The only thing that worked smoothly was them taking their fee at the outset. Repaircare cited every excuse in the book to refuse a refund. After a lot of hemming and hawing (and excuses that were found out) they refunded some of the fee retaining a "call-out fee" citing a T&C condition that was simply untrue. After hitting a brick wall with Repaircare for the remaining money of mine that they unfairly held on to, I raised a chargeback (idiotically I didn't use a credit card as otherwise I could have gone down the much stronger section 75 refund route) and the card company refunded the balance that Repaircare had held on to, thus making me whole again. For others in my position (Repaircare (or it's local contractor) promising one thing and delivering another and refusing to refund) my advice would be to use the Section 75 refund process (if you used a credit card and it cost £100+) or the card company's chargeback process (any amount, debit or credit card) to get your money back. Just remember that you need to have tried to get a refund from Repaircare first before going down this route. So, don't be a chump, use the consumer tools available to you. For the Martin Lewis guides that I used to get my refund, just google 'MSE chargeback'