Repaircare are a National Company offering fixed price appliance repairs. Their fixed price appliance repairs include call out, parts, labour and VAT. Repaircare are part of Connect Distribution who are the UK’s largest distributor of appliance spares and accessories. They supply much of the independent repair trade. Their website is easy to use and features 3 simple steps to get a quote. It’s incredibly simple and well designed.
How do they do it? What’s the Catch?
I’m naturally pretty sceptical and not easily impressed – always looking out for a catch. It shouldn’t be possible for Repaircare to be able to include the spare parts in their repair charges but they are the UK’s largest spare parts distributor so they have access to much cheaper parts than most and they obviously think they can.
Repaircare advertised fixed price repairs but unfortunately the truth is they did not fix every appliance for the price initially quoted and covered themselves against really expensive repairs by their terms and conditions. They claimed most repairs should however be covered by the sum quoted but after a few months (of complaints) they changed the terms and conditions to remove their right to charge extra for certain parts. If your appliance is beyond economical repair it won’t cost you any more than from any other large company as they will just charge the call out fee.
Summary
Offering fixed price repairs is a big ask. Repaircare have access to very cheap parts because of their massive buying power as part of the UK’s largest spares distributor 4Ourhouse. When calculating the cost of parts they use the trade cost of parts and not the retail cost which everyone else uses. The price difference can be substantial and this gives them quite a bit of leeway. However, they don’t employ their own engineers and instead use a network of independent engineers, which appears to cause some problems at times where people have complained of poor customer service. Repaircare have been accused several times of washing their hands of some complaints when (presumably) a customer and the independent engineer have been telling them different things. However, I don’t believe they can do this because a customer’s contract is with Repaircare and not the engineer that they subcontracted to do the repair so if a customer is dissatisfied they should be responsible for sorting it out.
Margins must be small and this operation probably relies on economies of scale. As it is covering all of the UK they may be able to achieve the quantities of repairs necessary to be viable. However, they need most repairs to be relatively minor to balance out the expensive repairs. if only people suspecting they have a serious fault use them the system just won’t work. There have been complaints in the comments of this article though which is disappointing. They may have been struggling to cope with the work load at the early stages as they have promoted themselves very heavily. However, Repaircare did eventually respond pro-actively to public complaints and put in place a system to allow people to complain directly to a manager. People with complaints previously felt they had no option but to complain on the Internet because they couldn’t get past the call centre staff to complain to a manager. I put this contact detail on one of my comments – Contact Repaircare
If you are the type of person who takes comfort in prices being fixed and inclusive, then fixed price repairs may be for you. You could end up paying more than necessary if your appliance turns out not to need any parts or needs inexpensive parts, but you could save money if it needs an expensive part.
Make sure you read and understand their terms & conditions though as if parts are “too” expensive they can say the appliance is not worth repairing although all engineers from any company will tell you an appliance isn’t worth repairing if the repair is going to cost more or close to the price of a new appliance.
Alternatives?
Some manufacturers also offer fixed price repairs now at rates competing with Repaircare. For example Hoover / Candy, Ariston, Indesit, Hotpoint, Creda and even the obsolete Dyson washing machine have fixed price repairs. Also, AEG, Electrolux, Tricity Bendix and Zanussi have relatively low and reasonable labour charges.
Only 3 months guarantee
A mere 3 months guarantee on repairs is very poor indeed. Under the Sale of Goods Act, any repair should last a reasonable time, as should any parts fitted. 3 months is nowhere near a reasonable time for almost any repair especially if new parts are fitted. However, if that’s all you get (and there’s no law forcing a company to give any guarantee at all) you would have to pursue your claim in the small claims court or through a consumer help body if a repair by a company offering only 3 months guarantee failed after an unreasonable time outside 3 months.
Appliance repairers on Washerhelp
There are some appliance repair companies listed on my Book washing machine (or other appliance) repair page on Washerhelp including companies offering a much more desirable 12 month guarantee on repairs.
Booked a repair of our Miele washer, which is making nasty bearing rumbles. Charge was £129 rather than £70 – fair do’s, it’s a Miele.
The chappie turns up, says it will take two people to do the job and will have to be taken to the workshop, that the charge is too low, and went away. Still waiting a week later for an estimate of how long and how much. Not impressed so far……
Hello Tony. That’s not good. Have you tried ringing them? Please keep us informed.
Thank you thank you thank you… found this website on Google, just as I was despairing about the possible cost of calling out a repairman (or having to fork out for a new machine). But one Friday night in later, machine is fixed, by me – your new biggest fan :-)
I’m not sure that this lot are worth the hassle.
Appointments were only available several days on from purchase.
Their engineer failed to turn up for the first appointment.
Second appointment he diagnosed the problem but did not have the parts
Third appointment he ‘fixed it’ but told me not to switch on for 5 hours (it’s a freezer).
When I turned on it was exhibiting the same fault as it started with.
Still waiting for their engineer to ring me to arrange a further call. I will have been 3 weeks without a freezer and taken 4 days off work. The manufacturers would have been more expensive but I suspect more responsive and effective.
Their call centre is very much ‘computer says no’ . The operators are not empowered to do anything other than call the engineer and get his answer service, as I had already done.
It seems impossible to speak to a team leader or supervisor.
Great idea poorly executed. The system is process not customer focused.
Telephone calls are expensive and there’s a lot of ‘please hold the line’.
