To think that British Gas Homecare policy is a fraudulent scheme ?

[ThinkingtheUnthinkable]

Repeatedly cancelled appointments (mostly with no notice). People book annual leave time off work to wait in only to find it wasted or they turn down a shift to be in for an engineer who cancels last minute so they're out of pocket 'cos they could have worked that shift after all.

If an engineer eventually turns up after waiting over 2 months (caused by 2 arranged but cancelled appointment during that time).

Repairs that don't fix the problem so you have to wait another umpteen weeks with no heating or hot water before someone else comes and has another try.

Service staff who "don't do repairs" 'cos they're not trained for that apparently, so they find a problem during their service visit (which isn't even annual now so more problems can build up causing more breakdowns) and leave you having to wait for a repair engineer who may or may not actually bring a needed part with them.

Online chat help staff who promise a manager will ring you back but of course the managers NEVER ring back, so it's all lies.

Being told that because of excess demand at this time of year (coupled no doubt with Gas staffing issues) you can arrange your own repair by a certified heating engineer and British Gas Homecare will refund the cost but then it turns out they won't, so it's all lies.

Being told that customers must respect/understand that British Gas Homecare has to give priority to the more vulnerable but then seeing online that people's 80 year old parents still have to wait weeks for engineer visits and they too get cancelled so it can be months for them in an unheated house/no hot water. Besides that, they're running a business charging all homecare customers on the same basis, it's not like it's the NHS.

They're making millions by ripping their homecare customers off.

Please can some one suggest a reliable alternative service provider as I'm done being a British Gas Homecare policy customer.

I've only ever had excellent service from them, including doing work I wasn't covered for to help me out.

I’ve only had good experiences so far, must have been lucky!

I cancelled mine and now just arrange a yearly boiler service with an excellent independent tradesman! Much cheaper and more reliable!

We used to be with them but stopped as they started putting our service off so that it was no longer annual and more like every 18 months. They also kept racking up the price if you didn't threaten to leave. Got fed up of it in the end. We book a service with a local plumber now.

We have HomeServe; you can get policies to cover gas, water and electric. We have one that covers all 3. They've always sent someone out very quickly-once even the same day. www.homeserve.com/uk/insurance-cover

Good luck OP, sorry I cannot make suggestions being in an all electric house.

We no longer have British gas home care. Not good value imo.

When we first took it out, the boiler packed up whilst we were waiting for the initial service. Therefore we had to pay for the repairs, even though we had started paying for the policy. The engineer said to us "it's like crashing your car then taking out insurance." Er, no, as we'd already started paying for the policy, and at that point it was working.

We also had other times when the boiler broke down, but the causes weren't fully covered so we had to pay. This was a number of years ago, but I think it was the flue.

The icing on the cake was when our boiler broke down and then we discovered our boiler model was no longer covered by British gas. They did refund us to be fair.

We then took out a policy with the boiler manufacturer themselves, but part of the problem wasn't covered by them so we had to go to an independent boiler engineer to sort that first.

In recent years, we've not bothered with a contract, and used an independent boiler engineer. Much easier to liase with him directly, rather than a call centre.

Found thus on MSE for those that wish rid of British Gas.

www.moneysupermarket.com/boiler-cover/all-products/

I was outraged when I tried to call on my insurance about 10 years ago. My boiler broke so was without heating or hot water. I was told others in greater need were being prioritised and it then took multiple trips from engineers of differing competence to fix things. There was no advantage to having insurance from them at all. I’m glad of this thread as I’m still cross! And a bit petty!

Of course triaging needy people is not something I’d begrudge, however judging from the poor customer service I’m guessing everyone got a bad deal. British Gas are not a public service but the insurance is a service I paid for to expect quality, certainty and timeliness if things went wrong. I expected them to make provision for vulnerable people rather than expect me to subsidise them in doing so (and doing so not very well).

How much are you paying as I think they are overcharging us £76/ month 4 bed house 2 bath. and it has gone up every year !

We've never had a problem. Always turned up and fixed the issues even if appt goes on hours

I've got a HomeCare agreement and had a really bad time with BG this time last year when my boiler was leaking. It took the best part of six months to get it fixed with cancelled appointments, not being able to even to talk to someone on the phone, etc.

If you pay money but are not getting a service then what are you actually paying for? It's borderline criminal.

I thought it was all due to Covid but it was mostly because their engineers were on strike due to bad pay and conditions.

They still had ads on the TV and radio, though, trying to pull more customers in (even though they knew they couldn't provide the services they were offering).

Utter rip off! My Dm had a ridiculously expensive policy that she had naively added loads of useless extras too, like pest cover, window cover, lock cover, was over £800 a Yr when I found out and she was still left waiting nearly 5 weeks for a boiler fault call out in winter because she had hot water and 1 radiator in her house working so she wasn't priority. We cancelled and use a local tradesman who guarantees he'll attend within 24hours. My fil still pays BG home care and then books his own tradesman when BG tell him how long he'll wait for a repair, can't believe he hasn't cancelled yet.

