Anyone took 'Help Link' boiler deal?

Plumbers_matey

I worked for the for over a year, the surveyors haven't got a clue when it comes to fitting boilers I often had to re- survey the job when I got to the job.
They sale you a power flush/cleanse which is not worth spending your hard earned cash on as not one of the engineers I worked with had a power flush machine.

They fit boilers in hard water areas and hardly never fit lime scale reducers with the manufacturers insist on being fitted so could invalidate your 10 warranty if not fitted.

They get there engineers to travel over 100 miles to the job so by the time you spent 2 hrs on the road driving there engineers are in a rush to finish, and make mistakes often damaging things

They can't keep there engineers because there manager do not install any confidence or ability to man manage. They just suck up to the top managers in the main office rather than focusing on the customers complaints.

Last thing they don't pay there engineers which 80to 90% of them are self employed and are walked all over, in my area there's 25 engineers not one of them was happy with the way the office staff treated them or the lies they told the customer.
You get 1 million a month at the top and peanuts and that's if you get paid for installing

Please use a local plumber not one of these Robin Hood company's rob from the poor to line their own pockets

willie_10

We had a new boiler installed last April.Firstly we were told that we would save money because the new boiler was more efficient .Well the jury is still out on that because we have had 11 visits from them to get the system to work.Secondly they said that we would no longer need a British gas service contract and hence we would save money.They failed to tell us that you then have to have a contract with them so that the warranty would apply!There after sales service is appalling and now they refuse to replace a 23 year old timer!Do not use them under any circumstances.

PunaNZ

I contacted Warmfront to see if I was eligible for insulation/a new boiler. I found I was in a complete Catch 22. I didn't have the right kind of ESA to qualify for free insulation and because I had a bad credit rating (which I imagine many people seeking help have) I would be rejected for the new boiler scheme.

Billyboy17

I worked for this company a while ago and left of my own accord so there's no sour grapes. They take on engineers by meeting them at a local McDonald's, then put them in customers houses with no real grasp of the engineers competence. Their surveyors are the worst I've ever witnessed in all my time, they are just interested in getting the sale rather than actually seeing if the job can be done to regulations. They charge twice as much on finance, I've seen customers pays £4000 for a boiler swap cause the salesman convinced a vulnerable person they needed to re-locate their boiler! They charge for asbestos removal when not needed, and for flushes they don't do, because they expect their engineers to do a ludicrous amount of work in the working day. They are desperate to take your money on the same day of installation but after sales are hopeless. I felt sick to the stomach some days working for these as they are a despicable company, do not be fooled by the ads or Johnny Ball, see a local business if you can, do not be tempted by the finance either as they will not be around in 10 years as they are part owned by an investment company and probably won't be around for much longer...

ConsumerWrites

Help-Link does not ask everyone who uses them to give a review, so the review feedback on the site cannot be accurate. We have issues regarding them charging for stuff they did not do and not responding to polite queries, so my advice would be get everything in writing, including all costs down to the last piece of piping, before you agree to contract.

unhappy_help_link

don't mention Help Link to me i have paid them a monthly fee for 10 years and when they had to fix my boiler they got out of it, a total scam

unhappy_help_link

help link wanted 6 hundred pounds to fix my flue on my boiler (which was not covered under the boiler maintenance contract conveniently) so when I said that I had sourced the Flue myself and a gas fitter would fit it for me, they ended my contract that I had been paying into for 12 years. this then got them out of having to fix the other problem that was wrong with my Boiler, how bad is that? they may well have said that it cost 10K to fix the flue or I'm out of my contract with them, crafty or what

teashaped

Had a surveyor come, said everything was fine but would need to pay £200 for a part not covered. We left it hoping to find someone else and they phoned back a month later saying they'll cover the £200.

Made us wait months before they could see us. Fitter came and said he couldn't do it unless we paid £200 because it won't fit and needs to go upstairs (convenient amount) which the surveyor never told us.

We complained after he left and Help-Link have now suddenly pulled our funding and we received a letter today saying there's too much demand in our area so they can't offer funding anymore. What so my mother has to be without hot water and heating now even though we were told months ago we could get it? Ridiculous. She's having to use kettles to make baths!

I don't believe the government would just pull funding from an area and it's really convenient that they kept wanting the same amount and pulled out when we couldn't pay it.

doomlord_uk

Just in the middle of extricating my mum from doing a deal with this company...

Usual tactics - cold-call on the phone (despite my mum being on the Telephone Preference Service for ages) and ask if she has any worries or concerns about her boiler... My mum, in her mid seventies, was apparently relieved to mention the little drip that occasionally emantes from the bottom of the otherwise still-working-just-fine boiler that British Gas check every year without issue, and next thing I know she's got a salesman coming round. I find this out only when I call round unexpectedly and there he is, chatting her up and doing the whole friendly salesperson thing. Bloody sharks... :mad:

Anyway, it takes a bit of effort to coax my mum into explaining what the deal was - it's £2200 (or it might be more, because the salesman left NO paperwork or anything, just a promise of an e-mail that she needs to print out and sign for the GDAR survey...) Now, a new efficient boiler costs £600 - £800, maybe more for a big fancy one, and you'd pay a bit to have it fitted too of course, but no way a new boiler costs that much. The "green deal" loan she has to apply for and which she only gets retroactively is only for £1100... so basically this company is over charging AND pocketing all the green deal money. Seems like a proper scam to me, and it's not just my mum being scammed it's the taxpayer too!

And then there's the 10-year parts and labour warranty, which you have to pay £75/year to 'maintain' - ie you have to get a Gas-Safe engineer to check and certify your boiler every year or the "warranty" doesn't even apply. And "parts and labour"? So if the damn thing leaks and spoils anything, they aren't liable? So on top of the £2000+++ price you're forking out another £750 over the lifetime of the boiler.

The boiler being fitted, I forget the make - logic something - is 91.3% efficient. I'm pretty sure even without looking there are more efficient combi-boilers out there.

My mum, sadly, does not and will not shop around. She has no head for money, can't handle sales people and cannot say no on the phone. It wasn't that long ago I had to extricate her from another Green Deal scam for a 1.5kW solar panel system that would have cost her £5k up front, been under warranty for 10 years and would "probably" pay for itself in 12 - 15 years time... Worst. Investment. Ever.

And these companies almost certainly buy and sell lists of vulnerable people like my mum, to exploit. It makes me mad. I deal with them when I can, but I dread the day I don't speak to my mum for a week (for whatever reason) and she's gone and bought some new Green Deal scam widget thing.

And what the heck kind of name is Help-Link? Sounds good doesn't it? Just what a lil' ol' lady might like to have on call... right up until she's signed her life's savings away. :mad:

Even on principle I think people should stay away from this company.

doomlord_uk

I can clarify a few details now... but first happy to mention that I've got the deal cancelled, although they didn't tell the poor surveyor in time and he still turned up.

Had to return a form printed on the yellow sales sheet they left. I had said above they'd not left this but it was just my mum's memory... she did eventually dig it out for me.

The sheet confirmed the price - £2500! It also confirmed that she'd already paid the deposit of 10%. They said when I rang to cancel that they would process the refund after they'd received the cancellation note. So we'll see how that goes...

I've just shopped them to the TPS as well, since they wrongly cold-called my mum in the first place.

My mum also admitted being greatly relieved, and that she'd felt worried all along but "couldn't go back" having agreed to welcome the salesman in and answered all his questions.

I'm next going to see my MP about having this firm investigated further, and whether anything can be done to further protect elderly and other vulnerable people from being scammed.