Hello L: Thanks for your contribution. I’m not sure what you mean about only being able to make an appointment several days on, as most people would want immediate appointments or within a few days.
Not turning up is bad, though that happens a lot across many companies as engineers can get stuck on a job or have traffic problems and it’s just not possible to complete all jobs at times. A courtesy phone call is expected though.
It’s also not unusual for parts to be required and a second visit necessary – that’s very common because it’s impossible to carry all but the most common parts for the most common machines. Even the manufacturers often have to return with parts another time although I would expect the manufacturer to have more parts than anyone carrying out repairs to all makes.
Reports I’ve heard indicate manufacturer’s service is commonly poor and long waits for appointments and parts common too.
Unfortunately I have no idea how many satisfied customers there are to balance things out as most people only contribute when not happy and all businesses have things go wrong to some extent. I’m hoping these are just teething problems caused by the success of the service, which may have overloaded them with calls.
In addition to my last comment, I forgot to add that leaving the freezer unplugged for at least 5 hours is often necessary for modern frost free fridges and freezers if they have become caked in iced inside. If this is not adhered to the fault will usually reoccur.
In my experience many customers didn’t follow this instruction because it’s too inconvenient, and the fault reoccurred. I don’t know if this is the case in your situation but it is essential to allow the unit to properly defrost if advised to.
Thanks Washerhelp
Re ‘I’m not sure what you mean about only being able to make an appointment several days on, as most people would want immediate appointments or within a few days’.
I can see the ambiguity in my comment, sorry. I was trying to say that available appointments were quite a few days in the future. As you say your need is almost immediate.
We did leave the freezer nearly 8 hours before switching it on. Hey ,after two weeks with it, whats a few hours?
I have now been contacted by a senior customer service person (after I advised them I was going to give negative feedback.)
Whilst the person who rang was very pleasant, we haven’t moved on at all.
They have a process…which I know off by heart as it has been explained to me repeatedly. That process can’t be changed.
What they are missing is that a good operation always needs processes but that when the process falters, service recovery must always be the priority over process.
Many companies make mistakes, its the ones that are flexible enough to recover well from failure that typically the customer remembers and recommends.
All I want is my freezer fixed…..
Regards
Laurie
Thanks Laurie: My attititude has always been that no company is immune from cockups and things going wrong so I agree that the sign of a good company is not defined by whether things go wrong or not but how they deal with inevitable problems.
The only thing I can say in their defence at the moment is that although they’ve done half a million repairs so far they’ve only just launched the service to the public, whereas they’ve previously carried out repairs for insurance companies. I suspect they are currently experiencing a big surge in demand.
Too good to be true…………cost £120……..chap turns up within a 12hr time frame only to say he has to order a part for the cooker (should only be a couple of days hes says) ….. its now the second week (third of not having a cooker) and still no part! Call centre just says dont know when part will be in!
An update…
It’s now just under 4 weeks since I engaged (and paid) Repaircare to fix my fridge/freezer.
The engineer had to return for a 3rd visit (now 4 days off work due to an initial ‘no show’).
He said that I had a big leak in the system and that the fridge/freezer was toast.
I know nothing about refrigeration but I questioned the logic of a big leak causing the unit to fail so quickly after his previous (unsuccessful) repair when he didn’t detect a leak. Also why was the fridge section working OK?
Anyway, he reluctantly tested the system pressure and it was as he left it fully pressurised i.e. there was no leak.
He thought that it was now the compressor and he would contact Repaircare for authorisation to order a new one.
I received an email from Repaircare saying ‘I cannot see that there will be a problem at this end and this engineer will order the compressor for you and once received will contact to make another appointment for you.’
10 days on I had heard nothing so I contacted the call centre to be told that it had been referred to the Technical Section, but ‘he’ had been off for a week or so. I should be patient and they will get back to me when they have discussed it with the engineer.
Four weeks since I started and my fridge/reezer is no further on towards repair.
I’m adjusting my advice from ‘not worth the hassle’ to ‘Avoid’.
Laurie
L A Wilson: thanks for the update. It is sad to see a few people having problems. I understand RepairCare are getting a hell of a lot of jobs coming through and I think they are the victims of their own success at the moment.
Without wishing to be seen as an apologist for repaircare I do believe it’s fair to say that most of the problems described in these comments are typical problems that you can commonly experience with many repair companies or repairmen.
Engineers not turning up occasionally, misdiagnosing faults, not having the parts, and when ordered parts taking ages to come are all sadly common issues experienced by customers of many repair companies because companies have to repair too many products and too many different brands. People commonly expect engineers to turn up with the right parts but this just doesn’t happen very often when engineers are expected to repair almost every make of appliance and every type of appliance. They’d need to drive around in a transit lorry to carry them all.
I’m pretty sure if I wrote a general article on repair companies and repairmen and left it open to comments we would get many people relaying the same issues with Comet, Curry’s, each manufacturer, and all the other repair companies as well as independent repairmen. I think that needs putting in perspective.
Having tried to put things into a proper and fair perspective RepairCare need to clearly deal with complaints better and get on top of things quickly.
Please dont use this company. Waited in all day for the engineers ect could nt repair costs more than quoted ect…
Seems a under lying trend in this company poor service and over charging. Spend your money some where else.
Just to give the final installment on this saga….