Corgi Homeplan have been excellent for me. Replaced a heating cylinder that fell off my wall within two days, came and fixed dodgy electric board within one day etc. They use local tradesman too. Really good customer service on the phones .

It’s a joke of a company now. My DP worked for them for over 10 years but left last year due to their “Fire & Rehire” scheme. They have cut the length of time the engineers are allocated to complete a service visit amongst other safety issues. Their engineers used to be well trained and the best in the industry however now they have trainees doing an 8 week crash course before sending them out on their own to complete service and repairs meaning the “first time fix” stats are well below what they were.

They have been in touch with many of the engineers who were “fired” begging them to return, however most have moved on to better things and wouldn’t dream of returning under the current circumstances.

@Neapolitanicecream

How much are you paying as I think they are overcharging us £76/ month 4 bed house 2 bath. and it has gone up every year !

Ring them up and ask for a discount, I do that every year. You are paying way too much!!

I’ve never had a problem with them. Always prompt appointments and never had someone not show up. I even had an almost unsolvable problem and they sent 2 engineers every day for a week until it was solved. I value my British Gas home care insurance more than my actual house insurance. I Hope that’s not a change that has happened since all of the British Gas engineers were striking over pay/benefits etc.

I’ve only needed a call out once and they were pretty quick.

They did cancel a service late on but gave me £30 for the trouble.

No problems for me.

@pigsDOfly

Yes, I used to have British Gas cover years ago until I spent two weeks in the middle of December without heating or hot water because they needed a part for my boiler and then when it turned up the guy who was supposed to fix it claimed no one was in when he called, even though I'd been sitting there all day and there was no card to say he called.

What I've done is to find myself a reliable local plumber who comes once a year to service my boiler/system and charges me £60 for that, although that might have gone up this year, and comes out to me when I call him, usually on the same day. Although, boiler rarely goes wrong and if anything is wrong his charges are very reasonable with no call out charge.

Any time he's had to order something it's generally been a matter of waiting just a few days as he goes to the plumbers' merchants to pick it up.

Jesus- where did you find that unicorn? I stay with BG because no local tradesmen want small jobs. Most won't even return my calls.

@Broxigirl

It’s a joke of a company now. My DP worked for them for over 10 years but left last year due to their “Fire & Rehire” scheme. They have cut the length of time the engineers are allocated to complete a service visit amongst other safety issues. Their engineers used to be well trained and the best in the industry however now they have trainees doing an 8 week crash course before sending them out on their own to complete service and repairs meaning the “first time fix” stats are well below what they were.

They have been in touch with many of the engineers who were “fired” begging them to return, however most have moved on to better things and wouldn’t dream of returning under the current circumstances.

I was coming on to say this!

Better off finding a local plumber to do the work & cancel that contract.

Jesus - where did you find that unicorn?

Yes, he is a bit of a rarity tbh.

He was actually the gas engineer that fitted my boiler originally.

Most of his work is servicing and fitting boilers but he also fitted a new kitchen tap for me on one occasion. Also at a very reasonable price.

In the past I've rung him when my boiler was making a funny noise and he's told me what to do to cure it over the phone.

He's got a lot of local customers and he's known to be reliable.

I know there aren't many like him around though.

Jesus- where did you find that unicorn?

I had one once. We treated him very nicely. He came annually to service the boiler and did a few other odd plumbing jobs too, he worked for several family members as well. We even took him with us when we moved and alI was peachy until he suddenly went rogue.

We had discussed replacing tbe boiler in the new house but had agreed to leave it to the following summer, so he came to do a service. he showed dh the heat shields and said they were buggered, we asked him to replace them, he said you couldn't buy them anymore we needed to bring forward the replacement

Told him to put them back and we discuss between ourselves re a new boiler and call him.

A cursory Google that night revealed endless suppliers of the part for a tenner. Really annoyed me. We'd trusted him and he blew it for the sake of a £10 part and waiting six months.
Never used him again and neither have any of our family members.

We’ve got BG home are cover including plumbing , have used them plenty over the last few years and never had an issue . If they cancel an appointment at short notice they credit you £65 ( or thereabouts) or they did for me and my sister , in the case of my sister they cancelled , gave her the £65 and the engineer then turned up anyway .

Never had an issue.
Room thermostat died last year so had a new one fitted (DH supervised, I was at work). Came home to holes in the plaster/paint and a slightly wonky new thermo (DH didn’t challenge this at the time, but was brought up not to ‘make a fuss’.

I rang BG, explained that I wasn’t happy with the standard of work, the quality of the thermo which (I told them) looked like something from the 1970s, or the making good.

Fair play, they came back the next day and agreed it was crap, so I took the opportunity to have Hive installed with a remote thermostat, the wall made good and a VERY good deal on the Hive due to my inconvenience.

All past dealings have been fantastic, including two Boxing Day callouts a number if years apart in different houses, and a gas leak from an external pipe that required digging up down the side of the house. (They installed an external gas meter for free on that occasion, normally £500).