OMG British Gas Homecare!

Lgas

jennyjelly wrote: »

Did you even bother to read my follow-up posts? If you did you would see that I'm now being dealt with by a properly qualified person and am optimistic that it is being sorted out. That I have had 6 different engineers and the first 5 failed to solve the problem speaks for itself, it's not me slagging off BG, just reporting the facts. I would much rather they got it right and made me happy to stay with them then got it wrong and gave me the problem of finding someone else to repair it. I can't imagine you would disagree with this would you?

RE the Watchdog article - any right minded person would think it's wrong to condemn a boiler when it could be fixed for under £100. I'm not adding fuel to the flames, just commenting on what I saw (which incidentally was not relevant to my own problem).

Do you happen to work for BG by any chance? Or is it just your habit to respond after reading only the first post of a thread?

Watchdog highlighted 3 complaints out of 7 million annual home visits. Just saying Glad you've got it sorted!

macman

Though they did say that 1 in 100 visits results in the fitting of a new boiler-so that's potentially 70,00 unecessary new installs. At say £2,500 each, that's £175m...

ihateyes

macman wrote: »

Though they did say that 1 in 100 visits results in the fitting of a new boiler-so that's potentially 70,00 unecessary new installs. At say £2,500 each, that's £175m...

oh and every new boiler required was unnecessary?
oh and did you see watchdog on thursday..... the people that got ripped of by hundreds of pounds by a Local GSR???

at least BG give a quote before the work is done;)

macman

You will see (if you bothered to read my post properly) that I said 'potentially'.
70,000 installs also equals commission paid to BG engineers of £1.05m (a commission which initially they attempted to deny they even paid, by describing it instead as a referral fee).

globetraveller

Rupert_Bear wrote: »

Well OP we are into our 4th year of Homecare and unlike you who finds it so easy to complain we have had nothing but a first rate service. We always find them excellent and even got them to reduce their charges last year down to £29. per month. This is for the Homecare 400 deal.

Just because Watchdog have got on the band wagon it is unhelpful for people like you to add fuel to the flames.:mad:

OMG

Are you sure its £29? I was quoted £19 and got it down to £16 by quoting another company's quote.

ollski

macman wrote: »

You will see (if you bothered to read my post properly) that I said 'potentially'.
70,000 installs also equals commission paid to BG engineers of £1.05m (a commission which initially they attempted to deny they even paid, by describing it instead as a referral fee).

To be fair macman he answered the question Robinson posed which was "do your engineers benefit from the SALE of a boiler?", I posted several times we don't benefit in any way from a sale. I appreciate the dozy bint was trying to remember a slightly different question and got a bit mixed up but the answer to her question was truthful. I don't see any problem with a crappy little bonus being paid for a referral 10 quid or so after tax / ni....wow. Almost all retail and service businesses operate on a bonus / comission scheme somewhere along and most considerably more lurative than that.

macman

The amount is surely immaterial, what matters is that the engineers have a vested interest in the customer purchasing a new boiler.
If the amount is so small as to be not worth the effort, why don't BG just drop it altogether?

Terrylw1

macman wrote: »

The amount is surely immaterial, what matters is that the engineers have a vested interest in the customer purchasing a new boiler.
If the amount is so small as to be not worth the effort, why don't BG just drop it altogether?

Totally agree.

Customers, as Cardew said on the other thread, see these guys as the old gas board engineers. That helps the sales guys get a foot in the door.

bargepole

macman wrote: »

The amount is surely immaterial, what matters is that the engineers have a vested interest in the customer purchasing a new boiler.
If the amount is so small as to be not worth the effort, why don't BG just drop it altogether?

Not quite accurate, I had a BG engineer round this week, he showed me the documentation, they get a £15 fee for booking an appointment for a sales adviser to give a quote. Whether the customer accepts the quote or not, is immaterial, so it can't be classed as a commission.

Anyway my 20 year old Baxi had developed a leak, and it looked like it might be a cracked heat exchanger, so I was resigned to spending £2k+ for a replacement. But the BG engineer took it apart, and found the leak was actually coming from the joint between the pump and the isolation valve, then dripping down on to the heat exchanger.

So he replaced the pump, and isolation valve joint, spending a couple of hours getting it all working and dry again (he had to cut the nuts off the joint with a hacksaw). At no point did he suggest getting a new boiler - he was one of the old school, and getting an engineer like that makes the Homecare fees all worthwhile.

His only comment about Chris Jansen's appearance on Watchdog was "you can always tell when a BG senior manager is lying, their lips are moving"

ollski

macman wrote: »

The amount is surely immaterial, what matters is that the engineers have a vested interest in the customer purchasing a new boiler.
If the amount is so small as to be not worth the effort, why don't BG just drop it altogether?

They also get a payment for customer satisfaction and first time fix so the incentive to repair and repair first time is far greater then to replace.