After chasing by phone and email I was eventually telephoned and advised that the part (the compressor) was no longer available for my model. They refunded my £125 less £40 for call out charges. (Which meant I had paid them £40 NOT to fix my fridge/freezer!)
I telephoned Miele the following day and they were pretty annoyed at the information given to me as the part was readily available for immediate dispatch. They even gave me the part number and contact details.
I emailed the customer services supervisor who had taken ownership of my case. She replied promising to look into it. That was 10 days ago.
Suspicion is that the part was substantially more than the payment they had taken from me and they just decided not to tell the truth.
Their ‘fixed price repair’ promise hasn’t worked for me.
I have given up on them.
Fedupwaiting: What do you mean by waited in all day? If they turned up on day booked that’s not an issue is it? Many people have to wait in all day for many repair companies.
What was wrong with your appliance? If it’s beyond economical repair then it’s not worth repairing by anyone’s book. They do say they reserve the right to tell you it’s not worth repairing if that’s the case. All repair companies would do that. The only difference is that as they advertise “fixed repairs” there is a natural expectation that no matter what is wrong they will do it for this price. That’s a weakness in their business model IMO but they do make this issue clear in their terms and conditions at time of booking -
I do quote the above caveat in the review we are commenting on.
So you should have been charged £40, did they charge more?
RepairCare advertise fixed price repairs but unfortunately the truth is they do not fix every appliance for the price initially quoted and cover themselves against really expensive repairs by the terms and conditions quoted above. I must admit I’m uneasy with that because they advertise something but effectively say well only in most cases when it comes down to it.
I still expect most people would get good value for money from the deal and many will get repairs done for around £90 – £100 that would cost much more from the manufacturer or even places like Comet and Currys.
However, it’s clear that if you have a very expensive fault you will be told it’s not worth repairing. Any other company would just quote you a very high price and you would decide for yourself it isn’t worth repairing. Virtually all companies (unless you are using a local independent who may offer free estimates) will charge at least £40 – £60 if the appliance isn’t worth repairing. The main issue here is if you don’t read the terms and conditions you may be surprised and disappointed if this happens.
L A WIlson: Can’t think of any balanced point to put forward on their behalf there. I will put your experience to a contact I have high up at RepairCare.
I paid repaircare £116 to fix my washer-dryer over three weeks ago and it is still not fixed. I found their customer service extremely unresponsive. I called three times and the customer service reps never called me back when they said they would; and one lady simply brushed off my complaints by telling me to email them via the website. I sent them the written complaint about 2 weeks ago and still haven’t heard back. It’s like once you have paid, this company will completely ignore you even though they haven’t delivered the service.
In my case, when the engineer turned up, he refused to pull the washing machine out from underneaththe kitchen counter (which is not a massive job), saying that it’s not in his contract to do so. However, repaircare.com only stipulates that the machine CAN BE REMOVED, never is there one word on the service agreement that says the customer needs to remove it.
Repaircare is the biggest rip-off ever and to this date, I am still not sure if I’ll ever get a refund or my washer-dryer fixed by this company.
Jenny: This does happen with all major repair companies and manufacturers as well as many independent engineers. If the appliance can’t be lifted out to repair without risking damage to the flooring or even to the engineers back they will tend to refuse to do it.
We can’t know of course the exact situation and whether he was justified or not. I know you say it (quote – “can be removed”) but if an engineer believes it was particularly difficult they usually refuse. It’s always possible he was wrong in his decision but without seeing it none of us can judge.
You should be charged just the £40 call out charge in your situation.
Here’s the relevant TOC
There’s no excuse for your money not being refunded (minus the £40) prompty but it’s not a rip off. There’s no doubt you will only be charged £40. As I’ve said before they are currently extremely busy and adjusting to dealing directly with the customer after dealing before with insurance companies -
I will bring your complaint to the attention of the company as I have with the others. I don’t have anything to do with them as such but as my site is carrying their ads it’s the least I can do.
Avoid repaircare.co.uk.
First engineer (from one subcontracted company) arrived, and then left to order parts. One week later second engineer arrived (from another subcontracted company). Had no knowledge of first engineer, so he had to start again, and left to order parts.
One week later, phoned up and was told parts were on order. Then a few days later got a voicemail saying I was being refunded £70 due to B.E.R. She did not say what this was. Had to go to website order number to see that it meant “Beyond Economical Repair”.
So after 2 weeks I am still with a broken washing machine.
What a rip off. They offer a flat rate to fix the applicance, they refuse to do it if they can’t make a profit on it. They want to cherry pick, make a good profit from those breakdowns that are easy, and run a mile on difficult jobs.
Communications was very poor. Engineers did not phone before appointment.
Felt I needed to comment as all reports so far on repaircare are poor. My washing machine packed up on Monday morning; booked repaircare online Monday afternoon; They phoned me on Tuesday to confirm a visit on Wednesday; arrived by Wednesday lunch time and fixed my machine within 1 hour. I paid the origional fixed price of £104 and am a happy customer.
My Smeg dishwasher is broken. Repaircare engineer came today as scheduled to fix my machine, but as he has ‘very little knowledge about dishwashers’ he felt he wasn’t qualified to fix it at my house and needed to take it to his base. I have never experienced such a thing before and was surprised and dubious. Even worse, he had no paper work to give me to say he is taking the machine, but he already had my money so what could I do? I have no idea when -or if -this stranger will repair or bring back my machine and feel like I’ve been a complete mug. He was amazed that I should want a receipt for my dishwasher or any written agreement as to when I would have it back. Apparently I’m the only person ever to ask for this! Even if I get it back and it’s fixed, shouldn’t a bona fide company have paperwork for a client? Whenever I’ve called a repair man in the past they’ve had the knowledge and parts to fix it immediately….
