The Sun has reported that an irate Tracey Fox was so sick of a company failing to fix her washing machine that she imprisoned a repair man in her house.
Fed-up Tracey hasn’t been able to use her washing machine since before Christmas, despite a series of visits from service engineers.
And when the latest repair man said he was going to leave her home without fixing her machine Tracey saw red, locking the doors to her house and refusing to let him leave.
Speaking about her protest the grandmother said: “I’m not proud of what I did but felt as though there was no other option.”
Tracey, of Thornley, County Durham, bought her Hoover washing machine less than a year ago from Currys, but claims since then she has had nothing but trouble.
She explained: “I bought the machine in February last year and by October I was having problems with it. An engineer came out and said there was a problem with the motherboard.
“It was fixed and I thought everything would be fine but just before Christmas it broke down again.”
A series of appointments after the festive break failed to fix the problem. It was during the last appointment on January 13 that Tracey, who sufferers from depression, decided to act.
She said: “People say they don’t mind helping out but you begin to feel guilty after a while. Electricity costs so much these days you feel as if you are taking advantage of people.
“When the engineer did eventually turn up he just took a quick look around and said the problem was a twopence piece which had become stuck. He didn’t replace the parts the other engineer had said needed replacing. He wasn’t even going to attempt to fix it.
“I’m not proud of myself but I decided that I wasn’t going to let him out of the house. It is still under the year guarantee.
“I told him he might as well dial 999 now because he wasn’t going to leave the house until my washer was sorted out.
“I locked all the doors and wouldn’t let him out. He then phoned his manager and I think the manager must have called the police.
“The police did eventually turn up but I had relented by that stage and had freed him.”
Durham Police confirmed they were called to an incident. Currys did not comment.
And for anyone reading this and thinking of employing a similar tactic, it is against the law to imprison an engineer and irrespective of the circumstances you will be breaking the law if you do this.