Homeserve - Boiler cover nightmare

newbridge

Not a great experience with homeserve boiler cover and the way they can ignore customers and their greivances. Have contacted them at-least 10 times with same response of "we are investigating...and will come back as soon as possible". Its been 21 days now!

Some back-ground on what happened:

- We are a household with young(<5 years) children so need to keep heating working, especially during winters.
- Had bought a boiler cover in January 2017. One needs to get BHC(boiler health check) with in 90days of starting the policy. And it also came with a free service. So I thought cover + free service was perfect.

- Before homeserve could do a BHC/service, unfortunately my boiler broke down after about 14-15 days.

- So I contacted them and made them aware of the situation. The customer rep said it shouldn't be a problem. They will send someone to do the BHC first and then someone again to repair.

- I did query, that how is the engineer going to do BHC if its already broken and why don't you send the homeserve engineer to fix straight away. But she insisted the any way.

- Engineer came after 3 days; talked on phone at his office for a while and then said "homeserve won't cover it, because we had called them too early...if it was 1 day late they would do it" and left.

- I contacted support again to check why it wasn't covered? Got variety of answers each time:
"The engineer couldn't do BHC and hence we cant cover"
"The person present at home didn't allow the engineer to do BHC..." etc

So I asked them what would homeserve do, if a customer boiler breaks down before BHC is done(within allowed 90 days)...?
Answer to that was, "our engineer have skills and tools to detect if the boiler was a pre-existing problem which we wont cover"

Which is fine, so I asked how did they detect that it was pre-existing problem or why wasn't BHC done?
Ans: "We have requested engineers report from relevant dept. and will be sent to me soon." (its been 21 days since!)


Meanwhile, my family including kids suffered in cold(days when it snowed heavily) rooms without adequate hot water.

I lodged a complaint, and then contacted again to check the status. Shocked to find that the customer support had decided to not lodge it as a complaint but "matter of dissatisfaction!". So I insisted that i want it to be a complaint and if homeserve followed any service level standards.

I was told, I would get response within 5 days..and it been 2 weeks since then.

Between this period, I have contacted at-least 10 times to check the status of complaint & promised report but seems they can get away with ignoring a customer/complaint.

While checking up reviews(too late- I know) on homeserve. Found FCA had fined them in 2014

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/insurance/2014/02/homeserve-fined-for-mis-selling-insurance-can-you-get-money-back

The FCA says the firm:

Failed to investigate complaints adequately.
Had inadequate IT software in place, which resulted in some customers being overcharged and being charged for duplicate cover they didn't need.
Put pressure on staff to close as many complaints as possible, meaning there was a risk that grievances weren't handled fairly and customers didn't receive appropriate redress.


Seems there hasn't been much improvement since then!

Note to homeserve, if you are reading: I have got records of conversation, if you want to go through it.

HomeServe_company_representative

Hi there,

Thank you for taking the time to comment on your experience. The level of service you receive is of great importance to us and whenever we are made aware of any issues, we do all we can to put things right and ensure the matter is looked into.

What you have described is not what we are about, we are a different company to the one we were and have made significant improvements since. We would really like to get a further understanding as to what has happened and ensure this is picked up.

Please contact us via the details available on our profile and we can take a look into this.

Kindest regards

Rebecca
Here To Help Team

csgohan4

time to consider self fund and save up the money for any repairs

newbridge

Update:

- Got a phone call from Business Improvement Adviser; he heard from me what had happened, sent me the so called engineers report and conveyed verbal apologies!

- He agrees that the policy is misleading & confusing, which states that a BHC has to be done by a homeserve engineer within 90 days of taking the policy. But if the boiler breaks down before that, they won't cover since BHC cannot be done due to boiler being non-operational. Even if the boiler breaks down after taking the policy.

- He also agreed that homeserve customer service agents had provided wrong information at different times. They should have never booked an engineer for BHC when I clearly stated boiler has broken down.

- Also agreed that customer services was totally wrong in not logging my complaint and keeping it as a "matter of discontent" ignoring my request several times. Another way of keeping the complaint numbers theoretically down and avoiding the responsibility for responding within 5 day standard set by homeserve.

- The report basically says,
Service Outcome: Unable to coplete,
Reason: Appliance not operational.
That is what I had told in first place! when making a claim. And queried why they were sending engineer for BHC when it needs fixing.

- No where in the report, it showed that breakdown was a pre-existing condition before the policy was taken. Neither did the engineer do anything clever as claimed by support.

- Isn't homeserve taking its customers for fools? Where everything goes fine while charging their premiums, and when the real time comes to provide service, take the customer for a ride going round in confusing circles while highlighting policy.

- Asking the representative, how is homeserve going to compensate the suffering my family had to go through, and waste of my time by providing misleading and confusing information. "Verbal apologies was the best they could offer".