I think you really need to question your impartiality in this matter. You quite clearly state that they shouldn’t be able to get the parts for the price in your review.
Given that they need some margin and the engineer wants to get paid this leaves around £50 of the fee for parts. Not many spares of substance under that figure I bet.
My own experience is of the engineer coming a day early, he did call, so not a complete loss. He came through on his way home from a “busy day”. Didn’t bother to bring any tools in with him. Opened the washing machine door and said it’s broken badly, they (RepairCare) won’t pay to fix that when I tell them what parts it needs.
7 minutes on site £40 thank you very much. I had the sense that I was just topping up his days income. He may have decades of experience and know what parts he will need (although I doubt it) but I was at least hoping he would have a look, if just to stop me getting suspicious.
It’s going to cost me £400 to replace this and all I have is a weary engineer’s gut instinct. I would love to see the ReapirCare statistics on how many they fix as opposed to write off. Maybe that’s hope they do it so cheap, they rarely fit any parts?
Hello Q. I don’t understand your point as I’ve tried to remain very impartial which means I try to look at things from both points of view. If I wasn’t impartial I wouldn’t even allow any critical comments and I wouldn’t acknowledge anyone’s criticisms.
I don’t recognise the words you attribute to me in my review. My review says, “Repaircare have access to very cheap parts because of their massive power as part of the UKs largest spares distributor 4Ourhouse. When calculating the cost of parts they use the trade cost of parts and not the retail cost which everyone else uses. The price difference can be substantial and this gives them quite a bit of leeway.”
The retail cost of a part can be £150 but the cost to manufacturer will be substantially lower. As a major spare distributor they may have access to such a part for £40. Also they are quoting a lot more than £90 for some makes and some products.
I said the viability of the service is theoretically possible because of their access to very cheap parts and because the majority of repairs don’t even need any parts or only need minor parts.
Is RepairCare a scam?
It gives every appearance of being one.
On 16/08/09 I booked for a repair man to to come out and fix my fridge/freezer (Job Ref: C1135924) and was given a date of 20/08/09.
He didn’t turn up and nobody contacted me. When I called repaircare I was given the excuse of a problem with the booking on the computer.
I was given another appointment date of 01/09/09. The repair man turned up. He stayed about 5 minutes undid 3 screws and removed a panel, looked at the inside and said that it needed a new PCB. He didn’t test anything at all. He said that he’d order the part and that someone would phone in a couple of days to let me know when it would be installed. By the end of the week nobody had called me so I called Repaircare to be told that the part was no longer available (FOR A FRIDGE FREEZER THAT WAS LESS THAT 5 YEARS OLD ???) and that they weren’t going to do the repair. I was also told that my refund of the original payment less £40 would be done in 7 – 10 days (strange that they can take the payment instantly but it takes them up to two weeks to refund it).
Late on Saturday night I ordered a part from Currys Partmaster (So much for Repaircare’s claim that the part was no longer available).
The part arrived promptly this morning (Tuesday). I popped the front panel off the fridge and repaced the PCB myself in 2 minutes and the fridge is working perfectly now.
I would appear that Repaircare are not interested in doing repairs when replacement parts are involved and that they are quite happy to make as much money as possible by eaning interest on refunds that they hold on too as long as the can.
John: One of your criticisms is that the engineer, “undid 3 screws and removed a panel, looked at the inside and said that it needed a new PCB. He didn’t test anything at all.” yet you later say you went and bought a new PCB, fitted it and, “the fridge is working perfectly now”.
You can’t criticise the engineer for not testing anything and appearing to arrive at a diagnosis very quickly but then go on to confirm he was 100% right in his diagnosis.
Your other complaint about being told the part is not available when it was is much more serious and not the first time I’ve heard it.
Can you email me with your details so I can get a Repaircare manager to look into this please? Contact me
Just a quick followup.
More comments about Repaircare can be found on :-
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=23611819
The links above contain duplications of some of the complaints here. As I pointed out earlier all companies will have dissatisfied customers and some of the complaints are things that would be encountered with all repair companies due to the nature of the job.
Regarding John’s issue: I’ve had the following follow up from Repaircare’s online marketing manager -
That was me, back on June 18th……..Well, after four visits, we still have a Miele washer that, after bearing replacement, still leaks about a cupful every cycle. The original repairer is coming back again tomorrow for another shot, and they get full marks for persistence, but there has been so much head-scratching over this, I’m beginning to wonder if there is any realistic chance of returning it to its former (entirely leak-tight!) state. We may find out tomorrow.
