British Gas Homecare Plan cancellation

Bigh69

My recently widowed 86 year old mum has had to get a new boiler. She has a BG homecare plan but the price they wanted for new boiler was obscene! She picked a good company and has had one fitted for a few thousand less but BG wants to charge her £154 to cancel the plan. She asked what if she cancels the payments and was told they'd send the bailiffs/debt collectors round! Shes been with them for years why can't she just give a month's notice like most other contracts? How can we cancel as this is causing her upset?

marcia_

Bigh69 said:

My recently widowed 86 year old mum has had to get a new boiler. She has a BG homecare plan but the price they wanted for new boiler was obscene! She picked a good company and has had one fitted for a few thousand less but BG wants to charge her £154 to cancel the plan. She asked what if she cancels the payments and was told they'd send the bailiffs/debt collectors round! Shes been with them for years why can't she just give a month's notice like most other contracts? How can we cancel as this is causing her upset?

 How much would she pay if she continues with the policy until its renewal date? 

Ayr_Rage

You can only usually cancel contracts with a month's notice if you are on a rolling monthly contract.

If she has signed up for a fixed term then the early termination charges will be detailed in the contract and any reduction will be goodwill on BG's part.

If she stops payment they will seek to recover the debt and if they sell it on there may be fees added.

Arunmor

I would assume because your mother has already claimed on her policy.  

born_again

Bigh69 said:

My recently widowed 86 year old mum has had to get a new boiler. She has a BG homecare plan but the price they wanted for new boiler was obscene! She picked a good company and has had one fitted for a few thousand less but BG wants to charge her £154 to cancel the plan. She asked what if she cancels the payments and was told they'd send the bailiffs/debt collectors round! Shes been with them for years why can't she just give a month's notice like most other contracts? How can we cancel as this is causing her upset?

They are fixed term annual contracts. So the whole year is due.

You can cancel, but will cost the rest of the contract, as they said.

Might as well just let it run & not renew in the future.

Brie

You might go back to them and ask (with mom's permission) how well they explained all this to an 86 yo who may not be used to dealing with big companies with complex contracts and with a long list of T&Cs.  Did she see the T&Cs before signing up for the most recent year?  Or did she talk to someone on the phone who might have said something like "Oh don't Mrs Bigh, we'll look after you so there's nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about!"  

BG kept doing similar to my FiL and he ended up with, I think, 4 separate contracts with them for overlapping services.  It was very much a case of him talking to them on the phone as he couldn't read any paperwork (nearly blind) and was pretty deaf as well.  So they'd bellow that they needed his bank account details and he'd bellow them back not really knowing why.  I discovered this after he died and I was helping MiL tidy up all the paperwork.  As I recall BG were good enough to give a refund for most of the last 3 years of payments.