free boilers on offer???

careworker

Hi, a lady at my work told me she is getting a new boiler for free from a company called Tivium, she said all she has to do is pay £299 up front and they would send a man round to do a check on her old boiler to see if she qualifies for a new one, the first man came round and she gave him a cheque for 299, he told her the government will reimburse her of 270 when all the work has been done, he said another man would come round a few days later to do the check on the boiler. The second man came round as promised he did the check and said she could have a new boiler and that all this will be done within 6 weeks. They also told her she does not need to be claiming any type of benefit to qualify. Can anyone tell me if they know of this company and if such a deal exists, I am worried she has just given £299 of her hard earned cash.
Many thank careworker

groovyf

A quick google for "Tivium free boiler scheme" brought this as a second result, claiming "scam"

http://www.techkings.org/rant-room/55352-scam-laws-paid-299-upfront-tivium-boiler-under-government-greener-scheme.html

Might be worth scanning other results from such a google search to get a better overview.

ed110220

Only have to read as far as "pay £299 up front" to have alarm bells ringing!

nigelpm

careworker wrote: »

she said all she has to do is pay £299 up front

I fully expect that's £299 she won't be seeing again.

Mxty

You should always use a repitable company for boilers, £299 is a lot of money to be paying up front.

I use a company called PlumbCare (Yorkshire based) because of their finance option, I pay something around £15-20 a month for it which isn't much really.

Your work friend can find them here if she needs http://www.plumbcare.com/boiler-finance/

captainhindsight_2

There is a scheme called energy companies obligation or ECO which gives free boilers. But you have to be claiming certain benefits for this.

What trivium are selling is a green deal assessment, which can then be used to get a green deal plan to fit a boiler at no up front cost with the payments being made through the electricity bill, with these payments being limited to the savings made by having the new boiler.

The green deal is a good scheme and is a good option to get a new boiler, as there is also generous cash back incentives through this scheme as well.

However, trivium are not authorised to be a part of the green deal and are ripping people off!!!

I run a green deal company in the midlands, I have had over 100 customers just last year who have paid tivium around £300 and then herd nothing. And then after months of waiting have given up and contacted us to carry out the work.

I would tell your friend to try and get her money back ASAP, and contact a genuine green deal company she shouldn't have to pay more that £150 for this work.

But she will find this very difficult, as the company has a London forwarding address but is actually run from Newcastle and never respond to phone calls or letters etc...

thenudeone

Anyone asking £299 for a "free" boiler clearly isn't telling the truth.

skintsaver_2

I'm having a free boiler installed next week and I got it going through SSE as my electric is with them

Applied Xmas time and have now had the epc done and the technical survey which said I can have it for free, some people may have to pay a contribution but they tell you before you sign anything, it's all to do with the epc on your house apparently.

I haven't parted with a penny though so I'm well happy :j:j

EricMears

Out of the blue, I received a call from someone claiming to represent 'A Shade Greener' a couple of weeks ago. They wanted to give me a free wood pellet boiler (and keep the RHI payments of course but they discretely avoided mentioning that ).

Since they were offering a free survey and a free copy of the EPC, I agreed to see an ASG rep.

An interesting aside though : The original caller told me that a near neighbour had already asked for a survey and had recommended that they approach me as well. On checking with my neighbours (fancy thinking I wouldn't !) I found that they'd been told that I had recommended them but they hadn't taken up the survey offer :rotfl: He also assured me that the price per kWh of wood pellets was less than half that of oil (it's nearer 80% actually - an easy mistake to make if you're mathematically challenged !)

ASG surveyor and a 'Green Deal Assessor' turned up yesterday. After a few preliminary questions the ASG man decided that since I had a wood burning stove with back boiler in the living room and wasn't willing to scrap my perfectly serviceable oil-fired boiler (it would of course be worth its weight in gold if the new main boiler ever broke down or fuel became difficult or expensive to source) my property wouldn't be eligible for RHI payments so he left. Actually, he's completely wrong about that : you can have as many heat sources as you like in a property and still claim RHI; the only slight complication is that you'd need to meter the heat generated rather than relying on the EPC figures.

Of course I casually mentioned the original caller's lies and insisted that they investigate. In a later telephone call another ASG representative assured me that the original caller wasn't an ASG employee but worked for an agency and would be disciplined for the incident.

The GD assessor carried on to do the assessment. For technical reasons (ours is a new-build with no completion certificate yet) he couldn't actually issue an EPC but he did send me a draft. Afraid his estimate of the house's heat requirements was a long way short of my actual oil purchases (and I can see several errors in the report that probably explain that).

I'm sure I'll actually go on to buy my own biomass boiler from the same chap that installed the SPs and who has assured me that there will be no problem with claiming RHI payments.

For anyone who can't afford their own boiler and is tempted by the ASG offer, I wouldn't actually recommend them to accept it but it's certainly worth considering.

theboylard

I have to hold my hands up Eric, it wasn't me!!

I have had interviews with British Solar and A Shade Greener recently (in the last month), they both offered me positions as Sales Reps.

British Solar - well! They as a company are not MCS registered. They have a boilershop marketing department and the sale is all based around the financial benefits. Couldn't tell me which inverters they used and they installed Canadian Solar modules! It's financial sales without the FSA oversight, or the dark days of double glazing sales!
Basically they sell their "package", and then sell it on to a localish installer. They get the money (a lot!), but the installer does all the guarantees and the actual work for a knockdown price as they know it's a guaranteed install.

ASG on the other hand are registered as you would expect for a legitimate installer, MCS, RECC etc.
They also tie in with Barclays finance which is a big part of the offer.
The premium package includes LG mono X panels which I was told they had a UK monopoly on?
Again, massively oversold offering with the premium pack, including extended warranties, voltage optimisers and other bits costing around 13k!

I was offered the British Solar position the day after my interview. They followed up with a phone call but when I questioned the product range for specific info I was bluntly told
"you're being very negative, I don't think you'd be a good fit within our forward thinking company"!

A Shade Greener offered me the position after the interview, there and then.
I told them I would discuss with the boss and let them know.

Both postions were self employed, no allowances, no mileage but did inlcude initial training, with subsequent product training assuming I met targets etc.

Both were told, at least twice during the interview, that I have a conscience and that I had solar installed myself and what I had paid.

I turned down both positions as I, with all the will in the world, could not sell a system to someone that was at least twice the going rate.

Nice to get an ear on the inside, but it made me appreciate the smaller installer more.

teddysmum

Eric Mears that ploy sounds very familiar, as it was used by one of their reps,about two years ago, when trying to get me to take solar panels, but he actually knocked on the door, having convinced my two neighbours above and one across the way, to take his offer.