Jay

My friend's recovery was flawless. He spoke to ADAC on four different occasions while in France (they phoned him three time to make sure he was getting the service he wanted) and once from the UK. Each time there was an English speaker available. I've spoken to two different people there this week to pay my premium and they both spoke perfect English. I would like to know why we cannot have much better service in France? If I'm away form home in France, Spain, UK, Italy or elsewhere I don't want my car taken to a local garage, I want repatriation for both family and car to my home or a garage of my choice. Your experience only reinforces the need for a decent recovery service.

So what is the problem with ADAC? My only objection is paying for the recovery service included in the insurance premium but cannot think of any other way around it. At least a breakdown near or at home is covered by the insurance whereas ADAC only starts 50km from home, so in effect all contingencies are covered. If you had  been covered by ADAC at the time of your breakdown you would not have had any problem with recovery to home, hire car etc.

No such thing in France as far as I know. My insurance Co. said if you are near home and ask the recovery service they MAY take you home. I suggest you look at ADAC, I have been a member for a couple of years now and recently a friend of mine used that service, he was repatriated home off the motorway and given a hire car to complete his journey . See the thread below for past discussion: http://services.completefrance.com/forums/completefrance/cs/forums/2937002/ShowPost.aspx

[quote user="powerdesal"]Shouldn't every driver be capable of changing a wheel themselves rather than calling out a rescue service ?[/quote]. All been said before http://services.completefrance.com/forums/completefrance/cs/forums/3071212/ShowPost.aspx

At least they sent a reply (via email) to my letter which is more that I expected.

A response from EDF following my request for a refund: Vous nous faites part de difficultés que vous rencontrez. Croyez bien que je le regrette. Afin de vous apporter la réponse la mieux adaptée, j'ai demandé au service concerné de me fournir tous les éléments nécessaires au bon traitement de votre demande. Je ne manquerai pas de vous faire connaître notre réponse dans un délai de 30 jours. Je tiens à vous remercier de nous avoir fait part de votre réclamation. Il est en effet très important pour nous de connaître votre point de vue, afin de tout mettre en œuvre pour répondre au mieux à vos attentes et conserver toute votre confiance. You can but hope!

I've been using the online service to print stamps for letters and parcels for a long time now. There have been a couple of glitches where the stamp has not printed but that was a while ago when they were updating the website. I was given a refund without any problem. IMO up to 48 hours is reasonable time for anyone to expect a refund.

[quote user="Mrs Trellis"]ooh dear! Looks like there might be more than one visit.[/quote] Why is that then? As Sid said it is quite straight forward. Take in the documents they require and you get your new licence within a couple of weeks. It is one of the simplest dealings with the French authorities we have ever had.

[quote user="Gardian"] Can you make that an accessible link?  [/quote] http://www.france-info.co.uk/PDFS/Electricity%20tax%20refund%20April%202014.pdf

[quote user="Judith"]even hubby who had a year of ops and treatment for kidney stones, for which he would have paid dearly for a  mutuelle because of his history with this complaint .. [/quote] That is not the case, top-up does not in any way depend on your past medical record.

Media Hint is still free. I'm not sure why you needed to log in but I am using it all the time and have not had that problem. If you go to their website you are asked to log in to download but there is an option for email/password, not just facebook. If you just need to install the add-on then go direct to the firefox site and there is no log-in required (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-hint/). Once installed it automatically updates.

[quote user="Quillan"]You can of course watch BBC IPlayer abroad quite legally if you pay the BBC (according to their website) which would imply that by watching through websites like Expat Shield you are actually stealing from the BBC etc. [/quote] So where does it say that on the BBC website? In the FAQ it categorically states " Can I use BBC iPlayer outside the UK? Rights agreements mean that BBC iPlayer television programmes are only available to users to download or stream (Click to Play) in the UK. Now that seems pretty clear to me. There is no implication of theft as far as I can see.

[quote user="Jako"] Watching online is actually illegal...... [/quote] Is it? If you want to watch BBC iPlayer etc. on your computer without using something like Expat Shield then try using Firefox with the add-on Media Hint. It's free, no adverts and no huge program using up your bandwidth. https://mediahint.com/

[quote user="nectarine"]not last night but today the internet suddenly died on us![/quote] The network I am on went down in the early hours of today and was back up by about 11am, It would be interesting to know the reasons behind the outages. I do not believe for a minute SW17 that your emails would not work because they are "evolving" the system, that is totally unacceptable. By the way would it not be best to amend the errors in the title for this  thread?

