently.

Q189 Chair: But before it changed you were guilty of this, were you?

James Dalton: The industry has long said that there is a dysfunctional compensation culture

in the UK and that we are part of the problem.

Q190 Chair: What I am putting to you is that part of that dysfunctional system is the behaviour of the insurance companies. That is what the Government say.

James Dalton: Yes; and we have admitted that the insurance industry has played a part in that dysfunctional system, which is why we made a very strong case for the banning of the payment and receipt of referral fees.” 

(See more at Hey diddle diddle)

And I thought these modern motors were meant to be trouble-free! 

Anyhow, must dash. The old dear’s muttering something about tablets and laptops. I think the pressure may be getting to her finally. More ghastly weather on the way so best try to plug the leaks and so forth. Pip pip!

Do as I say..

Today we made one of those routine calls to the litigation capital in East Lancashire to find out why we still have not received notice of issue of proceedings in a case where we sent paperwork up North eleven days ago.

We were met with a familiar response.  To date “nothing has been logged on the system” although they are “currently 8 days behind”.  The suggestion is that we telephone again at the end of the week if we have not heard and they will look in to it further.

I should add that we haven’t telephoned before now because the most common response is that they are just 6 days behind.  They have been “behind” by that sort of period of time since the office opened, as far as I can recall.

Closer to home, we had instructions to issue a bankruptcy petition shortly before Christmas.  We sent the papers off to the debtor’s local court here in the West Country.

For various reasons, it was not the sort of thing to chase in the week before the festive period but we were on to it at the start of January.  We discovered that the petition had been issued on 18 December but the sealed copies had not been sent to us.  We got things moving, but were now hampered by the delay where the hearing date was at the end of January and personal service is required at least 14 days beforehand.

Our debtor does not want to play and has evaded service.  Despite our agent’s valiant efforts, time ran out and the petition was returned.  We asked for it to be relisted and at the same time submitted an application for an order for service by another means as it is now called, substituted service being a much too sophisticated term of art for the modern court user.

The application was returned to us without action and had to be resubmitted.  Meanwhile, having then been sent a notice of adjourned hearing date (that we could not yet serve) we remarked on the fact that the court was now spelling the debtor’s surname incorrectly.

After further chasing, last week, we received an order from the court.  It arrived a week after it left the district judge’s desk and too late for us to serve it, and the petition, ahead of the second hearing date. Even if we’d had time to serve it, we could not have done for these reasons. 

First, it recites that the district judge read a letter that does not exist.  Secondly, it has two “it is ordered that” sections, the first containing only two recitals.

Finally and most conspicuously, the (in)operative part of the order tells us that “the insertion of a sealed copy of the above mentioned petition together with a sealed copy of this order through the letterbox of [debtor’s address]....” – and it stops there.  So it is ineffective.

Oh, and the debtor's name is incorrect. Again.

The same court fairly recently sent us an order in another case which recited nothing but the fact that it had been in front of a district judge who then allegedly ordered that:-

"(1) The claimant should send a copy to the defendant’s (sic); and

(2) As both defendant’s (sic) reside within jurisdiction of xxxxxx County Court, so the matter be transferred there.”

When we enquired as to what it was that the claimant should send a copy of to the defendants then after another typical delay, we were told that it is a copy of the last letter that we sent to the court – which presumably was writing to defendants anyway to send a copy of this cryptic order.

When the Salford operation and the local courts start to interact (in the most ironic sense) we get what have become almost routine letters from the local courts, asking for a copy of the defence “as this was not on the court file when transferred”. Bear in mind that the only reason the file was transferred from Salford is that a defence was filed. 

The pain doesn’t end when you have judgment. In one recent case the CCMCC sent us the form from Registry Trust (which keeps the register of county court judgments) asking whether the defendant was “two individual’s (sic) or a one firm name” to which the smart answer was to look at the claim form we filed at the outset with “(A firm)” after the defendant’s name.

Just a few short highlights of everyday life dealing with the Court Service – the delay, the additional expense, the frustration – ours that we feel and our clients’ that we field.

Meanwhile...

For those who haven’t heard, there was this bloke called Mitchell who used to be the government chief whip.  He lost his job because of a lying policeman – presumably no longer laughing since he went to prison.  Mitchell issued libel proceedings against the publishers of The Sun. See Cracking the whip for more

The rest is recent history where ultimately the Court of Appeal said that it was right to impose a penalty on Mr Mitchell and his lawyers which would effectively deprive him or them of perhaps more than £500,000 in costs if successful in the defamation proceedings.

All that because a very complex, detailed document was filed late – six days late.

The Master of the Rolls, Lord Dyson, explained to a packed Court of Appeal that “there now has to be a shift away from exclusively focusing on doing justice in the individual case”.

That judgment has encouraged a subsequent spate of seemingly ridiculous applications.  In Lakatamia Shipping Co v Nobo Su there was a delay by one party of just 46 minutes in complying with an order for disclosure of documents.  The other side took the point and argued that the defence should be struck out.

In Meehan v Manley & Churchill Insurance Company the parties had agreed in the summer of 2013 an extension of time for service of witness statements.  There was seemingly no prejudice to anybody.

