If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It. If It Is, DO!

My wife and I have a service plan with a local plumbing and gas engineering company. Our experiences with them have been a bit variable, but this is the one that is probably going to make us cancel our subscription once everything has been sorted out.

Our living room has a gas fire which was designed to mimic a log fireplace with fireproof replica “logs”. When the engineer was servicing the fireplace, he somehow managed to break one of them. To his credit, he apologised to my wife and admitted it was his fault. However, his bosses took a different view when my wife phoned them to arrange the repair and replacement.

This is a summary of various interactions over the last six months.

Wife: “Hello. One of your engineers broke one of our fireplace logs, so we’re calling to arrange its repair.”

Receptionist: “Okay, we’ll price the log and then give you a price for the purchase and installation.”

Wife: “Oh, no, sorry, I think you’ve misunderstood. We aren’t paying for this; your engineer broke the fireplace. I am just phoning to schedule the repair.”

Receptionist: “Hmmm, this seems very unusual. I’ll need to speak to the engineer and come back to you.”

They ended the call, and a few days later they phoned my wife back.

Receptionist: “Hi, [Wife]. I’ve spoken to the engineer and my managers. They have confirmed that the damage was caused by the engineer, and whilst we would not normally be liable, we would have repaired it as a gesture of goodwill. Unfortunately, though, the part you need is no longer in production and we can’t source it ourselves. If you can find it yourself at a reasonable price, we will refund the balance and agree to install it.”

My wife immediately went online and discovered that A) the part was very much still in production and B) was in stock at a number of local retailers. She phoned them back.

Wife: “Hello. I spoke to someone earlier about the repair of my fireplace and was told that the part you need isn’t in production and can’t be bought directly. I have just confirmed that is not true; it is in production and can be bought directly from either the manufacturer or local stockists.”

Receptionist: “Hmmm, we must have made a mistake. Let me look into it.”

A few days later, my wife got a call and a very grudging admission that they actually could buy the part. It took several weeks to do so and schedule an engineer to come out and complete the installation.

The appointment was yesterday, and the work was completed without incident until the engineer was wrapping up.

Engineer: “Hello, Mrs. [Wife], that’s me done. However, I just got a message from the office that they have asked me to pass on. [Receptionist] has asked me to tell you that we will not pay for any more repairs.”

Wife: “Excuse me? The work that you have just completed was only needed because your colleague broke it in the first place! I don’t expect you to pay for general wear and tear or things we’ve damaged, but when you break something, I think it’s pretty reasonable to expect that you pay for it.”

The engineer sheepishly reiterated that he was just passing the message on. As it stands, we are debating the merits of cancelling our service contract with them. I absolutely would if there were a lot of options available to me, but unfortunately, there aren’t many where we live.