[quote user="John Brown"]Thanks for that Jay & Gardian Did win £2500 once so still in credit [/quote] Blimey the most I have won is 200€. Going for the big one this week 15 million!

[quote user="Gardian"]www.fdjeux.com is the 'pukka' site, although Jay's suggestion obviously works. [quote user="Jay"]I always check my ticket in the little machine in the supermarket or ask the girl behind the counter for the same numbers and hand her last weeks ticket. She puts the ticket through the machine and it shows if there is a win. [/quote] I've always wondered about doing that.  What's to stop the person checking your ticket just saying "Nothing", when in fact it was a winner?  Academic for me anyway, because any ticket that I've ever bought has been a loser![:(] [/quote] When she checks the ticket there is a window on the machine that tells you how much you have won and how much there is to collect/pay for the next one. A shopkeeper in the UK was done, not so long ago, for doing exactly what you said. I may be wrong but I don't think they have the machines in supermarkets in the UK for Jo public to check whether they have won.

There are a few sites out there just google "Euromillions France". This one seems quite clear http://www.secretsdujeu.com/euromillion/resultat I always check my ticket in the little machine in the supermarket or ask the girl behind the counter for the same numbers and hand her last weeks ticket. She puts the ticket through the machine and it shows if there is a win.

[quote user="PaulT"]Yes, basically Livebox France to equivalent of Livebox in UK with the intention of accessing on demand TV from France but not being blocked because of a non UK IP address.[/quote] I'm still not sure what the benefit would be? Why not just use something like CyberGhost (http://cyberghostvpn.com/) when you are in France. Choose a UK IP address and watch as much UK TV as you wish. Choose the free version which I find works exceptionally well.

[quote user="PaulT"]Can I and if I can how: Obviously I can log in to my router in the UK using its address but can I login to the UK router from my French Internet connection and then access sites from the UK router. Specifically, login from France and access TV on demand services so that those services see a UK IP address.[/quote] I suspect you will need something like https://secure.logmein.com/ , not cheap but there must be others out there. Edit: re-reading your post "login from France and access TV on demand services so that those services see a UK IP address". Why would you want to do this when it's possible to do it from France anyway?

[quote user="PaulT"]Any recommendations on a quad LNB - on the basis that it is an important item in the chain.[/quote] I've just bought one of THESE - works well, no complaints. It arrived in France within 3 days from Germany at reasonable cost.

[quote user="Pierre ZFP"]I was told (and you might want to check) that you can only download books from B&N Europe which is quite restricted and you cannot download from B&N USA if you are not in the Americas. This may or may not be a disadvantage to you (I too use a little light with my Kindle) [/quote] No idea who told you this but it is rubbish. We have a Nook and there are any number of places to buy/download ebooks.

[quote user="John Brown"]Thanks for all the advise and comments I'll have to go to the Service Desk next visit, cos I don't remember getting or setting up a pin code ( might be my mind playing tricks ! ) Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all ps If you are going "home" have a safe journey [/quote] We recently used our "credit" but couldn't remember the 4 digit pin. The girl on the checkout said most people couldn't remember so they write the number on the card, which sort of defeats the object! We asked at the desk (no ID required), got our pin (wifeys birthday) and wrote it on the card for next time.

Lehaut - it would be of interest to me (and I'm sure other people) if you would give the name of the company you are dealing with.

I went for months with a similar problem with Alice. Internet and phone stopped working every night around 10ish, couple of hours at first then all night and eventually part of the day then sometimes all day as well. Problem was worse in cold and/or wet weather. 20 phone calls later (using a mobile) we gave up talking to the morons and changed ISP. A week with the new provider and the problem was found to be a FT junction box that had not been sealed and as Q pointed out condensation on a nightime or rain made the line go down. As a footnote Alice received my router back (signed for) but a year later I received a demand from a debt recovery place in Paris for none return - needles to say I told them to go forth and multiply. I can't understand why yours should try to update all the time but it must be linked to the line problem.

I've bought CD's from them before although they were not 'discounted'. After reading your story I will certainly not use them again!