Warning re 24/7 Home Rescue

Mattheap1972 · 23 January 2018 at 10:48AM

Another disgruntled 24/7 “customer” {text removed by MSE Forum Team}. Tried several times to book a service online but the system is always down. Had to call out for a boiler breakdown, engineer sent and diagnosed the PCB as being faulty and would report. I then received a call from 24/7 quoting {text removed by MSE Forum Team} for the work doing (around £600) on a £1600 Vocera boiler made it uneconomical repair so they cancelled my policy and refused to refund my excess of £75 even though my policy has £0 excess and there is no claim (how can you charge an excess when you can’t vlaim). The engineer broke the front panel on the boiler too. I ended up buying a brand new Vocera pcb from plumb centre for £140 plus vat and a heating engineer fitted it for £40. I want to take this to the ombudsman but 24/7 will not release the complaint because they claim to not be covered by industry standard. The ombudsman cannot do anything without the complaint number. Surely they are in the wrong here? Please help. ☹️

Abuhaneefah · 23 January 2018 at 1:43PM

Raxiel wrote: »

Who are you sending an FOI request to? FOI rules only cover the government and some private sector companies that carry out public functions. You can send a Subject Access Request (SAR) to a company under the Data Protection Act, but that is only for accessing whatever data they hold on you personally, no-one else.

Thanks for that info.

I guess we will never know.
I'm guessing that they don't fix many boilers with the T&C's that they have.
Second hand boilers don't have a lot of value.

Abuhaneefah · 23 January 2018 at 1:47PM

Mattheap1972 wrote: »

Another disgruntled 24/7 “customer” (mug). Tried several times to book a service online but the system is always down. Had to call out for a boiler breakdown, engineer sent and diagnosed the PCB as being faulty and would report. I then received a call from 24/7 quoting an over inflated price for the work doing (around £600) on a £1600 Vocera boiler made it uneconomical repair so they cancelled my policy and refused to refund my excess of £75 even though my policy has £0 excess and there is no claim (how can you charge an excess when you can’t vlaim). The engineer broke the front panel on the boiler too. I ended up buying a brand new Vocera pcb from plumb centre for £140 plus vat and a heating engineer fitted it for £40. I want to take this to the ombudsman but 24/7 will not release the complaint because they claim to not be covered by industry standard. The ombudsman cannot do anything without the complaint number. Surely they are in the wrong here? Please help. ☹️

Which Ombudsman?

{Text removed by MSE Forum Team}

Boiler beyond economical repair.

My parts cost £26 from a local plumbing shop, they quoted £130.
They are also refusing to refund my excess even though they didn't repair anything.

gibs133 · 23 January 2018 at 10:25PM

Please contact BBC watchdog.

gibs133 · 23 January 2018 at 10:30PM

They always get positive reviews like easy to set up a policy, good website, and other initial impressions. They call customers immediately after taking the policy and forcing them to review. Anyone dealt with them with an actually emergency never given a positive review. And lots of negative reviews been taken out from the review website {text removed by MSE Forum Team}. Now they are doing roadside assistance I feel sorry for the roadside policy holders.

gibs133 · 23 January 2018 at 10:34PM

Please contact trading standard and bbc watchdog.

accorian · 23 January 2018 at 11:40PM

gibs133 wrote: »

Please contact trading standard and bbc watchdog.

Hate to rain on your parade, but trusting in BBC Watchdog to achieve anything at all is the same as trusting Father Christmas to come down the chimney with your prezzie.

'Watchdog' is show business, the way all BBC's so-called 'consumer' programming is. Even way back when, Esther Rantzen's "That's Life" -- which I seem to remember was always but always referenced by the unknowing as "the people to ring" -- was run by. . . BBC Light Entertainment.

No TV programme. No newspaper. No "bad" publicity makes the slightest difference to people of the kind running the business highlighted in this thread. They'll just laugh -- as will those who run "TrustPilot" (the name itself is a joke) because it exists to make money from its business subscribers, not to make the world a better place for consumers stupid enough to waste their time, submitting "reviews" to it.

Bottom line: forget all you ever thought you knew about any TV friend-of-the-consumer show because a show is exactly all it is, and whatever complaints, cases, etc may be cited on it are just so much stuff to keep the money rolling in (the BBC sells on its consumer protection programming to Z-listed Freeview channels, and makes a tidy profit out of it, too.)

