I suspect some of my comments may have been seen by people with complaints as unjustly defending Repaircare but at the same time Repaircare will not have liked many of my comments either. I like to think this is a sign of a balanced view as neither side is likely to be over enamoured by all of my views.

This article has attracted 105 comments so far and I’m concerned that new readers are likely to read the first few comments but because there are so many of them skip down to the last few and assume there have been hundreds of complaints so I’d like to put a little context in place.

Out of 105 comments there are 30 complaints, the rest are my responses, further replies from those 30, some from Repaircare, and a few positive comments from satisfied customers. Just after Repaircare launched last year they were receiving around 1,500 repairs a week. If this was maintained they could have been called out to over 50,000 repairs in the last 9 months. Clearly not every dissatisfied customer will complain on the Internet (and of course it’s rare for a satisfied customer to post anything) but 30 complaints does only represent 0.6%. That’s not to say there haven’t been some very genuine complaints but my point is all large companies will always have complaints and as Repaircare are the only repair company I have an article that people can comment on I think this could create an unfair bias against them.

A proportion of these complaints were around 9 months ago just after their launch complaining (justifiably in my opinion) about one of the terms and conditions which seemed to contradict the “fixed price” promise, where a few people were complaining they had been asked to pay extra for expensive parts. This policy was changed though within months of trading and as far as I know is no longer an issue. I’ve since seen one Repaircare agent comment that they spent £700 repairing a Miele appliance which amazed him.

Over the last 3 months or so comments have centred around more general complaints about an engineer not turning up as arranged, or parts taking a long time to arrive when ordered, and dissatisfaction with how complaints have been dealt with. I hate to appear dismissive about such complaints but I don’t want this article to slowly but surely just fill up indefinitely with the inevitable drip of complaints about general cockups and parts taking a long time to get hold of because it’s unfair to only complain about one repair company. Having said that, I feel complaints about customer service and how a company deals with things that have gone wrong are legitimate complaints.

Therefore I would ask that negative comments be restricted to Repaircare-specific complaints which you genuinely feel should be of public interest such as particular customer service or consumer issues or their specific way of working rather than complaints that all repair companies get such as about broken appointments, misdiagnosis of faults, repairs becoming long and drawn out, parts taking a long time to arrive etc. because these are things that happen everywhere in the appliance repair game.

I always strive for fair and balanced views on my sites and whist there’s no doubt there have been some legitimate complaints made here, and I’ve criticised Repaircare on certain issues myself it’s pointless advising others not to use Repaircare because their engineer failed to turn up or because it took them too long to get a particular part because these things can happen to you with virtually all large repair companies. Therefore it will be helpful to focus if further complaints are necessary only on things unique to them.

No one from Repaircare has ever contacted me to try and influence what I say on my sites. This is just how I personally feel. I could turn off comments to the article but I believe that would be seen as trying to stifle consumer comments and experience, which I would not want to do either.

As with most repair companies, they have a clause in their terms and conditions which says -

“If you are out when our approved service engineer calls on the agreed appointment date you will be charged a call out / administration fee of £45.00 (inc VAT) with the balance of the fee paid refunded to you.”

I personally can’t see how any company can believe it’s right and fair that they can charge if you are not in and have therefore broken the contract/appointment but when they do the same they don’t have to compensate you if you have wasted a day off work, which if true, is clearly a financial loss.

I personally believe repair companies just operate like this because they always have, and presumably are rarely challenged. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are genuinely surprised to be asked for compensation but people in these positions should try to remember they are consumers themselves, and the same thing could happen to them any time. This is a consumer issue everyone has a vested interest in.

As I say in my consumer advice section on Washerhelp If I take time off work and their engineer doesn’t turn up can I claim compensation? the ideal situation is for us to always inform a company when making an appointment that someone will be taking time off work. This is based on the old fashioned “time is of the essence” clause in contracts. I’ve just done further research and found a new consumer guide leaflet which reinforces this by saying –

What if someone breaks an appointment to come to my home?

If a service provider misses an appointment for a certain day, they have broken their agreement with you. You may be able to claim compensation if you had to take a day off work, for example. However, this would depend on whether you told the trader this when you made the appointment.

source – Problems with Goods and Services: Your legal rights (PDF file)

I’ve now updated my If I take time off work and their engineer doesn’t turn up can I claim compensation? section to reflect and comment on this. I think it’s pretty unfair and borders on being a ridiculous caveat to consumer law because how can you even prove you told them? And why should a consumer right to compensation be only given if you say the magic words when making an appointment? Why should companies only have to take care not to break appointments to the people that said the right phrase when booking? (which are probably one in a million).

On the other hand, as I also say in my consumer article, things happen which aren’t a companies or engineers fault which cause them to break appointments. They can be unavoidable incidents beyond their control or just every day genuine mistake that we all make. Should we all really be expecting compensation for every one of life’s inconveniences? However, companies expect compensation from us by charging a call out if we break an appointment so whilst any company charges for appointments broken by their customers – often through just as valid unexpected and unavoidable reasons – is it right or fair that the compensation only works one way?

No wonder the number of bad reviews on this site and others, poor customer service and a shambolic company who does not even take responsibility for taking money in advance and then not turning up or phoning to advice that they were not turning up. Had it been me to be caught in traffic or had I been unable to make the appointment due to unforeseen circumstances I have no doubt that repaircare would have charged me.

I will be taking advice from the Trading Standards.

I’m afraid your lack of an offer of compensation for a wasted day off is also typical and you are likely to face the same reluctance no matter which engineer or repair company was involved.

As far as I’m aware, when you book an appointment for someone to visit your house you have entered into a legally binding contract and if it is broken and you have lost out financially you should be entitled to compensation. I think it’s wrong for companies to charge customers for broken appointments if they aren’t in when their engineer arrives, but refuse to pay anything out when they do the same to them.

When you booked an engineer to call through Repaircare your contract was with Repaircare and no one else. Therefore they are responsible if the engineer doesn’t turn up. I can see what they mean when they say they can’t be responsible if the engineer makes a mistake but I’m afraid they are because they took your money in exchange for a promise to send an engineer. The fact that they don’t directly employ the engineers is irrelevant.

As I’ve said before this isn’t a Repaircare specific issue it’s an industry-wide one. The chances are if anyone wants compensating for wasting a day off work waiting for an engineer who didn’t turn up they will probably get compensation, but only if they pursue it with a consumer advice centre or take them to the small claims court. It’s just how they’ve always done it and they’ve always got away with it, just like how retailers try to claim there’s nothing they can do about your washing machine suffering a major fault because it’s “out of guarantee”.

If I take time off work and their engineer doesn’t turn up can I claim compensation?

I then asked to speak to a manager and was passed to a gentleman called Shaun, he said that they had booked the job but it was not their fault if the engineer had not looked at his job list, that they could never guarantee that they would keep an appointment 100% because ‘accidents happen’ or traffic. However the point is that the engineer was not notified of the work in which case repaircare is lying or the that he was in which case the engineer is lying, which worries me.

Repaircare refused to compensate for the day off my husband has had to take for a no show and said that the full refund will take up to 5 days.

After looking at all these reviews I am now so glad I did not pursue the job and cancelled it altogether, as these people wash their hands off completely and cannot guarantee 100% that an engineer would visit on the next rescheduled visit.

I have now booked a local engineer who will only charge me £120 so even cheaper, he will make on the day I can make it and will make an a.m. appointment so I will only need half a day off work. Also he will call me to let me in the morning at what time he will be with me. Now that is service and customer care.