How to complain about British Gas servicing?

lindsayg_2

I'm literally sitting in tears of sadness, anger and frustration as I wait (and wait, and wait) for British Gas to send an engineer to fix an electrical fault which has left me with no heating, hot water, dishwasher or washing machine for over a week.

They sent an engineer last Monday to diagnose the fault - he made a detailed examination and ordered parts. And since I'm on my own with a three-year old, he was very kind about the fact that we need our stuff working again.

Since then - I have been lied to, had several appointments no-showed, been run around from pillar to post by call centres, had Team Leaders and Customer Relations make me a series of promises about visits and call-backs (all of which have been broken), and perhaps most annoyingly of all I have been 'popped on hold' to listen to a recorded message about what a 'valued customer' I am, and how much BG prides itself on 'keeping me informed' about a hundred times.

Please, does anyone have any insight into how I can force them to keep their promise and actually send someone with the parts to get my heating, hot water and appliances back on?

Also, since the only language these b*sta***s understand is money - and I have paid upfront via Home Care - how can I get a refund and compensation for the four days I have spent waiting in the house for them, plus the stress and sheer lousiness of living in the sixties myself and my son have now had a week of, and can expect several more days, since it's now 3.30pm on 'Day 7 in the Freezing Cold House' and once again, they are not here, and not making the call backs I was promised.

Sorry this is so long - I needed to vent! Plus, I honestly hope that anyone reading this who is thinking of buying BG Home Care, or indeed giving them money for anything - goes elsewhere.

MothballsWallet

Have you tried calling them again and letting the adviser know that you are a parent with a young child with no heating due to the fault? BG normally give people in your situation a higher priority (or they should do, unless they've changed their policies).

Do you know anyone who's a plumber/electrician/heating engineer who might be able to help you in the short term?

I'd also make some notes of what's happened and draft a letter of complaint to them as this is poor service from them (I have to declare an interest - I'm a HomeCare customer too for heating & drains and had no problems with them, so far).

You may be able to get them to reimburse additional costs you've incurred while waiting for their engineer - hopefully, someone else with better knowledge will be along.

Can I also suggest getting some personal recommendations of local heating, plumbing and electrical tradesmen that you could turn to in future as well, should you decide to cancel the BG policy?

There may even be a BG rep on this very site who can help escalate anything.

I wish you luck in getting this fixed as soon as possible

Wywth

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=british+gas+homecare+complaints

ollski

What are you waiting for, gas man, electrical man, plumber?. Are the parts out of stock / obsolete?

chanz4

the dish washer / washer should be able to heat its water its self. To complain you need togo down their complaints route.

ihateyes

i believe in their Terms and Conditions..........

there is a complaints number, complaints address in there.

macman

You don't say what the actual fault is, but I assume it's a single ring main (either the downstairs or kitchen one) which powers all these devices? If so, a decent independent sparky could probably fix that in an hour or so. I can't imagine what 'parts' are needed on order that any electrician would not have on his van. An MCB or replacement socket maybe? There's little else that is replaceable on such a circuit. Any local wholesaler will have such parts in stock.
In the meantime, why don't you just run a trailing extension lead from a socket that is not affected, to your washing machine and dishwasher, assuming that these are not wired into FCU's?
But do you really have no back-up heating (£10 convector, fan heater etc) for such emergencies?
I'm afraid that this demonstrates why such cover is a complete waste of money.

warehouse

O.P. I had a similar issue but with Thames Water where I had sewage coming into my garden for days, broken promises, lies the lot. Eventually I snapped. I took a days leave from work and spent the entire morning emailing and calling every local paper/magazine, my local MP, Offwat, the local council and everyone I could think of that I could annoy.

The local paper love a story like this and were round within the hour taking pictures, and I'm not sure who kicked the right backside but Thames Water absolutely bent over themselves backwards to help and get the problem sorted out that day. It was amazing how they were suddenly all over us. We even received a luxury hamper for our troubles a week later.

Get emailing and calling now, everyone you can possibly think of.

ollski

macman wrote: »

You don't say what the actual fault is, but I assume it's a single ring main (either the downstairs or kitchen one) which powers all these devices? If so, a decent independent sparky could probably fix that in an hour or so. I can't imagine what 'parts' are needed on order that any electrician would not have on his van. An MCB or replacement socket maybe? There's little else that is replaceable on such a circuit. Any local wholesaler will have such parts in stock.
In the meantime, why don't you just run a trailing extension lead from a socket that is not affected, to your washing machine and dishwasher, assuming that these are not wired into FCU's?
But do you really have no back-up heating (£10 convector, fan heater etc) for such emergencies?
I'm afraid that this demonstrates why such cover is a complete waste of money.

I'm not sure your 'assumption' is a 'demonstration' of anything.

McKneff

I can't fault them, started the 'scheme' early October, was told that the service would be Am on 22nd November, I was automatically reminded on 20th November, Gas man rang me up 15 minutes before he arrived.

He arrived exactly on time, was very thorough with his service, polite, friendly, did the job well and left.

No complaints about British Gas from me.

Hope you get sorted soon OP.

macman

Well, since the OP clearly has power to work her PC, it's not an unreasonable assumption to make that a single ring main fault is the cause. If the unknown part really does take a week to obtain (which is most unlikely), then why could the engineer not make a temporary connection by extension cable to another circuit to give her at least her heating back on in the meantime?
No doubt the OP can confirm what has actually failed.