The recourse any sensible adult will take is to obtain, entirely free of charge, up to an hour's worth of legal advice from a local solicitor or, equally, obtain free advice from a local Law Centre that's funded by area Council Tax payers via the local authority. There's also the Citizens' Advice Bureau service, too -- and what's left of the Trading Standards departments of UK County Councils (what's left, because this government has had a whale of a time, slashing local authority support funding in such a way that consumer protection has been totally undermined.)

Plenty to go at there, then, without the sad mantra of "tell Watchdog" that time and again features on threads like this. Anyone gullible to believe that is, ironically, exactly the kind of naive consumer that scumbags target.

Doggysoft · 26 January 2018 at 8:21PM

Exactly the same boat here except I've fallen foul of them twice.

I paid extra for the £0 excess policy and have been stung twice. The first time was that the boiler was leaking and because I took 36 hours to report it, I had to pay £75 for the call out.

The second time was the electrics in the kitchen went off. Something kept tripping them even when resetting the fuse board. I unplugged everything and it still kept going off. I told 247 about this and said it was all unplugged but still tripping. They charged me £75 for the call out as a 'security fee' which was refundable if the problem fell inside their terms and conditions. I left the electrics in the kitchen off for two days while they sent an engineer, however, Sod's Law, it worked perfectly when the engineer came round. However, they would not refund the £75 because it was classed as 'home maintenance' and I 'should know how to reset a fuse board' even though they confirmed in their notes that when making the call out it would not be reset.

Fast forward to today and they sent me an email saying the were renewing my policy. I phoned up and asked what the policy was that they were renewing and they re-explained the £0 excess. I queried my above call out and she got stuck and passed me on to someone else after saying "your £75 is refunded if they find a problem". I said "so I've been charged £75 because you didn't find a problem, but if you'd found a problem you'd have refunded me?". She then said a manager would ring me, however I was simply sent an email saying that ''At our absolute sole discretion we reserve the right to request a nominal security payment of £75 where the breakdown is deemed pre-existing.'

Has anyone placed a call for a breakdown that wasn't pre-existing? "Hello, I think my electrics will fail this time next Tuesday, are you alright sending an engineer out please?".

So it total they've had £150 out of me even though I have a £0 excess policy.

I'm also going to speak to Trading Standards because there is enough here for them to make a case. It's blatant mis-selling.

theboilerman · 26 January 2018 at 9:11PM

Boiler was making a noise and we get only lukewarm heating in the radiators. The 1st engineer diagnosed we needed a service and said he will need some seals replaced before his could go ahead. The company said the work is not covered and I will need to pay £40. I paid this. Another engineer turns up a few days later and tells us the 1st engineer was inexperienced and got the diagnosis wrong - it was in fact a blocked heat exchanger that needed replacing. So the engineer said there was no point in doing the service. I asked for a refund for the £40 but have been refused. Instead they asked for a further £240 to replace the heat exchanger. The reason they stated was they don't cover blockages. But there is no mention of blockages not being covered in their terms and conditions. In fact their terms and conditions DO state they cover the cost of replacing heat exchanger. My argument to them is that the heat exchanger cannot be cleared so therefore the part needs replacing. And this is what they offer in those terms. Be very wary of using this company, they are very clever with their wording and completely mislead customers with vague and contradictory language to avoid paying out on claims. Don't make the same mistake as I did by buying a policy with them. Choose a reputable company.

theboilerman · 30 January 2018 at 11:48PM

Be wary they only pay out on complete breakdown of boilers - their terms and conditions are worded in such as way that they only cover FULL breakdown of a boiler. My boiler was malfunctioning but still providing heating/water. They still took £95 excess for an engineer to come out, knowing full well I was not covered. They tell you it's not covered after the engineer has diagnosed it. Too late and they have your money! . It got from bad to worse. The first engineer said it was just a service it needed and he would be back. I had to pay an additional £40 for this to be done. After I paid a second engineer came out and said it was a misdiagnosis and that it was in fact a blocked heat exchanger. They wanted another £240 for this to be done. At this point I said I won't pay any more. I asked for £40 refund as they did no work, but was refused. Also be aware that they are not regulated by the FSA which makes any dispute almost impossible to progress. {Text removed by MSE Forum Team}

Warning re 24/7 Home Rescue

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