It’s that Miele again…..The original repairer eventually returned (after a long gap caused by holidays etc) and has, at last, discovered the problem – a drain pipe dislodged during the first dismantling! Everything is at last as it should be, and no further money changed hands. So – not a 100% “according to plan” job, but the required result, and strictly to Repaircare’s stated terms.
hi iv had the same big problem with my fridge/freezer i payed 100
th engineer came out when stated and said i needed a compressor to be ordered i asked how long he said shouldnt be long,2wks on not heard anything so i emailed repaircare and they said that the part would be with the engineer with in a fewdays and he will contact to arrange a day n time.waited another week still not heard so i rang him direct from the tel no.provided he said or yes and said he would call out on the friday,so i was chuffed as iv a newborn n need my fridge to store his bottles.thursday teatime i got a call from him to say that he will be calling on the tuesday weekafter i say hey i was promised friday,he said who said that to you and b4 i could say he put the blame on repaircare and i said no you said it yourself and denied it,and said they’v only just given me authorisation to order your part, i said to him but i thought you already had the part as i was told in an email and by yourself he turned the convo by repeating his self so i excepted the tuesday and by this time it was 4wks since i had payed for the service,tuesday morning came and as i was on my account coz i kept getting a funny feeling that i was gonna be cancled again but i saw dx has newborn need to be 1st job on day and up and running,so i though or so deffo coming then half hour later gets a call a lady to say that the engineer wasnt coming coz no engineer had turned up for work so i was angry then so iv put in a complaint with repaircare to ask if i would be entitled to a full refund i then got an email with in 10mins to say they was sorry that this has been on-going for 4wks and wil be getting a refund infull and should be in my account in 3-4days but now isee on my account that the engineer has re-booked for 5th sep also i noticed that they have been putting down that they visted on certain days and couldnt repair applience wich is a lie because according to them they didnt have the part still even after the dates they claim to have called so i dont kknow whats going on there i read on another site with people with the exact things said to them and same treament im just so hoping i do get this refund because iv now gone and bought 1 because i was told my refund will be in my bank in a few days so im worried now
(note change of e-mail address)
So sorry to hear of Emma’s problems, you’d think anyone with an ounce of humanity would hurry to help a young mother with a very new baby!
IMy fridge-freezer was condemned (previous postings on another thread) by my local retailer’s engineer,although less than five years old. Their manufacturers assn (AMDEA) says average life of an f/f is 16 and a half years. (That’s SIXTEEN AND A HALF)
My retailer has offered me £20 off the callout fee that I paid, PLUS an unspecified discount should I buy another f/f from them.
Have now written to ask for specific figures.
Someone has said I should take the retailer to the Small Claims Court but is that worth all the hassle?
How do we poor punters acquire “negotiating skills” ?
I have had a dreadful experience with repaircare customer service and their local engineer (north west london). Initially I booked a callout online to fix my Bosch dryer. The appointment was for 2 days after I made the online booking, and I took this day off work. That day I had a call from the engineer to say the first appointment he had was a week later, that repaircare couldn’t make commitments on his behalf! I had no choice but to accept. On that day, the engineer did come and although he couldn’t access the back of the dryer, said via deduction that it was a fault with the motor, he would order the part, it would take up to 7 days to arrive, then he would call me so I could arrange for access to the dryer to install the part. Two weeks after this appointment, having heard nothing in the interim, I receive a message from repaircare saying the dryer needs to be moved so the engineer can have access.
I assume this is to install the new motor. I call the engineer’s number for 4 days straight and leave messages – no response. I call repaircare and get told the machine can’t be fixed (?!) and I will receive a refund, less £40 callout fee. They cannot tell me why the dryer can’t be fixed. Infuriated I asked to speak to a supervisor, who says he will leave a message with the engineer to call me back. Two more days, no response despite continued calls to the engineer, I call repaircare again. They finally tell me no part has been ordered as the engineer couldn’t diagnose the fault – he needs access to the machine to diagnose. At this stage it has been over 3 weeks since I first requested a callout. I ask why it has taken 3 weeks for them to tell me they need access when on the day of the appointment the engineer said he didn’t need access to diagnose the fault – so basically lied to me – and on subsequent calls to repaircare no-one told me about the diagnosis issue.
They refused to give me a full refund, holding back the £40 callout fee – so I am currently stuck continuing with them despite having lost all faith in this particular engineer, and with their system, and having to take yet another day off next week for the engineer to finally come and supposedly diagnose the fault. I personally suspect that as this is an ‘expensive’ repair, they are trying to wriggle out of fixing it. I have no guarantee now that even if the engineer comes back, he will even fix it. The whole process has been exhausting and time consuming and I cannot recommend this service at all. I wish I had gone with an authorised Bosch repairer in the area (I have used them for other appliances such as the dishwasher and they were excellent)
Louise. If an engineer misdiagnoses the fault I don’t think you should have to pay anything, not even the call out.
Regarding the cancellation of your initial appointment. Repaircare’s Terms & Conditions say that -
This implies they sometimes have to cancel appointments as all repair companies do at times (eg. sometimes if an engineer calls in sick there’s no alternative but to cancel all his appointments). You could have received a refund under these conditions had you decided to try elsewhere. However, most people clearly are pretty desperate to have their appliance repaired so it’s hardly surprising you accepted another appointment. But even so, if you had booked a day off work and they cancelled on the day of the visit giving you no time to cancel your day off then I would say you should be entitled to compensation or at the very least a refund of the call out charge.
What’s good for the goose…
As with all such companies the terms & conditions say that if their engineer arrives and you are not in they will charge you the call out charge. This is fair as they shouldn’t have to suffer financial loss because you couldn’t make the appointment – even if you had a good reason. So why should things not work in reverse if a company fails to make its appointment – even if they have a good reason? When you booked the appointment you entered into a binding contract but the contract is not just one way. I wrote a brief article on my consumer advice section here, If I take time off work and their engineer doesn’t turn up can I claim compensation?
