How are HomeServe still in business
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Ridiculous service, highly not recommended. Please don't pay these scums. Had boiler waste pipe blocked and now it's 5 days they couldn't fix it reason why well surprise. First they sent boiler engineer on Thursday when asked for a plumber, so he nicely said this is not my job you need a plumber. Ranged Homeserve and another surprise no plumber is available until Friday. So appointment made between 12pm and 6pm. Plumber came 9pm 3 hours late. He tried the vacuum sucktion method didn't work why because vacuum pipe had cracks in it wow. So he nicely excused by saying this job needs electric jet which he doesn't have. He ranged the home serve himself to ask for one and they said next available plumber is on Monday. So cutting the story short I waited until Monday. Today the plumber came at 1pm, I was happy as he had the electric jet. But another surprise that electric jet was faulty too wasn't working at all. So he left. Another appointment booked for today before 6pm and received a call quarter to 6 that the engineer is not coming today as he has the faulty electric jet as well. Now they gave me an appointment on Wednesday. 6 DAYS WITHOUT HOT WATER AND CENTRAL HEATING... thank you home serve NOT :T:T
Reply from HomeServe UK
Published 11 hours ago Hi Ray,
Thank you for making us aware of your situation. This is something we’d very much like to try and help get resolved. :rotfl:
So we can assist you please send us your address details and we’ll be in touch. You can reach the team via email. :rotfl::rotfl:
Hope to speak soon,
Alison
Here To Help Team0 -
I must be one of the few who have had a good experience with Homeserve, I had a hose go on my washing machine and was unable to stop the water pumping out as couldn't turn the valve off or find my stop !!!! ( recently moved in and forgot to ask) I managed to reduce the flow, I called Homeserve and got a plumber within 45 minutes who sorted the problem.0
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I have HomeServe as part of my Home Insurance with Direct Line - I have had to call them out 3 times over the years (leaking tank in loft, leaking toilet and another tap issue).
I'm not sure if it is due to the fact it's connected to my insurance policy, but all 3 times I had someone to the home in a very short period of time.
The leaking tank in the loft (dripping water from the ceiling) was at 11pm in the evening - and someone was with us within 1 hour, and sorted out the problem.
Typical of this type of forum - people take the time to post their BAD experiences, but who really takes the time to post good experiences.0 -
I also had good experience with Homeserve on fixing toilet leaks etc. Looking through the thread, you might find that most of the problems happen to their heating policies. Plumbing, on the other hand, was Homeserve's main business and they have a network of dedicated plumbers.0
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merchcon55 wrote: »Typical of this type of forum - people take the time to post their BAD experiences, but who really takes the time to post good experiences.
I agree certainly my friends and I are quick to get on Tripadvisor and give negative feedback to restaurants and hotels as a way of venting our spleens, very rarely do we bother if nothing to complain about.
I am sure Homeserve have more satisfied customers ( myself included) than those that are not , otherwise they wouldn't be in business as everyone would cancel after their first claim.
The fact that they have bothered to have representation on here shows that they do listen to complaints.0 -
I agree with everybody here; I speak as one who tried to get an engineer to fix my malfunctioning water heater only to be told that they no longer covered water heaters. I was always taught that this constituted a material change in conditions that amounted to a Breach of Contract. I originally took the policy out with Eastern Electricity Contracting and was surprised to find that they no longer existed and that I was now in the hands of Homeserve; as far as I am concerned this is the "oldest trick in the book"; i.e Bait and Switch.0
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Hey, just saw this thread and thought i would put my experiences so far!
18th December my Boiler Became faulty, rang homeserver who said they can get an engineer out on the Tuesday 20th, Tuesday came engineer arrived managed to get it going, he left and within 2 hours it packed up again
so i ring them again that afternoon asking to arrange another appointment so they gave me thursday 2 days later in the afternoon, its just so unfortunate i had to pop out urgently and they came and i was not home..ok fine..thats down to me..so i rang them about 4pm asking if they can arrange something if he is still in the area..
i got told expect a call back by 6pm... ... got absolutely nothing that evening no calls nothing
so i rang back and they said they can rearrange something for the following monday 26th...i said fine ill just have to survive and send the family away for that xmas weekend..
