Anyone used the Mark Group?

clew111

fluffnutter wrote: »

Personally I'm suspicious of anyone who needs to come to your door to drum up business (apart from window cleaners for some reason). No good comes of it IME.

If you want the job doing, and you quite liked the quote, then do the sensible thing: get some more quotes before you agree to anything.

The reason people come to the door is to enable everyone to benefit from the funding that is currently available. There is a huge percentage of the pop. that don't know about the grants they're eligible for.

zaksmum

The work was done quickly and efficiently at no cost to me.

I thought all such insulating works to the home were free under the warm front grant? I'm surprised anyone has had to actually pay for it.

In fact shortly after I had mine done the papers were full of ads from companies offering to pay the householder to have the work done! £100 for loft insulation and another £100 if you got cavity wall insulation done too.

Gilbert2

patman99 wrote: »

The question is, why pay £300 for a load of cheap Rockwool insulation to be laid when you can do the job yourself using the more effecciant foil cover stuff ?. Costs about 1.5 x the cost of the rockwool but is thin-enough to actually put boards down on top to make the loft a good useful storage space.

Why would you put boards onto loft insulation? It's just compressed down which makes the insulation near useless as a result.

jimbo24168

Don't know about their loft work but in my opinion their drivers are some of the worst I see on the motorways. They think the shown speed limit sign is the minimum speed they should drive at, and lane discipline....least said the better.

Artie_Fufkin

We had a man from Mark Group call at our house in October to offer us free loft insulation via government grant. Fine chap, booked in to have it done on Tue 15th January. A few weeks later I had a phone call from them , "I see you had one of our surveyors round, would you like to book to have the work done?"

I said I already have an appointment, I have the reference number here.

"Oh, I don't know about that, would you like me to book you another appointment?"

??? Well, no, I don't want another appointment as I already have one.

"Oh, well I'll get someone to call you back about that one"

Indeed they did. Next day a phone call saying, yes my January appoinment is correct. Good.

Well, seeing that the appointment is only a few days away I phoned them today to confirm the booking and was told the grant has stopped and they will not be coming!

Never mind I had a day off work scheduled for then and you weren't going to phone to let me know either, were you? But worst of all, now I have missed out on the free loft insulation altogether.

Mark Group...a disorganised shambles!

Ma_Barnabus

I've taken the day off work and spent most of this morning lugging things out of my attic to clear it so that Mark Group can come round to insulate my attic. A month ago a surveyor came round and said that I would qualify for a grant to do the whole job for £99.

I did miss a call on my mobile yesterday, but this morning I was waiting for them to show up and had a funny sense that something might not be right. I called up Mark Group who put me through to several solemnly confused people who first told me that my 'paperwork had not arrived' and that therefore I would not be receiving a visit from the installers. Pushing further, it emerged that government grants had been 'suddenly withdrawn' on January 3rd (actually, upon calling the energy saving trust, it's been clear that they were about to expire for ages), and that therefore they'd decided not to honour the contract they'd made with me.

They did point out that their right to brazenly pull out is enshrined in their terms and condition, but (although I think they should honour their agreement, even if the government aren't providing the grants), my real issue is the shabby way they treat their customers - they've had nearly three weeks to get in touch with me to cancel the contract, and they just didn't bother. When I tried to speak to customer services to make a complaint, they said that my concern 'didn't qualify as a complaint' (what do they mean 'my complaint doesn't qualify as a complaint'?and referred me to their terms and conditions.

There seems to be a fundamental lack of communication at this company - everyone I spoke to kept on changing their story -adding and changing elements as they went along. The first person I spoke to was careful with his words, but basically implied that head office was constantly giving him a load of grief.

Do not use this company.

tali

Not Mark Group per se , but every week one of these companies cold calls.My mom signed up with numerous - but none did loft - apart from final one when mom made it clear about previous companies
I signed up and was phoned about loft aswell - but no one got back to me for appt.
They also said 2nd of 3 stages(last is solar panels) was free boiler replacement in Jan , but now this has been moved to March when i phoned
Has anyone had the free boiler replacement?

