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The column for anyone fed up with bureaucracy, frustrated with delays or furious with poor service. Tell us your complaint and we'll try to fix it ...

NOW Broadband TV customer Kevin Tang complained that he had been trying to cancel his service subscription for seven months, but continued to be charged while he waited for customer service to call him back to confirm his cancellation.

'My contract [HK$138 special offer] expired in January 2006. I called them in December 2005 and informed them not to renew the contract. They told me that I had to wait for their call in January for the cancellation,' Mr Tang said.

He said PCCW did not call him back but instead renewed his contract without notifying him.

He called again in March and visited a PCCW shop, but again was told to wait for a call back. PCCW left a message on his answering machine but left no contact number.

'I immediately called back their customer service hotline,' Mr Tang said.

'They said I had to wait for their next call. I got so angry with the operator that I instructed him to cancel my contract immediately. Finally, the operator agreed to cancel the contract for me.'

But by June he was still being charged.

After Mr Tang complained to the Consumer Council, PCCW told him he could cancel his contract in July and that the company would not charge him a penalty for early termination, even though his contract was due to expire in January 2007.

When he asked for a refund, he was told that since he had been watching NOW TV during those seven months, he could not be refunded the money.

Hans Leung, corporate communications manager at PCCW, said: 'We apologise for any inconvenience caused by any miscommunication with our staff.

'To protect our customers, we have a team to call the customer back to make sure he/she did indeed ask for the termination. We were able to resolve the issue with the customer.'

Mr Tang said PCCW had agreed to refund the full seven months' subscription within six weeks.

'I still haven't received the money but I think they will keep the promise this time,' he said.

Pradip Agarwal bought a BMW convertible in 2003 and sent it for regular service to BMW, where he was told his brake pads and discs needed to be changed because the brake discs were rusty.

The pads and discs were replaced and Mr Agarwal drove his car to his covered car park and did not drive it for a month.

On July 22, he took the car for a drive and noticed the brakes were jerking the 'same as before'. He sent the car back to BMW and was told three days later that the brake discs were rusty again and needed to be changed.

'This was a complete shock to me,' Mr Agarwal said.

'The car was hardly driven 50km after its last repair in less than a month. This time, I refused to accept their reason that this happened because my maid left water on the discs after washing and did not dry them.

'If their brake discs can get rusty just like that then I can't drive this car in the rain and if I dare to drive, I must stop my car every 10 minutes and wipe these discs.'

Mr Agarwal said his maid had been on holiday during the month between servicing the car and finding the rust, so it had not been washed.

He added that he also owned a Mercedes-Benz, which was washed by his maid, but its brake discs had not become rusty.

Elsie Chan, of BMW, said the company had replaced the brake discs with new ones in June.

BMW collected the car from Mr Agarwal following his complaint and 'on investigation, we found that all front and rear brake discs were rusty', Ms Chan said.

She said the rust was not due to the quality of BMW's parts but had occurred because of the way the customer maintained his car.

'If the car is used infrequently, any water left on the brake discs will corrode the surface of the brake discs and cause the rust. If the customer continues this practice, we're afraid the same will happen again in future.'

BMW has offered free labour to replace the discs but said Mr Agarwal would have to pay for the parts.