Consumer Watchdog - 24/7 Home Rescue ( ** Please Read ** )

The_Service_Engineer

I took out a policy with 24/7 Home rescue last year, I was stupid to let it renew but the two engineer that visited on the first year were there and hour and serviced both the boiler and central heating equipment, they missed a leak from a cut of valve that needed tightening but my wife was happy so I overlooked it and tightened it myself, I waited 6 weeks for these guys to turn up even though the website states they have over 3000 engineers, so don't ask me why you wait for 6 weeks with that many engineers but that is the first indicator in my eyes that things are not as they seem, the reviews well thats another matter but this is my findings of this company, 

So this year the contract rolled over which is where the horror story starts of course everything I post here I can back up with video footage with full speech and emails from the company.

So let's start with the visit from the engineer to service my boiler.

The engineer was onsite for 29 mins as shown on video.

I welcomed in the engineer and told him about a leak to outside I have from my heating system upstairs the engineer followed me up two flights of stairs to look at the heating controls as the pressure I believe is low so I have a small drip to outside.  The engineer proceeded to tell me a valve has debris in it and said he would log a job for it, he used no tools to make this diagnosis he did not even check the pressure in the tanks as when the pressure drops it will leak to outside, the engineer then proceeded to walk down two flights of stairs to the boiler

The engineer proceeded to work on the boiler, unknown to him my wife could clearly see him texting on his phone by my cooker so he didn't do much and then called me.

I was called to the boiler as the engineer could not turn on the heating, when I entered the kitchen at least 5 notifications came through on his phone I presume this was the replies to his messaging session and clearly he was embarrassed by this, I put the heating on.

I was called from my stairs minutes later to say the engineer was going my radiators were still stone cooled, I asked are you not going to do anything with my heating controls as they did it last year ?

His reply was "No, well I can if you want"

I said "Are you going to do any work on it ?"

He replied "No"

I replied "Well there is no point going up if you are not going to do any work!" 

He then said I will go back up then came back down and told me its as dry as a bone he had no tools and it was a very quick.

Unknown to me the engineer dropped the pressure in the system so it was well below an acceptable level possibly damaging my central heating system.

The engineer then proceeded to try and sell me a boiler, believe me after having an engineer that did not complete the job and the job he did do was quite questionable if it was to any good standard.  Over £5000 for a new boiler which includes service visits, if the maintenance visits looked like this one then I would feel like I was being robbed on every visit so I said no, the engineer went on to tell me he would not upgrade my system its rock solid so i was left thinking thats unscrupulous to try and sell me something when you know what I have you would not upgrade yourself.

I have asked and continue to ask the company what does your engineer check and how long should each task take, they will not tell me and I have emailed various people in the company and no one knows which is worrying, 

They tell me they service every boiler to the manufactures specification but cannot tell me what the engineer does, what tasks are done to manufacture standards or how long it takes to do each task.

The job was signed off by someone other than myself, I signed nothing to say I was happy with this job, the customer services upheld any complaint I have made to the point there is no real complaint procedure they just upheld everything so you can say there is no customer services that will deal with your issue, I guess if my house blew up they would not take the blame.

I estimate the boiler service was completed in a matter of minutes when two engineers prior took over an hour, I would have to guess between 15-19 mins but it could be less when you take out the online system the engineer has to use, sales pitch, etc.  I did wonder what the engineer actually did as upon leaving he pointed at my gas meter asked if that is my meter, so not sure if its common practice to service boilers without turning off the gas ?

He did not service the heating controls that I am paying for, although now they tell me the heating controls are not in the contract even though their website certainly gives you the impression its included but I received no terms and conditions at the time of renewal, they have not fixed my leak even though its on an inclusive contract I have now given them another month to resolve these issues no one has contacted me which speaks volumes about this business.

I have asked about cancelling the contract as it states on their website its a rolling contract, I was told its £144 to cancel a rolling contract how does that work so this is totally mis-sold and certainly an issue to trading standards.

I could go on and on but the reason for this post is to warn everyone of this company as clearly there are key markers that need investigating by bodies both within and external to this industry.

Anyone from any consumer agency is more than welcome to get in touch so one day we might see this company on TV doing exactly the same as what they did to me.

The_Service_Engineer

I cant edit the post, but thought I should further clarify "although the video shows the engineer was onsite for 29 mins he certainly didn't spend that long completing this maintenance visit" I did not want anyone to skip past the post and not see my warning.