British Gas / Scottish Gas Homecare Plan

bjaudio

Hi all, I was hoping I could start a thread here to discuss the British Gas (also known as Scottish Gas) Homecare Plan, and in particular the Central Heating Care part of the plan.

I am in dispute with them at the moment regarding said policy I took out with them 6 months ago, whereby they are refusing to accept liability on a failed boiler part, insisting that the fault is not covered in our agreement.

Many issues here, which I will share as we go along, but after a morning putting up with a second opinion 'british gas technician' who backed up his mates' earlier-in-the-month diagnosis and refusal to carry out the work under the agreement, unless we hand over £360 plus, him trying to con me into buying a brand new boiler, having to actually throw him out of our house for insulting my intelligence and spending the rest of the day arguing with a very stroppy senior customer relations woman on the phone, I am mentally stressed out.

And we have no hot water.

They are digging their heels in, and blaming our water supply for causing the probem, and I am tempted to get the work done privately and billing them for the work.........

waffling on a bit, but would appreciate your input if you have similar experience with this plan, (or lack of it!), as I take a day off tomorrow before resuming my battle with them on Monday, for them to honour our contract.

Wish me luck.

bj

Annando

Hi bjaudio,

I know how you must be feeling, having no heating and hot water is pne of the worst experiences!
I had a very good experience with British Gas. We had a boiler problem 3 years ago (Combi), had 3 different plumbers around to sort it out, all private, recommended etc... The last one charged us £270, said he had fixed the problem, some part that was malfunctionning etc... OF COURSE HE HADN'T!!!! For 3 years we put up with the same problem (We couldn't have the heating and hot water at the same time, and if the hot water would switch off for no apparent reason), and we didn't want to have another plumber around in case he charged us even more (total ostriches with our heads in the sand...really sad!).
Last October we got a leaflet through the post about Homecare, I thought this might be a good idea, try and get British Gas to fix it, of course I never mentioned the problem...I know really dishonest, but seeing how they made 1.5 Billions in profits...I don't think they'll mind!
We had the technician around to test the boiler, he cleaned it...as he was putting it back together I "remembered that "sometimes" we had a bit of a problem...he took it apart again, found out what the problem was (I told him thenm that someone had already looked into this years ago, apparently the job hadn't been done and the part had not been replaced!). He didn't have the part, ordered it and came back a week later to finish the job!
We didn't have to pay a single dime (apart from the Homecare plan) and now we can use the hot water and the heating together, and (fingers crossed) the hot water hasn't switched off since then!!!! I know they could have charged us a fortune and they didn't, we didn't even have to pay for the part!

I really hope you can work this out with them somehow!!! GOOD LUCK!!!

Cardew

My understanding is that once they have accepted you on the plan everything is covered, unless the boiler is obsolete. I cannot think they would accept you and then 6 months later say it is obsolete.

As you say you would share details, I would be interested in more detail. I have heard that they will accept you on their scheme, but place an exclusion on certain parts if they do not conform to their specification; however they normally put this in writing.

Having had dreadful experiences with rip-off plumbers I took out BG cover many years ago(I have 2 systems) and like Annando above they have been first rate in every respect and I cannot fault them.