British Gas Homecare Service (British Gas HomeCare)

Member Name: FrancisKyoko

Product:	British Gas HomeCare
Date:	25/03/06 (958 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Availability of engineers when a home appliance breaks down

Disadvantages: Potentially expensive, insufficient engineering resource

So my boiler broke down on Saturday and I called HomeCare. An engineer was promised for between 12 and 5 that afternoon. At 5pm I called and asked what time the engineer would arrive as he should have attended by that time. "He's been but couldn't get access." What this meant was he'd put the card through my front door and not actually rung the doorbell. Nor had he phoned either despite having a mobile and having my home phone number. There was no possibility of rectification that evening but maybe some time the next day (Mother's Day, when I had plans to go out) or the following Tuesday. And anyway, Lydia, the call out manager in Stockport said, the engineer told her he'd attended and not gained entry so maybe he was telling the truth. It's never much fun paying a great deal of money to sit at home for five hours and then be told that maybe I'm lying as well. I will be looking at alternatives for cover in the future. This isn't the first time it has happened with them. I'm amazed I renewed my contract, it was just laziness on my part.

The best part for me was one of the team at British Gas justifying the failure of the engineer to ring the front door - I should have made sure there was a note on the call-out saying "ring front door". I made the comment that this was as rational as "do not stick your cat in microwave" at which stage the British Gas employee put the phone down on me! Great service.

Summary: No service, broken promises, appalling and rude customer services