Anyone took 'Help Link' boiler deal?

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  • If I can help one person look elsewhere job achieved..:j
    If you must go with Help-Link ensure when the salesperson fills the form he ticks the small amount of copper piping required and not guess-timate. Otherwise you may well be paying for work not done and materials not used.
    Further ask if the boiler location is suitable? with these new boilers additional pipes going down (even into your worktop) may be necessary..don't wait to be informed by the fitter during installation!..Right mess :exclamati...hope that helps someone
  • I did chose to go with Helplink and with a £500 deposit and £17 a month payment stretching longer than my mortgage, my new boiler arrived on time! The shining new boiler looks great and they are extremely helpful selling you extra insurances and boiler services! They are rather less efficient when it comes to sorting out other problems. My boiler continues to run perfectly, but I chose to service my boiler with a local 'gas safe' plumber ,who informed me that there was a servicing manual missing, I contacted Helplink on several occasions and I was promised one. Two months and several phone calls later, I am still waiting! I sincerely hope the boiler doesn't fail me, as I am not too sure their response would be as helpful as their friendly sales team. Do your numbers but also be aware!
  • I've just thrown a helplink sales guy out my house and am glad I did after reading these reviews. I arranged the no obligation quotation as my father unfortunately had a stroke leaving him with some memory loss and hard to deal with certain things. When the sales guy came he wouldn't speak to me at all and requested my father talk to him. As he said that it is my father paying for the boiler he needs to speak to him and not me. I advised him I would pay for the boiler then as I could see my father becoming bewildered as he didn't want to deal with this man. The sales guy was rude and obnoxious and would not deal with me whatsoever. He is an absolute disgrace to helplink and I will be putting a formal complaint in tomorrow regarding his attitude. If receiving a quotation is as domineering as that man was ,I would dread to get into any kind of contract with them. I think the elderly and vulnerable should be warned against helplink.
  • daveyjp
    daveyjp Posts: 12,469
    First Post Name Dropper First Anniversary
    Forumite
    Their 'surveyor' came to us and quoted a good price for a replacement multipoint water heater.

    Fitter came and as soon as he got out of the van said 'I can't fit what has been ordered there'. We told him not to come back. Useless company.
  • I am in receipt of some benefits that allowed me to have a boiler from help-link free of charge. When the surveyor came round to view the old boiler and what work would need to be done it took nearly 4 hours but he did admit it was his first day on the job. We qualified for the work and was told to wait to be contacted for a date to have the work carried out. After 2 failed attempts at them showing up (workers stuck on another job) I told them not to bother if they couldn't do it before Christmas as the next available date for them would have been 23rd December (not good if anything went wrong). They soon changed their minds and said 2 workmen would be out the next day to carry out the work and it would be completed on the day. Admitley the 2 workmen who installed the boiler made a mess as they had to drill a hole in the worktop cupboard and take a few floorboards up upstairs but again they are plumbers and it was nothing that couldn't be sorted. They then said an electrician would have to come out to run a few new wires from the boiler but that it wouldn't be today. I complained to them and they got straight on the phone to call an electrician off another job to sort it out there and then. The electrician came, sorted the wires (and even cleaned up the mess that the previous workmen had left) and finished the job that day. The new boiler is lovely and works perfectly well (so far). Yes the customer service could probably be improved but my experience with help link hasn't been all that bad. Hope this helps! :)
  • I see on help links glossy website they only show alleged good reviews, they fail to show any negative ones.

    In December 2013 I got the salesman to come out, well he was 90minutes late with no decent explanation. I did sign up and was going to put the entire cost on an 0% credit card.

    The sales guy gave me his card and told me if I had any questions to phone him. The next day , the day after and the following 4 days I tried but got no answer, no reply to any text messages. After contacting their head office I got a lame excuse his phone was broken.

    The date was arranged, however no one showed up. I contacted Help Link and after being passed from one department I got no where.
    I asked to speak to the main man Mel Butler the MD, apparently no one knows his number or his e mail address.

    After several calls a sales manager spoke with me and tried to argue the fact it was meant to be installed the following day even through the contract I signed stated that day.

    I cancelled my installation and am glad I escaped when I did. I found them very unprofessional, a customer service adviser actually admitted to me on the phone they are not very good at getting back to people and offer poor customer service.
  • I have just been reading all these reviews on help link, there was enough negativity for me to cancel my home visit surveyors appointment. Thank you to all those who contributed to the thread very useful.
    "Imagination is more Important than knowledge"
  • I agree with the previous posters, and have found help link to be completely useless!
    After reading some of the reviews on here, I didn't want to yes helplink but my oh decided to call them and book in for a quote.

    We had two quotes a few years ago but didn't proceed at that time so had a rough idea what the costs would be. The sales guy turned up on time and spent about an hour filling in forms and looking around the kitchen. He made a few observations about how a new boiler would need to be fitted, then left promising to email the quote within the week.

