My Linda and I were watching Watchdog last night and there was a report about British Gas engineers mis-selling and also frightening customers. They had time to show 3 separate peoples' stories. An elderly lady who was paying a ridiculous amount every month of £19.95 which was to cover her should her boiler ever breakdown, A couple who were paying about £15 per month for cover, and a single gent who also paid about £17 per month for cover. The elderly lady called in one of the British Gas engineers who told her that her boiler could be fixed but it wasn't worth it because of the age of the boiler, and winter was coming, so quoted her over £3,000, and whilst he was there, there was nothing he could do to fix the problem. She called a local plumber the next day who fixed the boiler and said it had plenty of life left in it and he charged the lady £97!!! The elderly lady went straight to the bank the day after that and cancelled her direct debit of £19.95 per month which she had been paying for years to British Gas.
The couple were told that a part was obsolete and therefore the boiler could not be fixed and again it would have to be replaced by British Gas at a cost of around £2500...staggering, the gent called upon a local plumber and asked for a second opinion. There was nothing wrong with the boiler and the part could be bought over the counter at almost any suppliers and even showed the suppliers on TV on the internet!
The last gentleman had absolutely the same problem, boiler not able to be fixed, part obsolete, boiler to be replaced again running into thousands. There was actually nothing wrong with the boiler at all, just a part needed cleaning and again, had plenty of life left in it.
A spokesman for British Gas talked to Ann Robinson (who isn't afraid to speak her mind, we all know that) and quite literally fired question after question to him. He didn't give any straight answers and said that these were extremely isolated incidents. However, what I found strange was the question of why these people were paying all this money every month to cover their boilers and yet were still quoted figures in their thousands to replace? The first lady I mentioned had been paying for this cover for such a long time, she probably had paid enough to buy 2 new boilers anyway!
The spokesman for British Gas has definitely lost his vocation in life, he should be in politics, not one straight answer to any of Ann Robinson's questions....what an absolute mess.
After this had been shown, they went onto the 'Rogue Traders' section of the programme - did they have the British Gas item and this other item mixed up me wonders? British Gas should have had their picture on that wall as being ROGUE TRADERS.
Note to British Gas : Stop spending billions on hundreds of TV, magazine and radio advertising and give the benefit of the cost saving back to your customers, don't worry your shareholders will still be happy!
The couple were told that a part was obsolete and therefore the boiler could not be fixed and again it would have to be replaced by British Gas at a cost of around £2500...staggering, the gent called upon a local plumber and asked for a second opinion. There was nothing wrong with the boiler and the part could be bought over the counter at almost any suppliers and even showed the suppliers on TV on the internet!
The last gentleman had absolutely the same problem, boiler not able to be fixed, part obsolete, boiler to be replaced again running into thousands. There was actually nothing wrong with the boiler at all, just a part needed cleaning and again, had plenty of life left in it.
A spokesman for British Gas talked to Ann Robinson (who isn't afraid to speak her mind, we all know that) and quite literally fired question after question to him. He didn't give any straight answers and said that these were extremely isolated incidents. However, what I found strange was the question of why these people were paying all this money every month to cover their boilers and yet were still quoted figures in their thousands to replace? The first lady I mentioned had been paying for this cover for such a long time, she probably had paid enough to buy 2 new boilers anyway!
The spokesman for British Gas has definitely lost his vocation in life, he should be in politics, not one straight answer to any of Ann Robinson's questions....what an absolute mess.
After this had been shown, they went onto the 'Rogue Traders' section of the programme - did they have the British Gas item and this other item mixed up me wonders? British Gas should have had their picture on that wall as being ROGUE TRADERS.
Note to British Gas : Stop spending billions on hundreds of TV, magazine and radio advertising and give the benefit of the cost saving back to your customers, don't worry your shareholders will still be happy!
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