BRITISH GAS remains firmly in the hot seat this week as more Times Money readers vent their anger at trigger-happy service engineers who, they feel, have been too quick to condemn their heating systems.
To add insult to injury, say readers, the installations, which are written off as inadequate or obsolete, are often the same ones that British Gas has been happily servicing for many years.
The list of readers who are unhappy at the service by British Gas ranges from elderly couples to captains of industry. Vanni Treves, the chairman of Equitable Life, the mutual insurer, says that he and his wife spent 12 days freezing in their Islington, North London, home while they waited for British Gas engineers to solve a persistent problem with the pilot light in their boiler.
Mr Treves says: “Over the space of two weeks we waited for a total of thirty hours for engineers to turn up for different appointments. There were seven occasions when appointments were either missed or engineers attended but failed to rectify the problem. My wife and I have had to cancel appointments, as well as feeling extremely cold.
“The co-ordination between British Gas engineers and its customer relations people seems to be non-existent and is making a mockery of its service standards. I have written two letters of complaint but so far had no reply.”
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Roger Brereton posted a comment on the Times money weblog to say: “My mother paid for a British Gas service contract for many years and a couple of years ago a service engineer condemned the boiler because it was too old to service. The company quoted over £3,000 to replace the gas-fired back boiler.
“I arranged for an independent inspection and the boiler was found to be perfectly sound. After having it serviced by the company that carried out the independent inspection, the boiler was returned to service — and it cost only £60.”
Gerry Tipping, of St Neots, Cambridgeshire, was told by a British Gas engineer during a routine service that his 26-year-old boiler would have to be shut down because a valve had “had it” and a replacement part was not available.
Mr Tipping says: “I was told that a new system would cost about £3,000 but the engineer added that he had a mate who could do the job for £2,000. He said he normally worked four days a week and this gave him long weekends to do jobs with his colleague. Subsequently, a local Corgi-registered plumber inspected the system and said that he had probably got the necessary valve in his tool bag and if not they were easily available.”
Even when customers accept that new items are required they complain that British Gas charges much more than reputable local plumbers. James Anderson, from Balerno, near Edinburgh, says that he was unimpressed by British Gas’s performance when he asked for a quote for a replacement central heating boiler. He says: “The salesman called and quoted me a figure of £2,200, offering to spread the payments over three years at an annual interest rate of
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23 per cent. I thought this rather expensive and soon afterwards had the job done by an excellent local Corgi-registered engineer for £1,100 — a saving of more than £1,000. I suppose the message is: shop around and avoid British Gas.”
A British Gas spokeswoman says: “We have no service history for either Mr Tipping or Mr Anderson but we go entirely by the book when assessing whether a heating system can continue to operate. We simply don’t take chances with our customers’ safety and we never will.
“When it comes to costs, there are benefits to buying from British Gas which you would not necessarily obtain from a local company, such as a one-year guarantee on your system.”
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