British Gas Home Care

[Rocky12]

We have no heating and hot water as from this morning. I can use an immersion to keep us going on the water front but as we have Britsh Gas Home Care 400 (the premimum heating and breakdown insurance) I called them at 7.30 to be told the first appointment was Monday! I mentioned that I have young children and literally the boiler isnt firing up but she said they were really busy because of the weather! I only changed to BG breakdown cover because I thought they would be be able to cope with blips in the weather.

Tbh, I am in the South East and it is brilliant sunshine but freezing. Am I being unreasonable to expect an engineer to call before Monday. I am thinking of calling again and speaking to a supervisor.

Do you have the Timechoice entitlement??

"Your statement will confirm whether you have a TimeChoice? entitlement. This service provides convenient timeslots for your Annual Service (where applicable) and enhanced response times for gas boiler and/or central heating appointments, where you have no heat or no hot water.
In case of a repair, if you have either no heat or no hot water we will be with you on the same day if you call us before 10am".

"We will meet our guarantee under your TimeChoice? agreement unless it is impossible for us to do so because of external forces beyond our reasonable control such as fire, accident, war, adverse weather conditions, industrial strikes and lockouts which we are not directly involved in".

The above doesn't let them off the hook if they're 'busy'

Well that's a good advert not to bother with their insurance.

I guess you have to pay for the repairs on top?

I hate the scaremongering leaflets they throw at you, trying to scare vulnerable people into signing up.

If you have this timechoice thing they haven't got a leg to stand on.

call them back and complain.

tell them you plan to changer to another supplier if they dont get someone out today.

that usually gets them scared

I had exactly this situation with BG (except it was their HomeCare200 package) a few years ago, when a valve in the airing cupboard went and we didn't have any heating. I rang up on the Friday morning and was told it would be Tuesday before they could get anyone out to us! Like you, we had young children but we weren't classed as an 'emergency' because we had a rarely-used lounge fire that we could use for heating.

DH rang up to complain on the Saturday morning, saying that we paid nearly �£200 a year and it was disgraceful that they couldn't come out for several days. An engineer did come out the Saturday afternoon and did a temporary repair so that we had heating, and came back and did a 'proper' repair on the Monday morning.

So YANBU at all and I'd really get on the phone and threaten to change insurance suppliers.

I also had a bad experience with them last year. I was forced to pay £36 per months for the first year, for Homecare 200, because I took it out when the boiler had broken down. It took them 3 visits, spanning a week to fix what was a simple problem (fan needed replacing). Every time I rang up to chivvy them along they tried to sell me Homecare 400.

They also failed to spot a gas leak.

I cancelled the policy when the year was up (after I'd had my annual check).

Would never recommend them

Your experience does not surprise me.

we had a nightmare few years with BG homecare contracts on a house we rented out - engineers never turned up, they turned up to the wrong address (which didnt even have gas pipes and couldnt get another appt for a week), waited ages for parts, could never get anywhere on the phone etc etc - all a nightmare when you work and dont live at the property. I was often so frustrated with them that I cried down the phone at the inevitable crap service i was about to get and used to dread it when anything broke down. When I sold my house it was the best feeling ever telling them to stuff their contract where the sun dont shine! they sent me £20 worth of vouchers!! I can categorically say I would never use them again.

YABU simply because you were daft enough to put British Gas and Care in the same sentance. They do not care, they are shit.

It's sad. A lot of my family used to work for "the Gas Board", back before it was shit

< old fogey lefty emoticon >

I have HomeCare 400 and rang them yesterday about a problem (admittedly not a bust boiler) and am only getting someone Monday afternoon - AND - before giving me the apptmt - he asked whether we got our electricity and gas from them. Like that is relevant when I already pay £35 a month??? In fact we do get gas but not electricity from them but I was left wondering if I would have got an earlier visit if I had said both!

Thanks for all of this. I will check the time slot option. Very good point. They also asked me whether we had gas and elec with them, agree what has that to do with anything! The repair and call out is part of the insurance so when they come there should be nothing to pay.