Am I being ripped off?

[consumerbored]

Vaillant turbo max condenser boiler 4 years old



My boiler has a fault. It roars like mad when drawing hot water off. The hot water is only lukewarm and then turns cold and then back to lukewarm as more water is drawn off. The central heating functions but switches off at different times even though the setting is switched to permanent.

The issue i have is a price issue. I dont have a service contract and my wife has recently come out of hospital after a heart attack so hot water and heating is a must.A midlands company with regional engineers was contacted and i was quoted £65 per hour labour plus cost of parts plus VAT. i was expecting a competent engineer to at least diagnose the faults within a couple of hours max so was expecting at least £130 plus vat minimum.

The engineer has currently took 5 hours incuding a 50 minute trip for spare parts the application of which did not solve the problem . He contacted Vaillant technical support for advice as he coulod not establish the casue of the problem. They have told him he requires another part relating to the heat exchanger which they say is blocked.He left me on Monday withthe central heating working. Approximately 2 hours later i spotted the boiler was leaking under pressure so switched it off. The cost of parts so far is in excess of £185 plus another £135 for the other part required which im waiting on delivery for. All in all if this part does the trick it will be nearly £800 to shell out. What i would like to know is is this a reasonable and fair length of time to diagnose this fault or am i paying thjrough the nose for an incompetent engineer? By the way this company wanted paying nearly £600 for work done so far on Monday afternoon when the guy had not fixed the thing. i told him and the company no cash would change hands till it was fixed . Also this firm refuse to take a cheque and are insisting on payment by credit card or debit card. So am i being ripped off? Should i dispute the labour charges and the fact i will have to apy for parts which did not solve the problem???

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

bill

 

[Agile]

Wow, I am going to be the first to comment and will set the tone for further replies.

First may I say that I am sorry to hear of your wife's heart attack and ask you to remain calm and not to stress her and just reassure her that life goes on and all she needs to do is to relax and leave any worrying to you!

To put the matter into perspective, in our local area in London we charge a fixed price of £84 to diagnose a fault. It sounds as if you have a blocked plate heat exchanger or a sticking diverter valve. Not a terribly expensive problem, £52 or £94 for the parts perhaps.

British Gas will do a fixed price repair at about £186 ! Where expensive parts are involved we cannot compete and yesterday I recommended a customer went to them as we would be likely to have charged more as it sounded like a £350 spare part.

You seem to have had a totally incompetent firm or at least an incompetent engineer. Not Reactfast was it?

My view is that they have totally messed up the diagnosis and the engineer was totally incompetent. I dont think that you should pay anything and should even demand compensation from them! Get a local independent to complete the repair or Sooee from this forum. Alternatively British Gas.

I appreciate that to deal with the dreadful way you have been treated you might need some admin skills like writing real paper letters and to be prepared to take them to court for compensation for the distress they have caused you. If you were closer then I would offer to present your case in court for free.

That would be wonderful bad publicity for the firm and they should be knocking at your door with a bunch of flowers and £250 in cash. But if they employ incompentents like that then they probably cannot manage public relations either!

Wait for the other engineers to disagree with me. Note if they hide their identities! I dont!

Tony Glazier

 

[libby lou lou]

sounds like that to me, kevplum may be along shortly

 

[consumerbored]

Thanks for the reply Agile but having read previous posts here im not quiite sure whether there is a degree of sarcasm here...if this is not the case then accept my HEART felt apologies. Sounds like i may have to get an independent as you say. He has replaced the diverter valve and im sure the part im waiting on now is the heat exchanger plate you referred to which i have been told is £114 plus Vat. plus another hours labour to fit. At this moment in time I have not paid anything as im still without heating and hot water. If what you say is correct andI see no reason to doubt you, rather than pay the full amount charged and sue them through the court would it not be more adviseable to pay them what I deem to be fair and reasonable and let them sue me if they dare.

In thirty years of domesticity i have only had one altercation of this nature which was for a kitchen company (reccomended) that took 4 months and a catalogue of disasters. In this instance i witheld a final payment of £700 on £7000 pound kitchen and told them to take me to court as they didnt have a leg to stand on ( it hadn`t been delivered with the flatpack)...

As you can see Agile i am able to write a real letter so may well be sharpening my pencil in the next few days

cheers for now, i look forward with trepidation to replies from engineers,

consumerbored

 

[Agile]

I dont do sarcasm. I dont know why you even suggest that, for a brief second I even wondered if I should delete my posting which totally supports your position.

The same payment as a BG fixed price repair might be considered reasonable, not because everyone else should match it as we cannot because we have to pay far more for parts, but because they have seriously messed you about with whats a very simple fault to diagnose.

