Missed Gas Service Appointment

pop18

I booked for a Boiler Service and Gas Safety last weekend for £190. Firm said their engineer would come between 9-10am.



I had asked my brother to attend but he had taken a short nap as he works nights and woke up at 9am remembering he needed to get to my place. His phone was off between 9-9.35am. So he leaves around this time, he calls them up at 9.55am to ask if the engineer was there. Lady on phone replies they had tried calling repeatedly and have been reassigned another job at 9.45. If he required the same service, he could book it again for the same fee. He said I'm 2 mins away and if they're in the area to please come back.

They have taken the money, have not issued an invoice. No services were carried out.

I accept he has messed up and would even accept a call out charge in this instance, but what are my options given they had been booked into another job. How would you approach this?

George_Michael

Yes, the service engineer was reassigned another job at 9.45 but they still require paying for the time they lost due to not being able to get to your boiler.
You might be able to talk them into refunding some of the money but I certainly think that they are entitled to a fair part of it.

£190 for a boiler service is very expensive. Is it fitted in a commercial property?
The last service I had cost me about £85 and this was only a couple of months ago.

pop18

Thanks Goerge. Service was £99, Gas safety was £99. They knocked a fiver off for doing both. I checked with local Gas Safe who offered to do certificate for £50.


I accept that they lost that hour coming down, They didn't provide either service, no invoice even emailed to me. Even when I phoned them by their company name it wasn't acknowledged. On my statement it just says Home improve.

EmmyLou30

You shouldn’t be paying for the gas safety certificate, any decent gas service engineer will provide you with it as part of the boiler service. It takes them 5 minutes to fill out the form.

George_Michael

EmmyLou30 wrote: »

You shouldn’t be paying for the gas safety certificate, any decent gas service engineer will provide you with it as part of the boiler service. It takes them 5 minutes to fill out the form.

That's why I asked if the boiler was in a commercial property.
If it is, the annual requirement is for a safety inspection that covers all gas appliances in the property, associated pipework and fittings etc and it's common for companies to charge for this certificate.

TELLIT01

It seems that the engineer arrived during the agreed time period but there was nobody there to let them in. They complied with their side of the contract so there is no comeback on them, other than the OP not using them again in the future.

dunroving

pop18 wrote: »

I booked for a Boiler Service and Gas Safety last weekend for £190. Firm said their engineer would come between 9-10am.



I had asked my brother to attend but he had taken a short nap as he works nights and woke up at 9am remembering he needed to get to my place. His phone was off between 9-9.35am. So he leaves around this time, he calls them up at 9.55am to ask if the engineer was there. Lady on phone replies they had tried calling repeatedly and have been reassigned another job at 9.45. If he required the same service, he could book it again for the same fee. He said I'm 2 mins away and if they're in the area to please come back.

They have taken the money, have not issued an invoice. No services were carried out.

I accept he has messed up and would even accept a call out charge in this instance, but what are my options given they had been booked into another job. How would you approach this?

I think you are out of luck.

The contract was that they would arrive at a certain time (which they did), and that you would let them in (which you didn't).

At 9:45, they had to go to the next job, having wasted 45 minutes of "expertise-time". If they had waited, (a) the next person would have been inconvenienced, and (b) they would have had to give you an additional 45 minutes of "expertise-time". For which you should pay for the additional job time.

The fact they didn't actually do anything is not relevant - it was expertise you were paying for, and it was your fault (or rather your brother's fault) that the expertise wasn't used.

I think your brother owes you £190.

(I would say that a smart company might waive 50% of the charge as a gesture of goodwill, but contractually, they aren't obliged to do it).

jefaz07

I can’t believe you’ve agreed to have a boulder service for £190!!
Are we talking about a domestic boiler? And they wanted to charge £99 for filling a form in?
That’s extortionate.

shaun_from_Africa

jefaz07 wrote: »

I can’t believe you’ve agreed to have a boulder service for £190!!
Are we talking about a domestic boiler? And they wanted to charge £99 for filling a form in?
That’s extortionate.

The service was quoted at being £99 which although is a bit more than I usually pay, isn't extortionate.

southcoastrgi

Wow that's expensive I normally do a combined service/safety for £85, most of the work of the safety cert is carried out on a service

kangoora

£75 here for the work......