GlamGirlie

zaksmum wrote: »

Just had a young man turned up at my door, with a folding ladder under his arm, offering free loft insulation, saying he was from the Mark Group. He asked to check out our loft and O/H allowed him in to do so, obviously keeping an eye on him.

He said there was no charge whatsoever but didn't ask if anyone was on benefits etc.

After asking who our energy providers were - why was this relevant? - he gave us a date to have the loft insulation done, stipulating there's no charge. O/H signed his form which stated that we agreed to pay the installation team on completion of the work, but the "Amount Due" figure was zero. The man said it was a free summer offer.

Bit worried now though - I always thought these government based schemes were conditional on certain benefits? There were other young men in the road knocking at neighbours' doors, and I did check the ID of the one who came here...it just hard to take anyone at face value these days, especially when they're cold calling.

So has anyone used the Mark group and are they a reputable company?

They fitted our loft insulation, which was a freebie from an energy company.

We applied to the energy company (sorry I don't recall which one, it was about 18 months ago), & got an email saying that the Mark Group would be in touch....

They duly were, came, fitted & left.... all A-OK.

No complaints from me!

lozsta

Had them come round last night. I will see when they have been and report back, I am going to take the plunge on the merit of this post, and the good reports posted.

Thanks everyone :j

Commet

zaksmum wrote: »

Just had a young man turned up at my door, with a folding ladder under his arm, offering free loft insulation, saying he was from the Mark Group. He asked to check out our loft and O/H allowed him in to do so, obviously keeping an eye on him.

He said there was no charge whatsoever but didn't ask if anyone was on benefits etc.

After asking who our energy providers were - why was this relevant? - he gave us a date to have the loft insulation done, stipulating there's no charge. O/H signed his form which stated that we agreed to pay the installation team on completion of the work, but the "Amount Due" figure was zero. The man said it was a free summer offer.

Bit worried now though - I always thought these government based schemes were conditional on certain benefits? There were other young men in the road knocking at neighbours' doors, and I did check the ID of the one who came here...it just hard to take anyone at face value these days, especially when they're cold calling.

So has anyone used the Mark group and are they a reputable company?

Hello there zaksmum, my name is Commet and I actually use to work for Marks Group so let me answer some of your questions.

yes it's actually free and yes normally you do have to be on benefits.
However sometimes the government changes the scheme to allow even those without benefits to receive the loft insulation. Not sure why they keep changing it but thats the government for you lol.

When I first started working for Marks Group for exsample we could sign up anyone as long as they were not in a council house or housing association accommodation.

The person signing up must be the home owner or in the case of rentals must have land lords permission. They must be 19 or older and the insulation in the loft must fall bellow 12 inches and take up a certain persent of the house. Hence why you have to mesure the house on visits. THere not trying to scam you or use your info for illegal purposes, however saying that I did know a few people working there who where sketchy.

as for the boy asking which company suplies your gas, he merely did that as part of filling out the forms. We are required to get all information from the client before we can process the form. I'm not sure why the company needs to know you are supplied by British Gas though :undecided.


Tricks of the trade,

Trick 1)
Our contracts change often so just because he offers you boilers if you sign up for the free loft insulation doesn't mean you will get the boiler. Some of my college would use this trick alot, getting in the door because the person wanted the boiler they would never get.

Trick 2)
Multiple mobiles, If the person your Dealing with has more then one mobile their probably not trust worthy as far as getting you the boiler. Chances are they will give you one of the numbers of the mobile they don't even use or turn on and may even throw the mobile away once they have used it enough times. I have seen this happen so be careful.

Tips to help Customers:

Tip 1)
Again our contracts do change so if the person signing you up is reliable then you will get the boiler when the contract become available to Marks Group.

Tip 2) The best thing to do is to simply call the company while the person is at your door and asking them outright what contract are actually available at that time. They should have some forms with the company number or it will be located on their name badge under there name. Have them wait at the door while you confirm their claims Never take there word for it.

I could really go on forever about this but I think I will leave it off here and simply say if your provider British gas does the installation for free go with them instead. It would be less hassle.

Feel free to message me if you or anyone has any questions about Marks Group I will be blatantly honest.