    Three weeks later and no contact whatsoever so called the main office to be told we couldn't have a boiler as the site of the old boiler 'did not fit new regulations' for a new boiler to be fitted to replace it. The lady said the salesman had 'sent you a letter, didn't you get it?'
    I said no, obviously not or I would not be calling.
    She called the salesman to find out what the problem was and then came back to say 'he would give us a call to explain the problem'

    Low and behold four days later - nothing.

    The previous quotes we had made no mention of any problems with regulations and we had no problems with re siting the boiler if necessary/easier

    So a complete waste of time, will go back to the firms we used before. Don't think their salesmen have any idea what they are doing!
  • yummy-mummy-amy
    yummy-mummy-amy Posts: 1,074
    First Post First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    Forumite
    edited 13 February 2014 at 2:53PM
    i wish i had found this thread before we went through them!!! the only good thing is because we qualified on the government free boiler scheme we are not tied into them for 10years like those paying.

    the assessor came out in dec 2013 and did all the checks and paperwork etc, earliest fitting date was 3rd feb 2014 which we agreed to. this was cancelled on the day as "the only engineer in my area was ill" and was re-booked for the 11th.

    11th came and so did the engineer, however, the call handler had forgotten to book the electrician for the same day - this meant no heating or hot water until the 12th! i complained this wasnt good enough and wasnt going to be happening as i have 3 young children, 1 under age 5yrs and 1 majorily asthmatic, plus we live in the lake district and it was snowing!!! the answer was still "we dont have anyone within 100miles of your house".

    they eventually rang back (after i had told the engineer i was getting the newspapers involved and he went and made phonecalls) that they had "found" an electrician, he was at a job and would be with me in 30minutes. well 30minutes came and went, so did the next hour and a half - 2hrs after phonecall in walks electrician he had been sent from blackpool!

    so it may all seem good now but NO! the electrician had only been with the company a short time and had not come across the boiler that we had had fitted and therefore had no idea on how to fit the timer etc. he had to have phone help of "how to over-ride the timer" (as couldnt fit it) so that we could have heating and hot water.

    in total my house was out of heating and hot water for 8 and 1/4 hours, i was freezing cold and think the north pole would have been warmer. it took this long as they couldnt get the tank to refill and had to do it via hosepipe!!!

    anyway they needed to re-book an electrician to come and do the timers and said would take about 2hrs to sort out. i was unable to have them on the 12th as had pre-booked hospital appointments so they booked it for 8am today. at 10:05 my husband rings to find out why the electrician wad 2hrs late to be told "he's coming from blackpool and is stuck in traffic at morecombe, he will be with you soon". only problem with this is morecombe is 1hr 50minutes away in clear roads - there is snow on main roads as well as closures due to accidents.

    lets add even more into the problems of this clown company - when they used the hosepipe to refill my tank they disconnected my washing machine from under the sink and didnt tell me (i thought they had used my hot water feed tap that is vacant) but no, they hadnt even put a bowl or anything under the pipe to catch water so my cupboard had about an inch of water in it and all my cleaning products were sat in it and so was the plug to my iron! i only found out that it had been disconnected when i tried to use my washing machine today and it made chugging noises - hubby had a look and found it all.

    there is also a 4-5inch long crack on my wall where they had to put plaster round the new outlet pipe - i believe its from where the plaster has dried.



    however despite the above i thought the engineer had done a good job, he was very polite and kept things tidy and used dust sheets etc. i am also grateful that the company did send someone out to get us heating, its just a shame about all the problems in total.

    *****UPDATE*****
    helplink electrician turned up much later we were told, but he has fitted the timer switch and wired everything as it should be. they also sent the original engineer back out who re-connected my washing machine and re-plastered the wall. so hopefully everything is as it should be. just a shame they couldnt have done it right in the begining.
    due to spilling coffee :coffee: on my keyboard it works when it wants to :rotfl:

    member 1254 sealed pot 4
  • Although we have saved on our gas bill. Help Links after care leaves a lot to be desired. They left us on the day of installation,with two radiators not working,even though they stated that they'd fully tested the system.I tested the system as soon as they had left,and the two radiators didn't even have any water in them. When i reported this problem, it then took them six weeks to send someone out,who then stated he would need to change a faulty part. That is the last i heard from them,even though i called them several times to see what was happening,i was fobbed of with various excuses.So,i ended up having to replace the part myself.

    The installers we had were also very careless. They half took up the landing carpet,but ended up damaging a large area of the underlay due to not taking it up sufficiently enough to clear their work area. I also had to take up all the carpets that had been taken up,so as to re secure all the floor boards that had to be taken up.This being due to the fact that they hadn't replaced any of the screws/nails to fix the boards down. This also resulted in my son going through the floor.

    So,all in all,not a very good experience. I certainly wouldn't recommend them.I would recommend anyone to find a good local plumber,and stick with them!
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