No faith in Mediation

I sat down with a mediator for my assessment and £60 plus 20 minutes later after being rushed out of the door because she ''had a train to catch'' i was gone.

Seven days later i received a letter saying the company had gone into administration and my case was being transferred to the National Family Mediators.

I have not heard anything in 4 months from NFM and my £60 has not been refunded. It is now obvious that the first company took my money in the knowledge they would be going bang!

Questions:
Will i ever see my £60 again and if so, who do i chase for it?
Is there a mediation ombudsman?




Three sessions of mediation.
First session -
Couldn''t agree arrangements for children.
My wife has the children, so you would expect she would have to do the compromising. I was seeing children Tue, Wed, Thur after school until 6pm then Sat 10-6pm. I expected that it would just be a case of adding an overnight stay on at the weekend as my wife said my children wanted to stay with me (even though her divorce petition contradicts this).
During the meeting i felt i was trying to negotiate with two people rather than one due to the mediator pressing me to compromise and in general she seemed to side with my wife.
In the end me and my wife had to agree by email out of mediation what the arrangements would be.
It ended up that now i only see my children twice a week with overnight stays instead of 4 times a week (even though their school is closer to my house).
I did all the compromising to make that agreement happen as all my wife seemed bothered about was that i have them on a particular night so she could go to a running club - i was thinking more along the lines of doing what is best for the children!!!


Second session
Turned up for the meeting and as we were sitting down i recall the mediator saying ''i believe you''ve come to an agreement''. I immediately asked if my wife and the mediator had been in communication out of session as i knew this wasn''t allowed. They both acted sheepish and denied this.
During the meeting we touched on the finance form but barely got past page two where we could not agree on the house valuation. I had several valuations carried out and used the average price and brought the valuation which was closest to the average.
The meeting ended without getting past this point and my wife has had her own valuation carried out since - yes that''s right to the same valuation i had put on my form, significantly less than her uneducated guess.
The mediator would write to us to confirm what was discussed after each session, but in this letter i felt like she was insinuating that i had brought the lowest valuation to the meeting on purpose.
What i actually did was bring the most recent and the one that reflected the average price. The form stated bring ''any valuation'' (in singular form) which is what i did, but in the meeting she said i should have brought all of them. I replied that i would have done if the form had been worded as such and that perhaps she should request that the wording be changed.


Third and final session -
Started looking at our financial forms and my wife still had an over-inflated house price on her form Even though she had been present at the most recent valuation which was the same as the price on my form. The mediator did not press her about this and instead said we should work out two figures ­­base­­d on my wife''s valuation and my valuation - what??? Do the estate agents valuations not count then?
We skipped past that part and moved onto bank accounts and i did not list any accounts in the first part as this section was for accounts in credit. I had listed my accounts in the later section for accounts in debit because they were in debit.
I pointed this out to the mediator and she insisted that i also write my accounts in the first section (duplicated information).
The absolute mediation killer came when my wife insisted that my Save As You Earn scheme should be calculated at its potential value in two years time at maturity if i convert to shares if the share price doesn''t change- what???
I said that the only value is the amount saved to date, just like using the house value at the present date and her pension at the present date - not in 30 years when she retires!
I assumed the mediator would step in and set my wife straight about me being correct at listing my SAYE at the current savings amount under ''other assets'', but she didn''t. Instead the mediator started crunching numbers into a calculator trying to predict what the value would be in two years if i converted to shares but at today''s price - what??? I am absolutely sure that this caused serious conflict between me and my wife and caused the mediation to break down.
As i have asked in part 1, is there a mediation ombudsman? If not, should i send a letter to the mediation company saying i am providing them with feedback and hope they can use it constructively?

I have combined your four posts into one so that all the information members need to offer you advice/information etc is in one thread.

gorillaman wrote:

No faith in Mediation -
Three sessions of mediation.

First session - couldn''t agree arrangements for children.
My wife has the children, so you would expect she would have to do the compromising. I was seeing children Tue, Wed, Thur after school until 6pm then Sat 10-6pm. I expected that it would just be a case of adding an overnight stay on at the weekend as my wife said my children wanted to stay with me (even though her divorce Petition contradicts this).
During the meeting i felt i was trying to negotiate with two people rather than one due to the mediator pressing me to compromise and in general she seemed to side with my wife.
In the end me and my wife had to agree by email out of mediation what the arrangements would be.
It ended up that now i only see my children twice a week with overnight stays instead of 4 times a week (even though their school is closer to my house).
I did all the compromising to make that agreement happen as all my wife seemed bothered about was that i have them on a particular night so she could go to a running club - i was thinking more along the lines of doing what is best for the children!!!

No faith in Mediation - part 3
Three sessions.

Second session - turned up for the meeting and as we were sitting down i recall the mediator saying ''i believe you''ve come to an agreement''. I immediately asked if my wife and the mediator had been in communication out of session as i knew this wasn''t allowed. They both acted sheepish and denied this.
During the meeting we touched on the finance form but barely got past page two where we could not agree on the house valuation. I had several valuations carried out and used the average price and brought the valuation which was closest to the average.
The meeting ended without getting past this point and my wife has had her own valuation carried out since - yes that''s right to the same valuation i had put on my form, significantly less than her uneducated guess.
The mediator would write to us to confirm what was discussed after each session, but in this letter i felt like she was insinuating that i had brought the lowest valuation to the meeting on purpose.
What i actually did was bring the most recent and the one that reflected the average price. The form stated bring ''any valuation'' (in singular form) which is what i did, but in the meeting she said i should have brought all of them. I replied that i would have done if the form had been worded as such and that perhaps she should request that the wording be changed.

No faith in Mediation - part 4
Three sessions

Third and final session - started looking at our financial forms and my wife still had an over-inflated house price on her form even though she had been present at the most recent valuation which was the same as the price on my form. The mediator did not press her about this and instead said we should work out two figures ­base­d on my wife''s valuation and my valuation - what??? Do the estate agents valuations not count then?
We skipped past that part and moved onto bank accounts and i did not list any accounts in the first part as this section was for accounts in credit. I had listed my accounts in the later section for accounts in debit because they were in debit.
I pointed this out to the mediator and she insisted that i also write my accounts in the first section (duplicated information).
The absolute mediation killer came when my wife insisted that my Save As You Earn scheme should be calculated at its potential value in two years time at maturity if i convert to shares if the share price doesn''t change- what???
I said that the only value is the amount saved to date, just like using the house value at the present date and her pension at the present date - not in 30 years when she retires!
I assumed the mediator would step in and set my wife straight about me being correct at listing my SAYE at the current savings amount under ''other assets'', but she didn''t. Instead the mediator started crunching numbers into a calculator trying to predict what the value would be in two years if i converted to shares but at today''s price - what??? I am absolutely sure that this caused serious conflict between me and my wife and caused the mediation to break down.
As i have asked in part 1, is there a mediation ombudsman? If not, should i send a letter to the mediation company saying i am providing them with feedback and hope they can use it constructively?

I deliberately wanted to keep the posts separate, but regardless they are combined now.
Please could you delete this post and yours as i have edited my OP to include everything.
Thanks.