I have over the last few years bought a number of items from Currys and Dixons and taken out their Mastercare Coverplans. These service agreements refer in several places to expert helplines and fixing simple problems over the phone, eg
1. "When things go wrong, simply phone one of our customer helplines where you can get immediate advice and help to repair many products".
2. "We provide a range of expert helplines where good advice is only a phone call away."
3. "If we are unable to fix the problem over the phone..." (this refers to a number of brown goods).
In the past I have successfully used these, saving an engineer from coming out and therefore having to take time off work.
However, despite still being referred to on the new service agreements, these phone services are no longer available (except for PCs). If you phone Mastercare they say there is no technical or repair advice available by phone. In their words following my letter of complaint - "Mastercare deal with the booking of engineers and offer a repair service only. The Mastercare line is not an advice line".
So, yes they will send out an engineer (eventually) but you cannot get advice on the phone to correct minor faults or problems. I had a minor problem with my VCR. Mastercare told me they could give no advice over the phone and had to send an engineer.
He did not arrive on the day arranged so I had to arrange another day, necessitating taking 2 days off work, one of which I could not be paid for. On arrival it took him five seconds to rectify the problem by pressing several buttons on the remote control. This was not a tuning problem, it was a fault within the VCR, but I could easily have been told how to do this over the phone.
I have had a long and frustrating e-mail correspondence with Coverplan as well as expensive phone calls but they refuse to accept that their service agreements say there is a phone line for repair or technical advice.
Barbara
Abingdon, Other
United Kingdom
0 comments