British Gas Homecare

darranps

[FONT=&quot]Hi all,

I just wanted to post my experience of this 'service' and hopefully dissuade ANYBODY from signing up to any of their Homecare plans. If this post is more suited to another section of the forum, please let me know and I'll repost.

After a successful repair (all be it on the second visit) of a leaking pipe (simple enough) the engineer told us that a pump or the central heating was broken. From that point on, we've had no central heating, and no customer service whatsoever.

Our first appointment was broken, and another was booked without notifying us. A useless process for everyone involved. We only found out when I rang to see why the engineer hadn't arrived, and they told us he couldn't make it and the appointment had been rebooked for the following Tuesday which was no good for us anyway.

Following that, over the space of about three weeks we've had a further three broken appointments. All of which took several phone calls (0845) to organise, and none were honoured. We were never informed that the engineer wasn't coming. On two of the occasions, we were told the engineer had arrived and called the phone numbers given to him but had no answer, which is pure fiction.

By the fourth appointment, I went through the address, contact numbers, job description and parts needed, and still no engineer. They blamed it on parts, when the preparation time should have been more than sufficient.

I have never been able to speak to a member of management, and have never been able to speak directly to the planning department. They refused to let me speak to them directly after being promised they would ring me back on several occasions.

Never once have we been called back when they've promised to.

I would highly recommend avoiding this company, as it I would say you are getting nothing for the money. They have absolutely no respect for customers, and I've never experienced such a low level of customer service.

If anybody can tell me what I should do now, whether we are entitled to be refunded the money paid for the policy cover, plus phone calls, plus costs for running expensive electric heaters.

I'm absolutely lost as to what to do. I don't want to give up trying to get them to fix the problem, I don't feel they should get away with taking money for no return.

Any help, or similar experiences?

Many thanks

Darran

P.s - I'm not alone!
http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/home-insurance/british-gas-homecare/reviews/[/FONT]

stingrad

Clearly this is not the service you should get from anyone let alone BG after taking so much money. However they are good at paying compensation and this should include the money for the heaters. I would try to write or email the managing director with the details of the complaint at this level are given more priority and a quicker response time.

HTH

Stormy

I have had the complete opposite, nothing but great service from my Homecare 200 plan.

Boiler stopped working one Saturday morning last year, Called BG, engineer came within hours and was back online after the repair the same day (within about 6 hours to be honest).

Previous to that I had a leaking ballcock and header tank, tank repaired, ballcock replaced and numerous other bits and peices replaced, one of which was a pump (which ok are not that expensive) and a pretty expensive Thermostatic mixing valve on my Thermal Store replaced.

They have never broken an appointment with me and the only downside I would say is that the cover is not exactly cheap and I always have to chase them up for the yearly maintainance inspection.

Mike

darranps

Thanks for the replies- I'll send a letter to the MD and see what happens.

As for the good service, I'd love to hear of how anybody else has been treated, good or bad...

bootman

I posted yesterday I think on the vent board, same story as you but without the broken appointments. I can't get them to call me back either. I did shout a the lady in the call centre and she did get a manager to call me who did, but he has no more authority the the robots who answer the calls, you just get you have to wait for this department called 'Customer Relations' that has no phones to get in touch, what a joke!

Cardew

darranps wrote: »

Thanks for the replies- I'll send a letter to the MD and see what happens.

As for the good service, I'd love to hear of how anybody else has been treated, good or bad...

If you do a search on this forum(Utilities) you will find scores of posts about BG Homecare, with opinions ranging from abysmal to wonderful.

For what it is worth I had them for many years and found their service excellent.

However I have left them for two reasons:

Firstly their prices have increased at a huge rate for the last several years. This is compounded for me by having an annex with a separate CH system so I had to pay for 2 complete systems even though serviced on one visit. Something like £450 last year.

Secondly, they started the 'your boiler parts are no longer manufactured' game, followed up by calls from the 'buy a new boiler' salesman!!

TAG

We've been with then for 4 years and they've been great. Got the Homecare 400 which covers a fair bit. Hubby wanted that, as he's useless at major domestic dramas and wanted me to be able to pick up the phone and get it sorted without any hassle.

I have to say that we've more than had our moneys worth out of them. Only 1 year out of the last 4 that I haven't had to call them. I think they must have practically rebuilt our boiler. Had to have the drains unblocked as well once. In fact they were here 4 weeks ago sorting out the pilot light that kept going out. I'd phoned at 5.30pm the night before and the engineer turned up at 10.30 the next morning.

stackhouse

We've had them for years and they've been pretty good. They've always arranged the annual appointments as well. This year they earned their keep with having to keep coming out to our boiler.
My reason for looking up any comments/advice on here now is because the new statement has just come in and I've realised that they are asking for £197 for the year which I thought was a bit steep! :eek: Admittedly it is an old boiler and again, we've had the no parts letter but no salesman tactics....
Any thoughts?

LittleGem

Something very similar happened to us, in January we asked to have our gas and electric put onto a prepay meter. The first appointment we were told would be an all day thing so OH took a day off work for this - no one turned up or rang, when we rang to ask what had happened we were told they had been busy and didnt have time to do the works.
We then rebooked, again taking a day off, OH was indoors the whole time and no one showed up, when we rang BG to tell them this they said that an engineer had turned up and couldnt gain access (this is a lie as we live in a block where the downstairs door does not lock, and the buzzer was not used.) Unkown to us they rebooked this without telling us and obviously no-one was there.
Anyway after about 10 phonecalls they have re-booked us twice since and no-one has come. We want to switch suppliers now, but are worried about paying for our usage since Janusary. Not sure what move to make now...