You may need to take advice from the consumer people ( I want to claim compensation from the repair company or the washing machine seller )
When you say the engineer said, “that Repaircare couldn’t make commitments on his behalf” I find that strange as if he is signed up to them as an agent then presumably they very much can, and need to make appointments on his behalf. No company can operate if contractual appointments made to their customers aren’t honoured or even accepted by their agents.
I don’t follow why he couldn’t access the back of the dryer. If he couldn’t access it then under Repaircare’s T&C’s they have the right to terminate the call and charge the call out as they can’t fix something they can’t access easily
If he guessed the part required and got it wrong you shouldn’t have to pay anything in my opinion. But if he literally couldn’t get access for some reason they have the right to abort the call and charge the call out.
I can’t fault Repaircare, they were brilliant! The bearings on my 7 year old Hotpoint washing machine started making an awful grumbling and grinding noise. I figured the bearings had gone and booked a repair with Repaircare. I suspected they might deem it economically unviable to repair but was willing to part with £40 for the callout since I would have had to pay at least that for a local engineer to come and diagnose anyway.
I was able to book a slot on the day I wanted and an engineer duly arrived and diagnosed the bearings as shot to pieces. He said he thought it likely they would not sanction a repair since he was recommending a complete replacement of the whole drum assembly. I did query this and ask why the bearings couldn’t just be replaced and he explained it was easier and less labour to do this rather than take it all apart and remove the bearings to possibly find the housing was damaged and new bearings couldn’t be fitted for that or another reason. A new drum would then be needed so he was just bypassing the potential trouble and labour of stripping it all down in the first place. I felt this was a reasonable decision and comment and he left saying he would contact me once he had a decision from Repaircare.
Off I went onto the web looking at expensive Miele’s and resigned myself to getting a new machine.
I was delighted when the engineer rang a few days later saying the repair was authorised! He came the next day and replaced the whole drum assembly and heater as promised and I effectively now have a new washing machine! All for just £104. I think that is damned good value for what I got and have no complaints at all.
I think it is worth noting that your experience with Repaircare may well be dependent on who they sub contract out to come and do the diagnosis and repair. My engineer was excellent and very thorough.
I wouldn’t recommend Repaircare to my worst enemy.
My Washer dryer broke down early July – I found the Repaircare site as it’s high up on google searches and it seemed a good deal. Appointment was booked and a local independent repair man was sent.
He spent about 5 minutes and said he needed to order parts.
3 weeks later and many calls to repaircare and also visits to the local repair shop and he came out the fit the parts (quite expensive – main pcb). Well he changed this and a few other small parts and the problem was still there. He said he had done as much as he could but would have to ask an expert (I thought that was what I was promised on the website)
Well another 2 weeks and many more calls and guess what – the same man appeared to refit the same parts ( the first words he said as he entered the kitchen was “this isn’t going to work but they’ve told me to try again”. Well it didn’t work.
Many more calls to repaircare and despite repeatedly asking for someone with more competence to be sent out this was refused. All I have been offered is a refund minus the £40 call out fee – this I have refused as why should I pay for a call out when the person coming out is not competent to do the job?
I have since called out another engineer – part of the electrolux network and he plugged in his computer and diagnosed the fault immediately and had the machine running within 20 minutes – he had to replace all the same parts as the repaircare man as he had blown them and one more part costing less than £20.
Overall the call centre staff only seem to want to give you a partial refund and don’t seem interested in helping you solve the problem.
STEER CLEAR of REPAIRCARE.
Thanks for your positive feedback Gavman. Unfortunately comments about any repair company will inevitably attract far more negative comments than positive because in the repairs game there’s always a minority of jobs that suffer cockups, and jobs that just go badly from the start. Satisfied customers rarely take the trouble to shout about it so it’s nice to see someone making the effort to balance things a little.
While not wanting to undermine any complaints, and some people do appear to have received poor service, it isn’t fair to assume that isolated experiences mean a company is no good and should be avoided at all costs. I’d appreciate it if people tried to describe their experiences without resorting to claiming the entire company are cowboys.
If you have a problem with an engineer it doesn’t mean all engineers operating for Repaircare are the same – that is an unreasonable assumption. Having said that, Repaircare are more accountable for the standard of their call centre and customer services section and how they deal with things when they do go wrong.
If things happened as you described Carlo I would also be expecting a full refund if they misdiagnosed or simply didn’t cure the fault and you’ve had to get it fixed elsewhere but I don’t feel it’s fair to assume and advise that all their engineers are no good because of your experience of one.
Booked a service call and was charged at the same time, but after taking a day off, the engineer failed to arrive. I have received an apology but no offer of any compensation for wasting a day of my annual leave to sit at home and wait for someone who failed to turn up.
Hello Disgruntled: As discussed in a previous comment I have written an opinion on this topic here – If I take time off work and their engineer doesn’t turn up can I claim compensation?
This issue can affect customers of any repair company as engineers often encounter problems that can make it impossible for an engineer to make an appointment. I myself had to ring customers and apologise saying I wouldn’t be able to make an appointment many times during my many years as an engineer. It was rare of course, but something that did happen every so often.
