British gas

Re: British gas

Only ever did one job for them, was paid 4 months later after numerous calls to various offices.
In fact the call in question shows up BG standards in a big way.

I was repairing a washer for a customer last year when her father in law, who is also a customer of mine asked me if I did cooker repairs, I replied that I did certain makes. He said that the Gas Board had been to his built in cooker and told him that the fan motor was faulty and it needed a new door seal, but as it was obsolete he should get rid of it. When I said I didn’t do gas appliances, he said its a Creda electric oven and I am on their Kitchen Cover plan. He gave me the model number and a description of the fault, he said that an internal fan kept running even after the cooker had been switched off for hours, and fiddling with the cooker control was the only way he could stop it. I said that it did not sound like a fan fault but I would check on Partfinder when I got home.

Partfinder revealed a model that was about 7 years old with all parts still available. I rang him back and told him this and that this particular model had two different fans and that visual inspection was required to identify. I advised him to contact the Gas Board and insist that they carry out the repairs, once again telling him that I did not think the fan motor was faulty.

A week later I got a call from someone from British Gas in Birmingham, I was expecting a complaint but was gobsmacked when the bloke on the phone asked me if I could give him the part numbers 😯 . After expressing my amazement at their incompetance I gave him the part numbers but again told him that I did not think the fan motor was faulty.

Two weeks later I got a phone call from the customer, “its about this cooker”, I told him that I had given all the details to BG, he said “I know, but they want you to do it, ring this phone number in Stockport and speak to Mr *********”.

The upshot is that I went along to inspect the cooker and found that it needed a door seal and that the upper stat that sits on top of the cabinet and keeps the cooling fan on until the appliance has cooled down, was the cause of the problem, it had short circuited. The fan motor was perfect.

Along with a Hotpoint tumble dryer that a BG engineer had left the front hanging off that I saw a few months ago, I can say that their domestic appliance engineers are worse than useless in this area. 👿

Re: British gas

BG worse than useless? Surely this can only be good news. 😆

Re: British gas

We do get asked quite often to do British Gas calls. We insist on payment up front for the labour by credit card & advise that we will not refund if the job is cancelled, even before we call. We have also been asked if one of their engineers (an ex employee of ours) could attend a call so we could instruct him on what was found so he could repair it in the future, we refused this request.
Regards
K