Several years ago, we bought, on the same date and from the same store, a Hotpoint washing machine and Tumble dryer (two separate machines). At the same time, we took out extended warranties on the machines through Know How (an oxymoron, if ever there was one) and continued with the cover after the five-year warranties expired. A couple of weeks ago, the tumble dryer started making noises, so we called up the warranty number and arranged for a visit. 5 days after the call, a Team Know How numpty arrived and we left him to it to fix the tumble dryer in our utility room. Eventually, he came out of the utility room and told us that we needed a new motor as it was on the way out, but he'd made some temporary repairs and it was safe to use it - he told us the part was on order, should be with us a in few days and he left. About an hour later, the dryer packed up altogether. That's not the issue, but it's where the "fun" started: That evening, we realised that the utility room in which the engineer was working was cold and the radiator was not working. I tried turning the thermostat but was unable to do so, so we ended up calling in a plumber to fix the problem. The problem transpired to be that the Know How engineer had felt hot and, without asking/telling us that he'd done it, he turned off the radiator and he'd forgotten to turn it back on again when he left. In fact, he'd turned it off so tight I was unable to turn it back on again. As we'd been told the part would be with us in a few days (three, to be exact), during the time we were without a dryer, we had to send our bulky laundry (sheets and towels) to a local company for service washes (3 in total, each at a cost of £15, making another £45 we had to outlay (as it turned out, unnecessarily). My wife and I both work and were unable to go to the laundry ourselves. Thursday 31st January we received a text from Know How to say that the part was delayed. Friday 1st February I asked for a status update and was told it was unable to be fixed before the timeframe allowed of 7 days from first attending, so I requested a replacement. I also complained about the fact that my plumber would be charging us for the work when it was neglect on Know How's part and they offered me a goodwill gesture of £25 to go towards the cost of the plumber callout. Following my request to have the machine replaced, we eventually received a voucher code for the old machine on 4th Feb for £249. This meant we were still having to buy the new dryer from Currys. I went into our local Currys PC World in Brook Retail Park, having determined the pricematch from several online stores. The store matched the 2nd lowest price I found - £5 above the lowest, but let's not split hairs. The new dryer, cost an additional £146 including delivery, installation and removal of the old one. It's working fine. However, a few days later, the washing machine started leaking. As I said above, this machine was bought on exactly the same day and in the same store as the dryer (Harlow 17th January 2012) and both were on extended warranties. We called Know How again. This time, a HOTPOINT engineer came and fixed it. During the fix, my wife asked him whether he fixed dryers to which he answered "yes". She explained to him what had gone on and he was very surprised at two things 1) Why the call wasn't put through to his company? Apparently they are the only Hotpoint engineers in the area. 2) Given that the motor is a standard part that he carries in his van as a matter of course, why was there such a delay in obtaining the motor? After complaining to Currys Customer Service I received the following quote from the email I received: "The reason a Hotpoint engineer was not called was because your product was not inside a manufacturers warranty. Hotpoint do complete repairs outside of manufacturing warranty on washing machines and washer dryers as their is a piece of kit that only they can fit but with tumble dryers outside warranty the repair would be done by us as per the agreement you signed up for with us" Nowhere in the agreement were we told this was the case for dryers, nor were we informed of this at the time we took out the further extensions. We had always been sent Hotpoint engineers previously. To check on this, we called Hotpoint and asked them if they still fixed dryers on extended warranties outside of the manufacturer's warranty. Guess what...? We said to Currys that we believed it had already been determined that to replace the motor would have been cost-Ineffective (and thereby sucking my wallet dry of a further £146). The Hoptoint engineer also said that the part was standard and carried on his van as a matter of course. Had the Hotpoint guy been called to attend, he would have been able to swap out the motor on THAT DAY and we would be happy customers, with our £146 (plus the £45 for the laundry services) still in the bank and still using the dryer that we liked and had used for 7 years. Currys "apologised" for the inconvenience, but basically, as far as they're concerned, we're shafted. I've given them until 28th February to come up with the refund or I'm referring them to Trading Standards. It's a pity there isn't a rating lower than one star.