Home owner of ex council house (her home for all her married life and beyond it). No immediate relatives. A deaf brother in law who is in a care home. Offerred for her to stay with me but she is worried about her home not being secure. Have offerred to lend her the money indefinately to get a local company in but she won't accept it. She is very independent and declines assistance if she can manage any way on her own. She has only agreed for me to chase with Corgi as they confused her when she initially called to report the fault asking her to undertake equipment checks and she was without heating for 24 hours before I found out she had tried to report it to Corgi and had been unsuccessful. This wish to be independent and to see assistance as "not coping" is quite common for older people and at times this can contribute to their vulnerability. Have looked at British gas service cover and its no callout within 14 days of policy as are homeserve. Most definately I will assist her to change her policy once the boiler is fixed. I assume if she pulls out, her contract with Corgi is null and void and they no longer have a responsibility to repair her boiler? She also tells me she feels "like a foolish old woman" as she swapped her policy to Corgi thinking they would be better than her previous policy with southern electric as they were in her own words "the gas people". This is why I don't want to leave it as a bad experience. I want Corgi to take responsibility for what I feel is inadequate service provision. Maybe I am wrong and this is standard provision of service. My only experience of these kinds of cover are BG who have always given an appointment to me when I have called, if no heating they have always visited the same day and if unable to repair it there and then it has been within 1 or 2 days. They have also asked me my circumstances and when I had a small baby prioritised me and on a snowy dark Friday evening attended within an hour of me reporting the fault. Longer lead time when it was loss of hot water last July which was not an issue for me as it was in our few days of summer. If Corgi were able to say to me initially when I called due to number of faults we will call Sunday, or even attempted to keep Mrs W informed daily of what was happening with her fault i expect I would feel marginally happier they were taking their responsibilities seriously. To pass the buck on Friday evening and saying its the engineers responsibility now is not what I call fair as Mrs W's contract is with Corgi not the local sub contracted engineer. If her contract was directly with the local engineer I am pretty sure he would have kept in contact or even have fixed the boiler by now as Mrs W would be the one paying him. It appears to me Corgi are advertising a service without the network to provide or manage it. No local on the ground Corgi employed or retained engineers or supervisors. the engineers they are using appear to be self employed local small businesses. I know the name of the engineer, his business' name and profile who had the fault on Friday. I am unwilling to put it here as he is GSR registered, has no negative feedback on research and to be fair right now will be his busiest time and he probably agreed to provide services to Corgi in order to get steady work during slow periods not thinking a company promoting national coverage would not have a contingency plan for peak periods. Tomorrow if Corgi do not respond appropriately I will be calling the local firm who installed the boiler and instruct them to repair it using my credit card and will take the anger of Mrs W as she can't continue like this. Unfortunately the local firm are only available m-f 9-5. I have looked at Vaillant website and need to call them for details of their cover, this I will do and if they will attend on cover policy straight away and have 24/7 cover I will recommend Mrs W goes with them. Thanks for the info re: boiler companies having their own plans, didn't know this. My own boiler is ancient and I need to change it soon. Mrs W's situation has opened my eyes to these services. Thank you for giving the time to provide some advice. My youngest son's school is shut tomorrow and I am at work so my ploy is to ask Mrs W to babysit instead of his older siblings so she can enjoy the heat and rumblings of my ancient boiler.

Realise engineers prior to GSR were CORGI registered and so corgi h/c are using registered engineers who meet the corgi standard so yes in that way it is "corgi" homecare but I feel as a consumer this would mislead me. All nurses trained in the UK are trained by the NHS (as placements take place in NHS organisations except one "elective" placement). But that does not mean I could open a private nursing home, use nurses trained in the UK and call it an NHS home service. Maybe I am niaive but I can not see the difference between the 2 examples ...

Hi to all elderly widow age 75 has valliant boiler installed approx 3 years ago. showed fault f75 no heating, on corgi homecare plan for 14 months not yet had service. called corgi who advise increase pressure. boiler then started leaking, no hot water no heating. now no water ascustomer terrified leak will cause damage to electrics so has got someone to turn water supply off. Fault reported 72 hours ago. Dealings with Corgi HC so far: DAY 1 Initial fault reported: advised engineer will call within 24 hours to say when he will visit. 2 hour later still no contact - called corgi to try to escalate - unhelpful - talk to supervisor who "stresses" plan says within 24 hours. States job is with engineer. After much debating agrees to chase eng to check when eng will come. States eng will be on site within 1hr 45mins. 20 mins later eng phones advises he is 15 miles away and will aim to get there this pm. explain fault code - eng admits he suspects fault needs a part he will need to order but will visit this pm to try to assess fault. 2 hours later no eng. call engineer direct who advises he is now 25 miles away and stuck. unable to say if he will attend. call corgi who again continue with "24 hours" adding impassable roads and weather and lots of elderly without heating. Supervisors not available. Find out within fault "area" 140 jobs and only 7 engineers. 2 hours later no visit contact corgi to be told job with engineer, now his responsibility and he will call before visit. Ask when? Answer is uncontrollable weather, bad roads, stressed engineers as there are too many faults. Engineer no longer answering calls on his mobile. DAY 2 No engineer, no contact from Corgi. Call at 6pm to be advised it will be escalated to "operations"and eng may still call as they are working until 23.00. Am surprised as is still snowing heavily and temperatures below zero. Phone advisor appears not to have details of fault and requests events so far to be re-explained.Call ended with CSA advising he will send note through to operations and mark as urgent as now >24 hours and vulnerable customer. DAY 3 No engineer, no contact from Corgi. Call at 7pm to be advised by advisor we are out of hours service and we dont have details of customers or faults as we are contracted to answer phone queries for Corgi outside their working hours. Ask to be put through to 24/7 helpline. That is us is the reply. Request supervisor thinking they must have access to check progress. Supervisor confirms he is part of a company called "Office Response" who are answering the helpline on behalf of Corgi HC. Both of these people were very polite and empathic, prompt and wanted to listen BUT do not have access to Corgi info so cant give me any update. Cant chase engineer, cant tell me anything at all. Supervisor apologises and says he will put urgent request through to operations for me to be contacted tonight on behalf of customer. Now >72 hours since fault reported. Pensioner living in one room with borrowed fan heater. Stoically mellting snow to use to flush toilet and going out for walks to keep warm. As fourth night of freezing temparatures is starting to feel the cold. As a consumer - what would be a reasonable period of time for Corgi to deal with this fault before they would be in breach of contract under provision of services? realise this reasonable time will be extended due to current weather being uncontrollable? How would customer go about charging corgi for breach of contract/compensation? Who can we complain to as we feel they are advertising a service that they know they do not have a hope in hell delivering during cold snaps as they sub-contract engineers who do not exclusively work for them. And hey busiest time for gas engineers has to be during cold times. Is there an organisation like off-com who can investigate? Or any consumer rights organisations/advocates? Many thanks Nurse whose elderly neighbour has no heating and has paid over £250 pounds to Corgi to insure against loss of heating. Have also researched company and am aware they are green installer, have a complaint against them upheld by ASA and a statement from Which advising Which feel Corgi have misled customers by saying Corgi are endorsed by Which. Am also aware above customer my neighbour went with them because of the corgi name as did lots of other consumers - take a look at the testimonials on their website - surely that is not good business practice to trade on a reputation that is not yours.... Many thanks for anyone who can help,