Reasons range from getting stuck in seriously heavy traffic and becoming very behind schedule, getting stuck on one or more jobs which take considerably longer than normal causing me to run seriously behind, to employers (when I did the odd stint working for other companies) booking way too many jobs in over way too big an area making it impossible to finish unless I was prepared to work until 10 at night, and to having minor accidents and having to cancel all my calls as a result of slicing my finger on a dishwasher etc. Large organisations can have problems if an engineer is off sick or if he fails to turn up for work already booked in due to sickness.
Clearly it’s extremely annoying and inconvenient if an engineer doesn’t turn up. At the very least they should ring and apologise asap. Most people will accept the apology and explanation in my experience but if they have lost a day off work they should be entitled to compensation if that’s what they want to pursue although it’s something you are likely to have to fight for, maybe even as far as the small claims court.
Can’t believe that you are recommending these people.
Received a visit early sept to fix the ice compartment on my Maytag American FF (4 years old) Engineer fiddled with back of fridge + eventually decided it needed new hose. 3 weeks later appeared at my door with wrongly supplied ‘washing machine’ hose. Said that he would be back with correct hose and parts (that he had broken) in due course. Had to turn water supply off to fridge as his tinkering now means that applliance now leaks.
So Maytag in worse state than when started. Apparently if this ‘engineer’ cannot fix appliance they will charge me £40 because it is deemed uneconomical to repair.
This clearly is not the case. It appears that the engineer is simply not qualified to repair this type/brand of appliance. I am expected to pay for his incompetence and mistakes.
Hello Helen: My review was looking at the service they offer and giving background information about the company, which was written at the same time the service was launched. In the last sentence of my review I say, “The article is independent in that I’m not so much personally recommending the service as merely pointing out its existence and what they offer.”
There were some complaints early on about people being charged extra for parts if they were over a certain limit, which contradicted the “fixed price” repairs advertised, but they decided to stop doing that some weeks in, so it shouldn’t be an issue any more.
There have been several complaints that I agreed seem justified and raised with the company myself. There have also been complaints that in all fairness, and without wishing to belittle, are typical complaints where things have just gone wrong, which I guarantee are typical to virtually all repairers. That’s not to say they aren’t genuine complaints but they need putting into perspective and are not necessarily proof that the whole company is useless.
As Repaircare carry out many thousands of repairs each week using a network of 500 independent repairers it’s inevitable there will be some that don’t go according to plan or even very badly so we need to try and work out the ones that are particular to Repaircare before branding them with words like “do not use this company” or “this company is a scam”.
This is where I have a concern for fairness and why I try to put a balanced point of view in replies. This can be mistaken for defending Repaircare, but anyone reading my comments properly should see a roughly equal balance of trying to put things into perspective and agreeing with many complaints.
The only thing I can say is that people experiencing genuine cock ups with individual engineers are not being fair if they say that it’s evidence the entire network of repairers are the same. There are 500 engineers and it’s unfair to say they are all incompetent on the personal experience of one or even several. I honestly believe I am a good engineer myself, but over my 30 years experience I cocked things up from time to time. I sometimes pulled a washer out a bit too fast and damaged flooring or broke hoses that were too short and I hadn’t noticed. I’ve ordered wrong parts at (rare) times too and so on and so on. Who hasn’t cocked up at work?
In my opinion, what differentiates between a good company and a bad one is not that things go wrong, because that’s a given, but how they are dealt with when they do. Unfortunately it seems many of these incidents have been compounded by customers having incidents drag on for several weeks, not being contacted quickly enough and some mistakes regarding parts and whether they are available or not. This is how they should be judged, not on incidents where a wrong part was ordered, or something got accidentally broken, or an engineer couldn’t make an appointment etc.
In Helen’s case the facts reported are vague, but if a part was broken by an engineer it’s clearly his responsibility to sort it out without charge. I think the person saying if they can’t fix it you will still be charged the £40 was possibly just repeating the company policy and not taking into account the circumstances. Please keep us informed.
WasherHelp,
I think you are being way too generous with RepairCare.
They displayed very poor communication:
(1) depending on engineers to contact the customer when my contract is with RepairCare, so it should be upto RepairCare to inform me when the engineer has given up the job, and that a new engineer will be taking it over,
(2) also communicate with the new engineer that he is taking over the job!! (which RepairCare failed to do, much to the annoyance of the new engineer) [See my problem with RepairCare: BrokenCloud #19. August 11th, 2009, at 3:45 PM.]
Also, on their website they made inaccurate logs of visits to me which did not take place!! Who is writing these logs?
This shows RepairCare have a big problem with communications with customers and engineers. They do not have established procedures to follow, eg always phoning to update customer of status, always phoning the engineer of the previous history of a job, do not use acronyms with a customer, especially on voicemail, eg BER (beyond enconomic repair) [See my problem with RepairCare: BrokenCloud comment number 19]
I have never received such a poor service from any service engineer in my Life!!
Booked my fridge freezer in with repair care and was somewhat skeptical about them being able to fix it for a set price including everything, no hidden extras whatsoever i was told.. , i made sure to detail the several specific problems and list all damaged parts that were visibly broken..
The booking confirmation came through with just two bullet points.. i didn’t think anything of this until i stumbled upon this forum.. i immediately lost hope of them being able to fix this on the day as promised so just rang to cancel..
