eon central heating care plan and customer service...no thanks !

manlancs · 30 December 2010 at 9:30PM

After noticing that you have an eon representative on here i couldnt wait to post this msg and warn potential users of this service of the many and varied pitfalls you WILL encounter !
My mother has the £16 per month care plan and woke on the 21st dec to find her central heating wasnt working. She called eon at 9.30am and was told she would receive a call back. Having heard nothing by early afternoon my sister in law called eon and was told that they would contact my mother shortly. I returned from work and was made aware of the situation and still not having heard from eon tried to get through but after 25mins in a queue i hung up. This length of waiting time had also been experienced during the 2 previous calls ! I then called the sales line and my call was answered in 1 min ! PRIORITIES ! I managed to convey my mothers problems and was informed that someone would TRY and call back before 8pm. Nothing ! I then sent an email to the complaints dept,which guarantees a reply within 24 hours. Im still waiting !Mother did receive a call the following day [ the 22nd ]from eon and was told that no-one could come out until xmas day between 8am and 1pm,far from ideal but she accepted this. Believe it or not no-one turned up and having waited till 1.15pm and delaying xmas dinner for all the family we decided to set off for my brothers. No phone call from eon,no apologies ,nothing ! They then got in contact on the 27th and made an appointment for the following day. The engineer came,fixed said problem he said,and left. Guess what-still no heating ! More phone calls etc,etc and an engineer was arranged for the following day. He arrived,fixed said problem he said,and went away. Guess what ? Heating on and no hot water. Unbelievable ! This is where we stand today the 30th dec, a full 9 days after the initial problem. Let me just add a little bit more info to the above. Eon were made aware of the cicrcumstances at the time of the initial call. Namely, that in sub zero temperatures my 86 year old mother who lives alone had no central heating and was currently suffering from a viral infection and we asked that she was made a priority. This obviously carried no weight with eon and the subsequent shambles just exaserbates the situation.
It would be interesting to know if other susbscribers to this care plan have similar experiences. I also understand that during the extended cold snap the company would be under pressure but the lack of communication is nothing short of appalling.
Yours Disgustedly

cheez · 1 January 2011 at 8:02PM

Hi we used to be with British gas on 5 rented properties but were talked round to moving to eon for breakdown cover as we were promised a superior service.HOW WRONG!!Two of the properties boilers broke down around the 21 December and now on the 1st Jan they still are not fixed.
One of the houses has no heating or hot water and have two small children and we are paying for gas for calor gas heaters to keep the chill off.
The other house is the same,but they have a gas fire and electric shower so are coping a little better.
Eon are using sub contractors over the Xmas period and no one can give you a solid answer to anything.All they did in both cases is made the boilers safe,as they needed parts.
We too had missed appointments were no one turned up.
We have now been told that the person who looked at one of the boilers could have ordered the part and fitted it,but he had the job taken off him by eon and another company is coming to fix it,but no one has rung him to ask what part is needed so there will be more delays.
will keep you informed

macman · 1 January 2011 at 9:49PM

Which is further proof of why these contracts are a waste of time and money. Just get an annual service, and should you need a unscheduled call out just use a local recommended RGI who doesn't operate via a call centre.
It's inevitable that the big players in this game are overstretched during the holiday periods (and especially given the recent weather), therefore they will subcontract to the same RGI's that you could call out yourself direct.

cheez · 3 January 2011 at 12:49PM

Update- Eon promised again to come out after another heated telephone conversation, but once again they didnt turn up, I have loss count how many times they have promised, they now say they will be out tommorow, but I have a feeling they will come and look at the boliers and say 'it needs a part' as I'm guessing it may be E.on not contractors now the Xmas holidays are over, so we will be back to where we started, we'll see!!
In reply to previous post - The only problem with getting a good plumber at christmas for a decent price is like gold dust, as they increase there call out charges, add this to the cost of the part at £350 this more than our annual cost, thats not incliuding the service we get every year, so the insurances are usually benefical/cost effective to us, If Eon just got there act together and stopped telling us lies for over two weeks the service would be great. We will now be going back to Britsh Gas whom we had an excellent service from, they even give heaters when heating is broke and come out when they say, this will be a great loss to Eon as we have 5 properties. :mad:

macman · 3 January 2011 at 1:36PM

If you have 5 properties, then you should be able to negotiate a decent service contract directly with them-you don't need a plumber, you need an RGI, a good one will not hike his prices every time there is a bank holiday or a bit of cold weather.

jcorbygas · 3 January 2011 at 3:18PM

We do not increase prices and can generally offer a same day or next day service and if parts are required 90% of the time they
would arrive and be fitted the next day (unless a Sunday)
As Macman says find yourselves someone like us and build up a good relationship ie annual boiler service at £55 or Landlords Safety Cert every year and you will be in a far better position than the above posters.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc · 4 January 2011 at 6:05PM

I really do apologise for the lack of response posters have received from our Central Heating section and do understand the anxiety caused by these situations, particularly during such cold weather.

Whilst the current bad weather has certainly put a strain on resources, the lack of communication and poor service is certainly not acceptable.

I would encourage posters to use the formal complaints procedure for our Central Heating products.

A specialist will be appointed to investigate the circumstances behind each individual complaint and they will provide written explanations/resolutions. If these responses are not acceptable, complaints can then be escalated through our management structure.

There are more details of this procedure on our website.

Again, I'm sorry people have had such bad experiences with our Central Heating services.

Malc

manlancs · 5 January 2011 at 1:25AM

whilst you can apologise about the lack of communication on here,there is no sign of resolvement from your company, I still havnt received a response to 2 emails ive sent to the complaints dept [ which you recommend } and the most recent call out yesterday resulted in the engineer saying he needed a part which he didnt have.Now its a wait till sat and no confidence at all ! Its pathetic ! you need to alter your claims on your website too ie respond to complaints in 24hrs. awful service and total disregard for your customers and whats more , appalling service from call centre,engineers on site and the company in general.

manlancs · 5 January 2011 at 1:29AM

by the way..thanks for all your replies .

Caliban51 · 5 January 2011 at 10:59AM

Once you sign up to one of these breakdown contracts you are at their mercy & lose the ability to shop around. Phone a local Guy & if he can't come out as quick a you hoped then try someone else local. (use checkatrade to find a good one)

Chris

deshepherd · 5 January 2011 at 4:51PM

jcorbygas wrote: »

We do not increase prices and can generally offer a same day or next day service and if parts are required 90% of the time they
would arrive and be fitted the next day (unless a Sunday)
As Macman says find yourselves someone like us and build up a good relationship ie annual boiler service at £55 or Landlords Safety Cert every year and you will be in a far better position than the above posters.

Quite agree ... think I'm going to ditch BG this year for central heating as we've got a gas fire and a gas water heater fitted by a local company who are servicing those. 2 or 3 years ago BG declared the gas heater as obsolete and would only do safety check and not repair and needless to say this then failed (corroded water pipe started leaking. Decided to phone local gas fitter who'd done the gas fire and was a bit surprised when they came round the same day, gave an acceptable quote and fitted the replacement the next day!

eon central heating care plan and customer service...no thanks !

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