After the Mitchell judgment, the defendant took the line that the claimant could not rely on those witness statements because they had not been served in compliance with the court’s previous timetable and the agreement between the parties was ineffective to vary that.

Happily, in both of the cases referred to, a sensible outcome was achieved.  Forty six minutes was deemed – quite rightly – to be “trivial” and the stance taken with regard to the historic breach of the timetable for witness statements was condemned as “opportunistic”. It was said that if relief were not granted, “procedure would, in fact, become the mistress rather than the handmaiden of justice”

Further encouragement comes this week with the announcement from the Royal Courts of a new Practice Direction that allows parties to agree extensions of time of 28 days without application to the court, as long as hearing dates are not compromised.  That is expected to become a procedural rule but in the meantime we can only hope that it “appears on the system” of various county courts.

There seems a mixture of excitement and trepidation - that many are creeping around with the feeling that this is nothing short of (welcome) mutiny on the part of one or two brave judges who can see what a ridiculous state of affairs we have reached.

The punishing Mitchell edition of The Hunger Games is bad enough on its own but stack this alongside the increasingly inept, illiterate and inefficient service that has become standard within our court service and it becomes all the more bizarre.

There is a risk, to pinch out of similar context the phrase of a high court judge in another case early this year, that we are going to “bring the rules of procedure and the law generally into disrepute”.

It is already there and it needs pulling back – fast. 

Prime time !

Reading earlier the reported prediction from LV= that car insurance premia will soon rise, even after Grayling has kicked the stuffing out of the personal injury claims industry and slashed costs for his insurer chums, reminded me of another display of efficiency and integrity I enjoyed last month.

It’s home insurance renewal time and I noticed that my current provider is now inviting a premium that adds nearly 50% to the figure at which I signed up with them three years ago, despite having had no claims and no significant change in circumstances. Odd, huh?

So, I head for the comparison websites and labour through the task of completing all the detail required by three of the top names. Amidst the results I am looking for a competitive price from a provider I am reasonably sure will not go bust. There are plenty of them offering the same cover for far less than I am invited to pay by my current insurer - and quite a few quoting less than I paid three years ago.

All good so far and one of the offers I think I will check out is from Admiral in Cardiff. I’m inclined to forgive them the ridiculous adverts on Dave that so annoy me. At least they are in a position to advertise hour upon hour, night after night.

Apparently I have to telephone them. That’s disappointing when I appear to have in front of me a “Quote” – “Platinum quote”, in fact - based on the detailed information that I have entered. Nevertheless...

My first telephone conversation is with a helpful young chap called Lee. I didn’t think it too surprising that he would want to check a few further details.

After no less than 40 minutes on the telephone, going through exactly the same stuff that I had entered on the website, I asked him how much longer it’s going to take. He thought about 10 minutes. I explained that I had never expected to have to spend so long on the telephone after all the time I had spent on the internet the day before and I had an appointment to go to.

No problem. Lee would ring me back the following day. We agreed a time. In my rush, I didn’t get a surname to accompany my "quote" reference.

When, towards the end of the following day, I hadn’t heard from Lee I telephoned Admiral again. Chloe, another chirpy young lady, couldn’t begin to tell me which “Lee” I might have spoken to yesterday because they have so many. Maybe she could help…

Sadly, she also couldn’t begin to tell me where we had got to within the proposal because there was apparently no record of anything I had talked to Lee about for nearly three quarters of an hour the previous day.

Understanding my reluctance to waste another 40 minutes of my life on the telephone, Chloe took me through all the detail again as quickly as she could and then told me that one area of cover required for portable items slightly exceeded normal criteria and she would need to refer to underwriters for approval. She would ring me back. Hmm – heard that one before somewhere..

I am guessing that after nearly a month, neither she nor Lee will be ringing back. I resolved in the meantime to have a look at some of the other prices obtained during my research the weekend before.

Following the link to the site of another reputable provider quoting slightly more, I was able to read and approve that company’s bespoke proposal form already populated with virtually all the information I had entered on the comparison website. One or two assumptions needed correcting but otherwise it was as I had already indicated – no more, no less. 

At the end of that process I had an emailed quotation (a real one) good for a month for me to accept at any time, simply by clicking and paying by my chosen method. No more telephone calls. The cover is as I requested, not limited or subject to any further enquiries.

During the long conversations with the people at Admiral I was asked which site I had used to generate my “quote” from them. In this particular case it was Compare the Market. 

I was told twice that the problem with that particular site is that they do not pass on as much information to insurers as the others and so they have to ask all these further questions. I was of course also warned that at the end of the process they might ‘quote’ me a higher price.

I never got to the end so can’t actually confirm what seems to me was inevitable.

What I did do was to look back and check the online proposal of which I saved my own static copy to satisfy myself that it had all the information that I was asked for on the telephone, including the detail within the category that reportedly exceeded criteria. All of this had been used to generate a “quote” which was of course the main reason why I then went on to contact that particular provider.

So, the bottom line appears to be that I am lured in by a price that they say that they are then going to vary for no obvious good reason and in the meantime the Meerkats get blamed – it seems unfairly. They can’t even be bothered to call me back and try to complete the dubious exercise.

I’m not sure about the adverts...... but the service is rubbish