Repaircare

Poor service and inept engineer

I would like to share my recent experience in dealing with an inept RepairCare ‘qualified ‘ engineer, and RepairCare customer services in particular. I have a SMEG A2 cooker and for some reason the electrical part of it, i.e. the oven, clock, ignition, etc, stopped working.
I contacted RepairCare and during the first visit by the engineer, I was told that the clock is broken and the cooker needs a new clock unit, which he will order. He returned a week later and fitted the new clock. Low and behold, the cooker is still not working even with the new clock.
His second diagnosis was that there is a fault with the wiring loom and will therefore need to order a new wiring loom unit. A week later, I received a call from RepairCare informing me that my cooker is ‘un-repairable and dangerous to use’. I was told that the wiring in the cooker is ‘burnt out’. There were certainly no signs of ‘burning out’ when the back of the cooker was opened up for the very first time by the ‘qualified’ engineer since I had it from new.
I was puzzled, and being an electrical engineer myself, decides to have a look before calling out SMEG. As all engineers will agree, if an electrical appliance is not working, the first thing to check for is if there is a live feed to the appliance. I pulled the cooker out, had a look at the cable connection to the mains and straight away noticed the cable that came with the cooker was damaged. The neutral and earth cables were chewed through by some pesky rodents!!! No wonder the ‘qualified ‘ engineer could not find the fault; there is a live feed to the cooker [that will show on his multi-meter] but no neutral return from the cooker. Such fundamental error in concentrating on only the cooker and not checking on the cable supplied with the cooker. I had the cable repaired and the cooker now works like new. To think that my cooker was declared ‘un-repairable and dangerous’!!!!!!
I went back to RepairCare first to complain on the repair undertaken and also to as for my money back. They agree to refund all but £45 for callout. My point to them was that if the engineer did his job properly, I would have spared all the hassle of having multiple visits and at the end of day, the engineer mis-diagnosed the fault and still had not repaired my cooker. To date, RepairCare still maintain that my cooker is ‘un-repairable and dangerous’. I requested for the same engineer to re-inspect the cooker but they declined, they just feel fit to keep the call out charge. I have no qualms about paying the call out charge if indeed my cooker is un-repairable, but am now asking back for the call out charge out of principle. Corresponding with RepairCare over email can be quite frustrating, the numerous emails were all met with the polite reply ‘ our qualified engineer has inspected the cooker and find it un-repairable and dangerous ‘.

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