Monday came no engineer arrived nothing waited most the day
I rang them up and they told me the Appointment was for Wednesday..i said no it isn't its for Monday and you told me and i have confirmation it was for monday..despite banging to them they said wednesday someone will come
fine i had to make do again..so today engineer came managed to fix it again after few hours went ..so i rang them once again got promised i would get a call back within 2 hours
4 hours went nothing whatsoever
and still i am without hot water and boiler not working
The problem with the boiler is it is not igniting there is a tick tick tick sound coming when try to switch it on yet when the engineers came back twice they manage to get it going for a few hours
I am so annoyed right now i mm tempted just to call out an engineer myself and get the problem sorted they can guarantee tomorrow they will come
Their customer helpline are unhelpful and give me incorrect information
i tempted just going to go ahead and cancel it i got 5 months remaining on my contract..i really don't care i've had it with these lot
so now its 10 days without any boiler or hot water!
ARRRGH!0 -
Apologies if this has already been pointed out.
My local water company are promoting Homeserve Plumbing and Drainage Insurance. Homeserve have reportedly been find over £30.6m for mis-selling and complaints handling. Many of your local water companies have hooked up with Homeserve targeting their customers to take out this insurance.
Please be aware that your Home and Contents insurance could include this type of cover and it is therefore unnecessary to take out duplicate cover. There is no mention of this in their promotional letter.
MSE flagged this up in a newsletter last April after a report from Watchdog.
Most of the UK's biggest water companies are promoting potentially unnecessary insurance costing customers more than £100 million a year, according to consumer group Which?.
Water users sold 'unnecessary' pipe insurance
It found nine of the 12 biggest firms are promoting "expensive" supply pipe insurance with their own free pipe repair schemes, which customers are automatically entitled to use.
For boiler breakdowns I use CORGI, presently £18 per month so reasonably priced and they have always responded quickly and great repairs done by local people.Holding back the years...0 -
Wow when I started this thread 7.5yrs ago I didn't expect to still be seeing people giving their experience all these years later. However it's a good resource for people considering their service so I hope continues to give their experience both positive and negative about Homeserve.
I've been reading through all the replies to see if there's any sort of trend of opinion. To my eyes, even after all these years, people's experience seems to be on the whole still quite negative. There are some good reports but for every positive one there's 3 or 4 negative one.
Investing in Homeserve is a gamble. You might pay in for years thinking you're covered but when the time comes that you need help you may find you're not covered due to the small print.
Best advice I've seen is to simply self-insure. Put the money you would have paid homeserve into a savings account and earn interest on it, if the time ever comes when something bad happens you'll have the funds to cover it or put towards it. If not you have a good amount of money to spend on something nice.
A few of points to consider- A burst external pipe is rare and you could be paying money for 10 years and never have it happen to you. That money is gone for ever. Even if you do suffer this it's likely a one off experience and you'd have to be really unlucky for it to happen to you twice.
- Check your home insurance. Some people have been found to be paying twice to cover the same thing. You may find whatever you're paying Homeserve is already covered in your existing insurance.
- Check the T&C's, small print, conditions, exceptions, amendments and other bit of paper that insurance companies use to weasel out of payment. A common theme running through this thread is the homeserve response of "sorry you're not covered".
Homeserve in the media
During the time this thread has been running HomeServe has been fined over £30m by the FCA (city regulator).
To quote from the article.The FCA said it had found that Homeserve had "serious, systemic and long-running failings, extending across many key aspects of its business".The FCA investigation found:- A pay structure that rewarded staff for the number of products sold, irrespective of whether the customer needed it
- Incentives for staff to close complaints, leaving a risk that these issues were not handled fairly
- Computer problems that resulted in some customers being overcharged and being charged for duplicate cover that they did not need
- The mis-selling of two of Homeserve's insurance policies to 69,000 customers by failing to explain the comparative price and coverage
- Failure to resolve complaints, such as not paying the full cost of having to call out an independent engineer to deal with a plumbing emergency which HomeServe should have resolved
External Links
Homeserve is fined £30.6m by FCA
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26167978
HomeServe sends racial slur in letter to customer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-33436439
HomeServe hiked the cost of our boiler contract
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/jan/07/boiler-cover-insurance-premiums-homeserve-cost0 - A burst external pipe is rare and you could be paying money for 10 years and never have it happen to you. That money is gone for ever. Even if you do suffer this it's likely a one off experience and you'd have to be really unlucky for it to happen to you twice.
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Please do not sign up for a policy with Homeserve unless you want to lose half your hair.
I had a boiler breakdown policy, called Homeserve on the 19th December as my central heating wasn't working. Earliest they could get someone out was 3 days later. Engineer came and thought the issue was the pump which he would have to order. A week later he came back and after 3 hours of messing around he said he had the wrong pump. Another 2 days later and this time the pump was changed but that didn't fix the issue.
After many calls to Homeserve they are now offering £200 towards a new boiler but only if it is installed with their approved installer.
Am going to try a local plumber, have been 6 weeks without central heating.0
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