Warning: *WOOF! WOOF! CORGI is barking again*

PhylPho

We've put our house up for sale and, as is usual nowadays, the sale details have been harvested by various businesses keen to get some money out of us: unknown removers, online estate agent scammers, and now this morning: CORGI HomePlan:



CORGI, of course, is vaguely remembered by many as A Good Thing from years ago. And yes: it was. Because CORGI is the acronym for the " Confederation for the Registration of Gas Installers", a Government-backed watchdog created to stop dodgy operators servicing gas appliances and blowing people up.

Its existence meant that anyone in the business of installing, maintaining and mending gas appliances had to be registered with the CORGI. Be approved by the CORGI. Otherwise, they couldn't legally do the work.

Registration fees from all those people duly rolled in. The CORGI was a happy doggy. Until 2009. When the CORGI died. Government stripped it of responsibility for gas safety and instead set up the Gas Safe Register under the auspices of the Health & Safety Executive.

After that, the CORGI name, deeply associated as it was with safety and best practice and high standards, was flogged off to any business wanting to make money out of that provenance -- as here, and an insurance business which knowingly and deliberately retains those acronymic capital letters even though they are, today, absolutely. . . meaningless.

CORGI HomePlan last addressed correspondence to me in a mail-out earlier this year of such blatant disingenuous bilge that I mentioned it on another MSE thread at that time. But now this missive has arrived, and yes, the dog's still barking as it did then:


As before, every effort is made to implant in the mind of the recipient the remembrance of "quality" and "standards" and "approval" and "confidence" once synonymous with CORGI registration.

It's even said that "CORGI was established" in 1970, though without mention of the truth that (a) it was a registration body, not a plumber; that (b) it's been dead many a year; and that (c) CORGI HomePlan had nothing whatsoever to do with its operation back then nor at any time since.

Above all, the recipient of this mail-out is acronymically assured of the Confederation for the Registration of Gas Installers Confidence from Homeplan -- a comforting thought, if actually considering hiring in an entire. . . confederation to come service your boiler.

CORGI HomePlan Ltd is in the business of 'retailing "home services" such as gas boiler, central heating and electrical pluming maintenance plans'. (Companies House December 2017 accounts filing, though what the 'pluming' is all about, only a feathered friend would know.) That filing further reports that its 'home services' policy book has 156,215 policies.

It was bought by the OVO energy group of companies in 2017. The actual name of that group is Imagination Industries Ltd. The highly imaginative use of the English language in its mail-outs must have made CORGI Homeplan Ltd a natural fit.

CORGI HomePlan Ltd is, therefore, just another seller of insurance. It seeks to persuade with a yesteryear acronym and carefully structured text that harkens back to that long defunct regulatory body whose approval -- ah, such a favourite word of this company -- really did mean something.

And, finally, it is ranked very high on TrustPilot. . .

robatwork

Well they're good enough for the Queen.

C_Mababejive

As you say, CORGI as a gas registration scheme is non existent . Registrations are now dealt with by Gas Safe Register operated by Crapita i believe ?


Registration is no real guarantee of technical ability or competence.