CoverHeat, a gas boiler insurance broker, has ceased trading and departed its south coast base leaving a trail of unpaid claims and numerous unhappy customers.
The company, which Guardian Money first warned against using in January, is already being investigated by trading- standards officers. It emerged recently that your operators of the business park where it was based have confirmed it left the premises in “January or February”.
Worryingly, it was still accepting new payments via intermediary firm, Netbanx. And website was installed and operating soon, while there is nobody answering the cell phone or accepting- mail.
Its apparent collapse leaves countless customers holding worthless policies, and facing being forced to claim their cost back from other plastic card provider. A few who paid by debit card could have lost their cash.
CoverHeat was positiioned in 2006 to offer you web site British Gas’s homecare boiler insurance. Its policies cost 150 1 year and aimed to repay emergency repairs and call-outs with a qualified plumber should the boiler, or some other area of the central heating system- stopped working. The purchase price included an annual- —service, called the cheapest out there. A large number of individuals are regarded as have bought policies online.
However, this company appears to have come upon difficulties in 2009. Customers initially complained of its shambolic administration. It later became- more and more difficult to acquire a plumber to check out as promised. Guardian Money received scores of emails from unhappy customers C many were left for a few weeks across the coldest portion of the winter without heat or very hot water.
We were contacted now with a reader who said his letters of complaint, sent by recorded delivery, were returned by Royal Mail as undelivered.
A terse-sounding woman at its business park base in Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, revealed recently that it is staff had left weeks earlier. She said she’d little idea where they had been. No forwarding address were being left. One customer, who had been dissatisfied, was 48-year-old Londoner, Hor Chan. His boiler started leaking before Christmas, and that he was having to get into gear every three hours through the night to empty containers catching water.
Despite repeated messages or calls, the organization left him with his fantastic fiancee without heating within their Twickenham flat over Christmas and Year after informing him the part its engineer had allegedly damaged while in the service “wasn’t taught in policy”. He was required to get another plumber to improve the issue along filed a claim when using the small claims court to receive his a refund C claims that now looks unlikely to become paid.
Jill McIntosh, from Edinburgh, also contacted Guardian Money. “I’m one of the numerous that happen to be beyond belief at how utterly useless this company is. I, too, experienced a perfectly good working boiler that mysteriously started to leak within times of CoverHeat sending an engineer to ‘service’ it. I’ve since spent A year of total aggravation looking for ways to them to fix it. Certainly, I still have a bucket under my boiler collecting the dripping water.
“They already have the audacity ought to me to be charged another 150, as my policy has just expired, despite them knowing that the new seal have been required- for months.”
A spokesman for Netbanx, which provided card payments services for your firm, says: “Our relationship with CoverHeat was under review. Due to this fact, we have been is not really processes- payments.”
This shows that the putting together and processing of direct debit mandates and cards payments is definately not undertaken through the Netbanx payment gateway.
CoverHeat’s md, Clive Solly, is also a director of a firm called Mechanika Engineering Recruitment. Mechanika’s mobile phone number was unobtainable soon. Our attempts to contact Solly, or any staff affiliated with CoverHeat, have met without having response.-
What to try and do now
If you obtained a CoverHeat policy and have an outstanding claim, speak to your credit-based card provider. The sale goods act is the card provider jointly subject to the service C although customers might have to wait for an firm to become officially have been prior to them getting their refund. In case you paid by Visa debit card it’s also possible to ensure you get your money-back.
Those who paid by other atm cards have in all probability lost their. When acquiring anything this way over the internet, it’s critical to continually pay by credit, as opposed to debit, card in the eventuality of only this eventuality.
m.brignall@theguardian.com