BEWARE - Corgi HomePlan

Paul_Varjak · 7 September 2012 at 12:48PM

I have previously commented positively about Corgi's Homeplan on this forum. My view about CORGI changed less than 1 hour ago.

I received a call from CORGI stating that the cost of my HomePlan would be rising £2 from £16.99 to £18.99 this month. As Corgi gave a 2 year fixed priced I knew that could not be true - I took out my plan in March 2011.

The salesman then went on to offer me another (more expensive) plan that included drainage cover but said he could offer this plan at a reduced price of £19.98/month (instead of £22+)

The fact is that £19.98 is the price of the plan with drainage cover anyway; there is no reduction.

The salesman gave no price guarantee on the new plan he offered, saying it would be on a month-to-month basis. No doubt, the price could increase at any time and probably would!

I called Corgi and, failing to get a straight answer from anyone, I immediately cancelled my cover. I will simply not do business with a company using such sales tactics.

ihateyes · 2 October 2012 at 1:25PM

im glad you have at last seen sense Paul.

You know i dont like this company and recently haad an advert banned by the Advertisin Standards authority.

very naughty boys green installer is

http://www.asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjudications/2012/9/Green-Installer-Ltd/SHP_ADJ_197744.aspx

Bogof_Babe · 28 May 2013 at 1:51PM

Bumping this thread following my experience today.

I took out a cover plan a couple of years ago, paying £12.99 a month which excludes annual boiler service (I have a local gas safe engineer who does this reasonably).

Never made a claim until today, when I phoned to report a problem with the dual flush on my loo (one half not working), and a basin tap sticking badly.

Surprise surprise, neither of these are covered... despite the leaflet that I took out the contract from showing a dripping tap as the logo for "plumbing" cover. :mad:

I got myself transferred to contract terminations, where I was apologised to for the misleading logo and offered a free month's cover. Things got quite heated, but I ended up agreeing to continue the contract until it becomes due for renewal in October.

Apparently other people have pointed out the misleading tap logo, so they don't use it anymore!

I am wondering whether I have a valid case for Trading Standards, given the blatantly misleading "offer".

I also only noticed today, from the same leaflet, that I should have received a free carbon monoxide alarm for taking out the plan, which needless to say never materialised. Lucky I had bought one anyway.

Oh and I too had a call a couple of weeks ago asking me to consider upgrading my policy as it was "about to run out". Cowboys :mad:.

kizkiz · 28 May 2013 at 2:02PM

The majority of these plans are a waste of money.
As above, there are vast swathes of problems that they don't cover, and they are a nightmare to deal with.
Far cheaper to put aside a few quid every month in to a savings account. You get the interest and all the money. It soon adds up

ihateyes · 28 May 2013 at 4:07PM

For i long time, i have tried to warn people about this lot.... This use the corgi name to dupe people into thinking they are someone they are not.....

And i also had an ad banned by them

bet you they loved me.... though i did contact them before hand and give them a chance.... they declined

Nata00 · 7 June 2013 at 9:06PM

I just had my fist (and hopefully last) experience of Corgi homeplan which was so bad I decided to join this forum to share it!
My recommendation is to stay away (unless you have a very new boiler, in which case the cover is useless anyway).
I had a boiler installed in 2007 and have always had a Homecare 400 with British Gas. Over the last two years I have been receiving numerous letters offering me to join corgi homeplan. In 30 march 2013 I called them as their price was very attractive and they reassured me that they provide the same level of service as BG homecare 400 for much less (for me it was £20 vs £40 I was paying, so I switched to them). They told me that fist 30 days will not be covered to eliminate all preexisting faults, so I kept my BG cover until 27 April when my new cover kicked in. I have never had any problems with this boiler and it was serviced on annual basis by BG, but by Murphy’s law the boiler started leaking yesterday( June 6)
I called Corgi to notify and book an engineer. The first difference with British Gas is that they could not book an engineer straight away when I called and told me to expect a call within 24 hours. This morning at around 9 am I received a call and was told that an engineer would come at around noon, so all was good. I must say I was very unpleasantly surprised when I received a call from the engineer explaining that he thinks this leak is not covered because on his opinion the plastic pipe was torn due to a timescale bulid up which has been building up for longer then 2 months, so in other words they said it was a pre-existing condition and is not covered! I had various calls with customers services explaining that I do not agree with this conclusion. Clearly that the boiler is not new (as was installed in 2007) so many of the faults which would be appearing in the future are likely to be due to wear and tear of parts which started happening when we started using the boiler, so following the same logic all of them will be pre-existing. When I confronted the customer service about it if any future claims will be called pre-existing, they told me that maybe. When I asked to give me an example of what is not pre-existing (so not due to wear and tear which would have started before April 2013) they paused and gave me an example of if a light has stopped working ,or switch has stopped working. I explained that I see no value in this cover, it is definitely different to British Gas (I have another boiler (much older) , still covered by British Gas when I often do a call outs, and all problems are always fixed).
So to conclude I explained that I was very disappointed that I was dragged by them to switch from BG Homecare to their plan with the positive promise of an equivalent cover only to find out that they can always get out of repair by arguing that this is due to wear of parts which started before April 2013. They told me to write a complain to them, but they were very cocky about the situation, when I mentioned complaining to FSA they told me that their policy is not an insurance, so they are not regulated by anyone.
I will be counselling this cover on Monday. I will need to get a private engineer to fix the problem with my boiler and will switch back to BG. I also believe that they mislead me and that their definition of pre-existing conditions is not clearly explained and is not fair, therefore I actually have an intention of investing a bit of time in this case and complaining to Trading standards, and possibly even lodging a claim in a small court claims if they do not respond satisfactory.

ihateyes · 8 June 2013 at 9:20AM

They used to have an clause in their t&c's stating wear and tear wasnt covered, but then they removed that....

They have been banged to rights yet again by the ASA.....

I successfully complained the The ASA 12mths ago and had my complaint upheld....

this is the latest ruling 5 june 2013

http://www.asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjudications/2013/6/CORGI-HomePlan-Ltd/SHP_ADJ_221090.aspx

roger.hovis.brown · 18 July 2013 at 6:27PM

had cover with corgi for annual service, when engineer came round was here for 15 mins and I said that was not a service.
phoned corgi to query this and was told that service was check the condensate trap and gas safety check, needless to say have cancelled cover and gone to the local firm who installed boiler.

Bogof_Babe · 18 July 2013 at 8:27PM

They sound more and more like complete cowboys :mad:.

Hoof_Hearted · 19 July 2013 at 9:48AM

The CORGI name is a trusted one and these cowboys are deliberately misleading people by using it. They will probably change it to Gas Safe next.

pawsies · 20 July 2013 at 9:47PM

My corgi is not happy about this!

Blasphemy.

BEWARE - Corgi HomePlan

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