Berenice - That is all well and good - a nice notion. but the fact is that they have given her enough time and she has failed to meet the repayments - to the tune of hundreds of dollars in dishonour fees from her bank alone.

They have a contract and are in no way bound by anything to give her ANY payment plans, let alone the 2 she has already defaulted on. It is called bad risk, and unfortunately, that is something 1sttime has in spades.

The ombudsman will do nothing because the company is well within their rights and are not behaving unreasonably - they are simply repossessing the goods and foreclosing the contract.
I understand what you're saying Lime, but I respectfully disagree

First of all, she has always kept them informed of her financial status and ability to make repayments, rather than waiting until they start chasing her to say 'Oh, I lost my job'.

Secondly, I had the same thing with a phone contract, and unknowingly didn't make any payment for 5 months. When they finally contacted me, they demanded full payment by the end of the week or they would disconnect us. I took it to the Ombudsman because I had offerred a payment plan, paying as much as I could off the debt while paying all incoming bills, and they signed me up to the plan, and then said they would disconnect anyway. I never disputed that I would have to pay the money, I was only disputing the deadline, as I believe 1sttime is. Loooong story short, I won and didn't end up having to pay the debt at all, and my credit history was fixed.

So basically, while the company is definitely entitled to reposess, by going about it the way they have, despite 1sttimes efforts, they may have shot themselves in the foot ITMS