- I have had my boiler fixed independently since then, but HOME-SERVE has a lot to cover in being customer friendly, honest and fair.

Bez1960

My experience of Homeserve is very similar. 21st December 2018: report boiler breakdown. Engineer comes out 28 hours later, stays for 40 minutes but claims he cannot fix it but will come back tomorrow and try again (what the hell does that mean?!). We ring HS to be told boiler needs a part and the part has been ordered.
Day 3: engineer does not come back and no communication so we ring HS but we are now fed a different story; it h as been passed to the senior engineer for advice. Also told the matter would be escalated and somebody would get back to us within 24 hours
Day 4: no communication
Day 5: still no communication so we ring HS again except that this time it was being reviewed by the technical team although he cannot explain what that means and nor can he give a timescale. Told the same story and told the matter will be flagged up as urgent and somebody would get back to us within 24 hours. We ask is the boiler fixable? He says he doesn't think it's unfixable.
Day 6: still no communication so we ring HS (again!) but get the same party line (I am beginning to think that they are reading from a script)
Day 7: still no communication and I am beginning to lose patience. Submit an official complaint
Day 8: still no communication so we ring HS again to be told the same story
Day 9: HS send a text saying the same patter so finally lose patience and ring them asking for the £75 call out fee to be refunded. HS say that is not going to happen. Ring up private engineer who comes out next day, diagnosis the problem within 20 minutes and says he will return tomorrow to fix the boiler at a cost of £390. Will Homeserve reimburse me for these costs? Probably not.
Got a phone call from Business Improvement Adviser; he heard from me what had happened, sent me the so called engineers report and conveyed verbal apologies!

- He agrees that the policy is misleading & confusing, which states that a BHC has to be done by a homeserve engineer within 90 days of taking the policy. But if the boiler breaks down before that, they won't cover since BHC cannot be done due to boiler being non-operational. Even if the boiler breaks down after taking the policy.

- He also agreed that homeserve customer service agents had provided wrong information at different times. They should have never booked an engineer for BHC when I clearly stated boiler has broken down.

- Also agreed that customer services was totally wrong in not logging my complaint and keeping it as a "matter of discontent" ignoring my request several times. Another way of keeping the complaint numbers theoretically down and avoiding the responsibility for responding within 5 day standard set by homeserve.

- The report basically says,
Service Outcome: Unable to coplete,
Reason: Appliance not operational.
That is what I had told in first place! when making a claim. And queried why they were sending engineer for BHC when it needs fixing.

- No where in the report, it showed that breakdown was a pre-existing condition before the policy was taken. Neither did the engineer do anything clever as claimed by support.

- Isn't homeserve taking its customers for fools? Where everything goes fine while charging their premiums, and when the real time comes to provide service, take the customer for a ride going round in confusing circles while highlighting policy.

- Asking the representative, how is homeserve going to compensate the suffering my family had to go through, and waste of my time by providing misleading and confusing information. "Verbal apologies was the best they could offer".

- I have had my boiler fixed independently since then, but HOME-SERVE has a lot to cover in being customer friendly, honest and fair.[/QUOTE]

Senkrah

Currently having a nightmare with Home serve. I'm cancelling my policy. The last straw was being told I had to agree to have engineers from a sub contractor which I don't trust,have appalling customer service into my home if I wanted my boiler repaired. I feel I've Been bullied, dismissed, lied too repeatedly and still waiting for a response to second complaint. Home serve were more than happy to leave a disabled person without heating and hot water over Christmas... not nice at all.

michaels

My tale of woe:
3 Dec report boiler losing pressure and furthest rad snot getting hot
5 dec visit from engineer need to replace pressure relief valve
8 Dec engineer visit, didn't have part but wanted to inspect again? diagnosed also needed another part.
15 Dec engineer visit cancelled (on day) as part not come told will be 9th Jan for part as has to come from Germany, complained and part was located
17 Dec visit to fit part, apparently both parts supplied were wrong so back to 11th Jan timescale
I contacted boiler manufacturer who said part is in UK, complained to homeserve who then managed to source it from 'alternative' supplier for fitting on 24th December
24th December parts fitted, boiler works and pressure leak stopped but furthest rads still not really hot enough.
Jan, problem of far rads gets worse and worse, whole house starts to get cold although boiler still working. 20 Jan engineer back (argument as to whether it is the same issue) and says needs new pump.

25 Jan New pump fitted
26 Jan boiler springs leak with lots of water all over the floor etc so have to shut it down. Homeserve 'emergency' visit booked, contact Sat AM, appointment not till Monday.

I have no confidence in their ability to resolve the problem, they have no knowledge of our brand of boiler (veissmann) nor the control system (weather compensation) nor I suspect would they understand a 4 pipe system if it wasn't right in front of them, but what alternative do I have apart from paying again for a specialist on top of paying for the annual policy?