It reads like you have your case well in hand, but I don’t think it is as much as case of conflict of interest as it is corporate malfeasance.
Your saga seems to reflect business at its worst. Make sure you have every piece of evidence including all your emails, Coldflow responses, and call logs and notes, as well as evidentiary photos and remedial quotations, and a copy of your contract and the ACL in hand, probably best in hardcopy, as reference and evidence. There are anecdotal reports VCAT sometimes allows legal types to participate and acts as if they are a court of law grabbing onto technicalities; sometimes they focus on a mediated solution not one that redresses the victimised party; and as with a court, if it is not in front of their face and presented on the day it does not exist. Anecdotal reports imply the process can be unpredictable sometimes yet goes down the straight and narrow other times.
I look forward to hearing about your outcome at VCAT.
Hi 27375
It has been a long time between posts but finally got the time to revisit some comments. I contacted both the associations you suggested and neither had any interest in getting involved… guess I wasn’t surprised really.
We did have a reasonable outcome which I will post shortly for those that are interested.
Hi PhilT
It has been 12 months since my post. We ended up going to VCAT in July (7 months after the installation) and submitting CCTV footage and photographs of the installation and floor/furniture damage. Even drove into King Street and lodged the documentation personally. We also had to serve the documents to the Manager of the aircon company, and because we didn’t trust them we hand delivered it all to their office. The person that took the documents from us was a rude arrogant piece of work, and the final straw for me. I went home, wrote up a timeline of events, named names and then sent it by registered mail to all the Directors of the company at their home address’s listed on the ASIC report.
Long story short about the actual Zoom hearing, the case had to be mediated 1st and we had been told if there was no resolution it would go before the magistrate?? on the same day. It was obvious from the start that other than my husband and myself, nobody else had even bothered to look at the photos or CCTV footage, or read the timeline of the unfolding disastrous installation. The Aircon company wouldn’t accept their installers were at fault, saying they had drop sheets down blah blah blah. We pointed them to the photos showing the drop sheet was only under the ladder, and if they had bothered looking at the documentation they would have known that the area they were working in was the size of a small room. The benefit of Zoom was we took the device into the room so they could see it and the rest of the area lol
Still wouldn’t accept responsibility, but in the interest of “Goodwill” offered us a laughable settlement which we rejected.
Mediator advised that it would go before the magistrate but it wouldn’t be that day, and would most likely be a 3+ months delay. I was at my wits end by then, so we told them we would accept half the cost of repairs, and we wanted it documented as part of the settlement that they had to send another tech person to inspect the installation and get these aircons installed and working correctly. The Manager said he was under the impression that everything had been rectified… clearly hadn’t read a damn thing. He said he would get someone out that week, and true to his word he did.
He rang me to arrange for his guy to come out, and requested a face to face meeting with us… sure, whatever, just fix the aircons, pay the agreed amount and get out of my life.
He arrived on time, and the first words out of his mouth were “We have let you down from the very beginning of this whole mess” He admitted that not one person we spoke to had the interest of the customer at heart, and there was going to be a big shake up of their processes. I said well I accept your apology but suspect it is only forthcoming because we wrote to the directors. He also advised that the balance of the Invoice that I refused to pay until the aircons were working, had been cancelled. Now that was a surprise, because added to the settlement agreement it almost covered the cost of the damage repair.
The service guy tested each of the 3 units, acknowledged that not one was working correctly, and over 2 days did a complete overhaul of the units. It is only in the last couple of weeks that we have really been able to test them, and finally 14 months after the initial installation we can put this matter behind us.
So, a bit long winded saga but we got there in the end, albeit a bit jaded. Hope I haven’t put you too sleep!
Thank you so much for closing the loop, and with details. It reads like it was a wild and rocky experience nobody should need go through, but with a good ending.