Even though it took seconds to book the call out i was put on hold to cancel, even though they instantly confirmed the booking they had to call the engineer to cancel, three minutes after my initial booking (i’m not exaggerating), who was suddenly unavailable.. now i have to wait and see if they have cancelled my call out in time to avoid the £40 charge. I wasn’t drawn to the terms and conditions on the website or run through them on the phone, this is both bad business practice and opens up a whole grey area of the Unfair Contract Terms and Conditions Act 1977. What i find particularly frustrating is there is absolutely no point in offering fixed price repairs for any problem with any appliance then hiding away a small condition that pretty much gets them out of repairing anything that’s too old or too expensive.. I’m glad i’ve cancelled, even though i could have been proved wrong on my decision it’s pretty obvious that my enormous and very expensive american style fridge freezer was going to far outweigh the call out fee, they’d have said i didn’t detail all the problems properly then shown me the two bullet points and walked away with my £40.
I’m going to contact the manufacturer directly as suggested by many people on this forum..
Mark: According to the terms & conditions you should get all money refunded if you cancel any time before 4 O’ Clock on the day before the appointment.
I used Repaicare when my hob broke and was intially impressed with the speed in which an engineer could come out. He went away saying that he needed a part to repair it. 6 WEEKS later after being told repeatedly the part was being shipped I get told actually its beyond economic repair. The hob is a stoves induction so will cost more than £700 to replace and is only a few years old so it is worth repairing but it will cost more than the ‘fixed’ fee they charged me. Really not impressed, especially after having to cater for a family of 5 for 6 weeks without a hob!
Still awaiting a resolution for the repair of my american fridge freezer. Since you imply my previous entry was in some way sketchy here ie the full story.
The water was slow to the ice compartment which was failing to make ice. Paid £164 for a repair/visit. F/F is 4 yrs old.
Sept 11th the engineer visited, spent nearly 2 hours and appeared to not really know what was wrong. He used rather hefty tools for the job (I had previously been able to disconnect hose from F/F using normal finger pressure). He concluded that maybe a new water hose was needed. He would order one and try that first. He then asked me to turn water off to the F/F because it was now leaking at the connection. This was not the case before his visit.
Sept 30th engineer appeared on my doorstep. Wrong part had been ordered/sent to him by repaircare. (he was brandishing a normal washing machine hose) He would go back, speak to repaircare, reorder etc. He mentioned that he had the other bits to resolve the leak – washers?
Mid Oct I wondered what was going on! Looked up job online. Appeared that job complete and that engineer had fitted new pat, had had a marketing call that day to find out if I was happy with repaircare and my completed repair!
21 oct – in response to my call the job was re raised with the addition of ‘THE CUSTOMER IS STATING THAT THE APPLIANCE HAS BEEN LEAKING SINCE THE ENG ATTENDED IF FAULT IS NOT RELATED TO PREVIOUS REPAIR WE WILL NEED TO CHARGE AGAIN’ on the fault description. The telephone operator told me that the job had always been open – the date disputes this. I since been told that the engineer re raised job in response to my call – perhaps reminding him that it was not complete??
Engineer said he would ensure part identified properly and ordered. It is only the hose for a maytag F/F of 4 years old, how difficult can this be? With regard top the leak – the engineer told me that I was confusing everyone by mentioning it. He said that these things did leak when moved about. I have moved house with the F/F twice and it has been perfectly happy! I refer back to the rather large wrench used to undo the hose. I am afraid that at this point my main concern was the way in which the customer care lady had cleverly seen the opportunity of gettig more money out of me. I had been quite clear that the F/F had not leaked before the visit.
31st October I checked to see if job progressing on new number!! it was closed. Not to despair apparently could not make an order on that number so another had been set up….
However, good news! I was told that the part had just arrived and that the engineer would be contacting me re a date to fit.
Sadly not such good news, in the middle of the next week told by text that part still on order.
Have phoned today as the customer service lady who is supposed to have called me some 6 or so days ago has still not materialised.
I would like to demand a return of ALL monies and to go elsewhere. However, my F/F is now less healthy than prior to the engineers visit – as a direct result of his intervention, so I will still be out of pocket. The engineers are not – I believe up to the job (not familiar with maytag at all etc) And despite supplying full details of F/f serial number etc we seem to be no nearer getting a part. Finally – If that part does not fix problem I will probably be told that F/F is not economical to repair.
Following yesterdays long telephone call, I looked at my job details this morning. I was surprised to see that an engineer called yesterday but that he could not fix my F/F. Not surprising as he did not enter my house….. I also spoke to Maytag who were able to identify part in about 30seconds. It would cost me just £41 but since my maytag now broken by engineer and not sure this was the problem anyway not sure this really helps.
Have given part number to Repaircare (Do I get discount for doing their job?) and still await communication from customer service lady who shall not be named.
Does any one know where can I go for help with this??
I’ve received communication from a manager at Repaircare regarding complaints.
I tried to do the above.However, repaircare system not working so you can’t send messages (call centre are aware of this). My last job no was C1190864. On talking to people at the call centre, they are unable to give me names of managers to write to, no supervisors are able to speak, it appears that there is no customer services department and ‘James’ is an apparition!
Hello Helen, it appears to be OK now. I can vouch for James being a real person. It’s quite possible the call centre staff don’t know of him because he isn’t in their department.
I was seriously looking at this company for a washing machine repair but I think not now :(
You can’t beat independant engineers by ‘word of mouth’
Darren. The hundreds of engineers doing work for Repaircare are local engineers. As with any nationwide network of engineers there will be some variance in quality, just as there naturally is if you pick a local engineer from a directory yourself.
Word of mouth is good though.