to think Homeserve are unbelievably useless and to request alternative recommendations

[LifeTooShort]

Woken up by 3 year old DD at 3am last Friday because she was cold. Turns out the boiler had broken and the heating was off.

Called Homeserve at 8am and was given an appointment between 12pm and 7pm. Waited in all afternoon / evening in a cold house with 2 toddlers. By 7pm no one had turned up. I called Homeserve: the engineer was running late and could be anytime up to midnight. IMOH that is not "running late" - it is not turning up. They give themselves a 7 hour slot which gives them flexibility to manage the allocation of appointments.

The engineer eventually turned up about 10pm. He was a lovely chap and did a patch repair but couldn't complete the job because he needed a part. He was quite clear that had he come out to us earlier in the day he could have gone and picked up the part, but the store was now closed until Monday and the part would then have to be sent to us and we could then arrange a follow up appointment.

The follow up appointment was today between 8am and 1pm. I made it quite clear when I booked it that I did not expect a repeat of last Friday and I expected the appointment to be honoured.

Surprise, surprise...no one has turned up and I received a call to say the engineer is "running late" and it could not be anytime up to 3pm.

AIBU to hate Homeserve????

Can anyone recommend an alternative service provided who is better or are they all just as bad as each other?

We use a local chap. I put into a seperate account what I was paying Homeserve, and use that to pay for servicing etc. Found the local chap by asking around at school etc.

I would be interested to hear others' views as I have just signed up to Homeserve. Oh dear.

sorry to hear you are having a shit time OP. Hope your boiler works well soon.

Re your 3am wake up, do you have your heating on overnight then?

We have a policy with the AA that covers CH, boiler and home emergencies. We had to call them out in a Sunday afternoon on a bank holiday weekend because a pipe burst and we had to shut out water off. The plumber was with us within 2 hours and did a check on the boiler while they were there.

Thanks Welsh. I'll look into the AA cover.

Frys, I got in the habit of having the heating on when the DDs were babies and getting me up multiple times throughout the night. It's on a thermostat so it only comes on if the temperature drops below a certain level.

Homeserve update: the chap that arrived at 2.45pm was not qualified to carry out the repair so now waiting for someone else who should be here by 6pm.

I have Homeserve and I'm getting pretty fed up with them. The account was in my name, but when we switched to paying them through a joint account they made DH the ONLY name on the frigging thing and refused to deal with me to change it back because of Data Protection. I asked them where their Data Protection was when they changed the name on MY account and was pretty much told to stop bothering my pretty little head about it, I was married, wasn't I, so why did it matter if it was in my DH's name? (never mind the fact that I work from home so am the one who arranges the bloody call outs!). DH had to call them to sort it...

Meanwhile, back from the 1950's, we have finally got our boiler fixed after nearly a month of it cutting out for no apparent reason. Had a succession of very nice engineers out who poked at it and shrugged (because it was cutting out intermittently it was usually working again by the time they came round), then last week after 2 days of freezing cold, someone who knew what they were doing took the thing apart and found we had a broken lever and needed a new computer dashboard thingy. Needless to say he didn't have the parts on him, so we waited til Monday freezing our arses off... It is now working.

I HATE HATE HATE the call back thing asking me to rate them and the calls trying to sell me extras. They always do it, even if I say no at the time!

I used to work for them, answering the calls and trying to arrange the engineers/builders/whoever to turn up. This was seven years ago, but the place is so unprofessional, it's ridiculous. Half the time I could only convince a plumber or whoever to take an urgent job if I was flirty on the phone with him. And that was expected.

Lovecat, so sorry you've also had a shitty time. Have a to stay warm.

TT it seems that the urgent jobs are only deemed urgent when they have the customer on the phone giving them a hard time. I suspect those who don't complain get the worst service of all.