Nor should you have to pay for parts fitted as a result of a wrong diagnosis like the diverter valve!

But you did not mention the company! Was it indeed Reactfast?

Tony

 

[Agile]

As you can see Agile i am able to write a real letter so may well be sharpening my pencil in the next few days

cheers for now, i look forward with trepidation to replies from engineers,

consumerbored

If you do have to write any letters then please check all spelling and grammar and use capitals "I"s where required.

If they see a letter with small "i"s then they will think it comes from some irk who can be ignored!

If some engineers later disagree with me then remember thats its usually because they do not consider giving a proper professional service with reasonable charges without ripping off customers is important.

Tony

 

[Corgigrouch]

LOL Consumerbored, I think that it is fair comment to say that it is Tony's "Time of the month" but I do agree with him with regard to your engineer...

 

[consumerbored]

Thanks for the comments and advice . I`m now deciding which local independent to call as I usually do support local businesses. I don`t want to get into naming companies at this stage . For all I know the company themselves may be unaware of the engineers abilities. Apparently he is self employed so my job could well have been his first for the company for all I know.I will confirm however it is not Reactfast. Anyway I will post the outcome here to hopefully help others to avoid this situation.

thanks again to Agile, Corgigrouch and others

 

[HERTS P&D]

Dear Consumerbored, the way these companies work is that they will give you a price of £65.00 per half plus parts & plus VAT. Which you will then sign a contract confirming that you agree to this.

Normally all the customers hears is £65.00, but the bill will be alot more, as you have found out.

These type of engineers that are employed/self-employed work on a 50/50 share of the total price of the bill. The parts are normally have a very high mark up on them, once on site the engineer will 'sit' on the job to drag out the time to make more money, unfortunately there are lots of companies that work that way. It will always say in the paper work that the engineer is allowed a max of 1hr to obtain materials. (50 minutes is quite close to that )

Did you find them in a big yellow book?

The best way to source a tradesmans is from recommendation. If not then always get a fixed price.

PS. Tony: Reactfast no-longer exists, they were bought out by Homeserve in dec-09/jan-10

Andy

 

[Agile]

Andy has explained how these companies work with engineers who do any work they give them. There is every incentive for the engineer to take a long time and no incentive to do it quickly.

A long time ago I contacted one of those firms to ask how they worked. The owner told me that to make it worthwhile it was up to me to make sure EVERY job was charged at at least £300 however simple it was.

An engineer who does quick fixes does not get sent to many jobs for them!

I am glad to hear that Reactfast has been taken over as that will eliminate one of those type of firms who sicken me by ripping off their customers so badly.

One example of a rip off was a customer I went to who had been told they have to repressurise his EXV. Now doing that is with a hand operated car footpump and takes about 10 minutes! That engineer told the customer they had to remove it from the boiler and take it to a filling station to prerssurise it from their airline. They went away and sat in the van round the corner for 50 minutes all clocking up at £65 per HALF hour plus vat.

Tony

 

[transam]

As I understand it yiu have payed out £ 800 so far ?? & still not fixed !

That would buy you 2 combis in B&Q & you would get change !

Have never got involved in on site billing , never done it , hope I never do !

 

[joinerjohn]

Ex wife's boiler broke down (one time of many). I had sussed out from the fault finding flowchart that it was one of two sensors located in the bowels of the combi. Came home from work only for her to tell me "It's the diverter valve!!"
Transpired, she'd called out one of the "No Call Out Fee lot from the Yellow Pages and a youngish lad had been round.
Took the front off the combi, then proceeded to spend half an hour on the phone. Put the front back on the combi and charged her £49.50p. (no call out fee but charge for every half hour that he's there)
Then told her it was the diverter valve, " Tell your husband to order one off the internet and replace it himself!!!"

I got on the phone to the company involved only to be told that they don't keep records of who they send out to jobs. (I just wanted his Corgi Registration number) If that lad was Corgi registered, then I think I'll change my name to Bruce Willis.

Got a Corgi reg mate round to fix it and it was one of the sensors. Cost about £5 for the part and 15 mins work for him to replace it.
He charged us a tenner for a drink.

 

[PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN]

Tell them to **** off and you will see them in court if they get arsey, bloody incompetent idiots like this get all of us a bad name

 

[DP]

Clear case of incompetence. You are being ripped off.

 

[kevplumb]

Wow, I am going to be the first to comment and will set the tone for further replies.

made one hell of a job of it then

Clear case of incompetence. You are being ripped off.

makes you wonder how the gits sleep at night