Comments

Claim title: Company breaking the terms of it's own contract.

[26/03/2009] :

Claim title: Failure to fix our boiler, we refused to pay bill, then they threatened to burn our house down

[10/02/2009] Operations Manager: First National Associates Ltd has a client base of literally thousands of customers ranging from the average man in the street, to high profile celebrity clients, and members of parliament.
Whilst we endeavour to ensure all of our customers are as happy as can be, it goes without saying that there will always be a small percentage of customers in any area of business who believe for one reason or another that "they in particular" should have been treated differently (especially in the current economic climate). As such there will always be the odd customer who likes to attempt re-negotiating the agreed rates and final invoice after the commissioned work has been completed.

As we are sure any business in the service industry will confirm, some customers will adopt various tactics in their efforts to achieve this. These tactics range from accusations of "failing to quote rates" to; choosing to try slotting
themselves into a minority group for the purposes of making themselves a victim in order to then make accusations of persecution, or taking advantage of them, or of their situation.

To this end we do not only quote our labour rates, in accordance with the time of year, time of day, and type of job, etc over the telephone and have them agreed prior to despatching an engineer; But our engineers also ask our customers agree to our rates in writing on site in order to remove any doubts they may have.

The only exception to this process is if a fixed price quotation is requested, given, and ultimately also accepted in writing prior to works being carried out.

On the rare occasion that a customer has a potentially legitimate grievance we do our best to investigate this grievance fully and try to come to an amicable solution. Most of the time an amicable solution is available, but unfortunately because some people want "something for nothing"; sometimes one is not available.

If it becomes clear that an amicable solution is not available we are happy for our customers to take the right and proper approach by in issuing a claim in the small claims court in an effort to obtain a decision from a higher authority.

We have to say we can’t understand why some people instead prefer the un orthodox approach in all industries of trying to bring pressure to bear through outlets like the gutter press and internet blog sites etc. Surely it is better to
have a decision you can be proud of from an accredited judge.

We can only assume that any customer who does not take this proper approach has obvious reservations regarding the legitimacy of their claims and do not want certain aspects of them exposed.

All businesses have overheads and these overheads are ultimately passed on to its customers in order to make a business viable. We simply advertise our business and try to help as many customers as possible.

We have an abundance of testimonials and receive goodwill gestures from clients meeting all of the aforementioned profiles who have felt the desire to congratulate and thank us for our services.

However, unfortunately there still remains a very true saying:-

"You can please some of the people all of the time, and you can please all of the people some of the time, but you
can’t please all of the people all of the time".

One downfall of dealing with the general public in all types of service industry is that there will always be the odd customer who "prefers" to believe that just because your business has replaced one part on a boiler, or a car, etc,
that you should then be permanently indebted to them for anything else that goes wrong with the same boiler, or car, etc, forever more.

We operate in the same way as any other company; we guarantee the parts we fit in the repair we are effecting at the time of the incident. We cannot subsequently guarantee everything else on the boiler, or appliance, etc; or anything else that happens to go wrong in the customer’s life afterwards.

That said, it goes without saying that any engineer proven not to be following proper and fair protocol within this company would obviously be instantly dismissed.

The company has passed details of these blogs to it solicitors with a view to issuing proceedings for libel if in its deemed in its best interest to do so.

[27/05/2009] Vicky : You poor thing...would be keen to find out more about what happened to you. Give me an email on vickydavis1976@googlemail.com

[06/09/2010] Lis: Oh my goodness, I feel lucky now that my plumber from them never turned up! I have never had a company be so rude to me. I booked a plumber last week to turn up this morning between 8-11am and when nobody showed up, I called the company. The receptionist was obnoxious and abrupt. She told me that as my job wasn't an emergency, I would have to wait. I called back at 12 as still no plumber had arrived. I've got builders here doing work to a tight schedule and they had to stop their work and wait for the plumber. I asked to speak to a manager as it was obvious that the receptionist couldn't have cared less. The manager was unbelievable- he yelled at me why did I think I was so special and how dare I tell him how to run his company! I am not a particularly confrontational or aggressive person. I held the phone away from my ear as he carried on ranting. I calmly said to him that if someone says their service will arrive between 8 and 11, I expect it then. He then told me that he was cancelling my plumber because I could not agree with him. In the end, I agreed this was indeed the best thing. This company is rotten to the core. If the manager is this awful, it is no wonder his plumbers are rubbish too. I feel very bad for everyone who has complained on this website about First National Associates Ltd. I urge anybody reading this to avoid them like the plague.

[12/09/2010] Jack: "First National Associates Ltd has a client base of literally thousands of customers ranging from the average man in the street, to high profile celebrity clients, and members of parliament."

I suppose you would have to be a high profile celebrity or Member of Parliament to afford First National Associates' call out fees. One of my friends was recently charged £130 per hour + materials. That is equivalent to £270,400, yes, over two hundred and seventy thousand pounds a year for a full-time plumber. UNBELIEVABLE!

[13/04/2012] Sumanta Sarkar: They are buch of thugs . Never go for them. Charged me around 400 quids for 5 mins work. Which the uneducated plumber intentionally took 2 hous.

Claim title: ABUSIVE PEOPLE AND BOILER STILL NOT WORKING

[10/02/2009] Operations Manager: First National Associates Ltd has a client base of literally thousands of customers ranging from the average man in the street, to high profile celebrity clients, and members of parliament.
Whilst we endeavour to ensure all of our customers are as happy as can be, it goes without saying that there will always be a small percentage of customers in any area of business who believe for one reason or another that "they in particular" should have been treated differently (especially in the current economic climate). As such there will always be the odd customer who likes to attempt re-negotiating the agreed rates and final invoice after the commissioned work has been completed.

As we are sure any business in the service industry will confirm, some customers will adopt various tactics in their efforts to achieve this. These tactics range from accusations of "failing to quote rates" to; choosing to try slotting
themselves into a minority group for the purposes of making themselves a victim in order to then make accusations of persecution, or taking advantage of them, or of their situation.

To this end we do not only quote our labour rates, in accordance with the time of year, time of day, and type of job, etc over the telephone and have them agreed prior to despatching an engineer; But our engineers also ask our customers agree to our rates in writing on site in order to remove any doubts they may have.

The only exception to this process is if a fixed price quotation is requested, given, and ultimately also accepted in writing prior to works being carried out.

On the rare occasion that a customer has a potentially legitimate grievance we do our best to investigate this grievance fully and try to come to an amicable solution. Most of the time an amicable solution is available, but unfortunately because some people want "something for nothing"; sometimes one is not available.

If it becomes clear that an amicable solution is not available we are happy for our customers to take the right and proper approach by in issuing a claim in the small claims court in an effort to obtain a decision from a higher authority.

We have to say we can’t understand why some people instead prefer the un orthodox approach in all industries of trying to bring pressure to bear through outlets like the gutter press and internet blog sites etc. Surely it is better to
have a decision you can be proud of from an accredited judge.

We can only assume that any customer who does not take this proper approach has obvious reservations regarding the legitimacy of their claims and do not want certain aspects of them exposed.

All businesses have overheads and these overheads are ultimately passed on to its customers in order to make a business viable. We simply advertise our business and try to help as many customers as possible.

We have an abundance of testimonials and receive goodwill gestures from clients meeting all of the aforementioned profiles who have felt the desire to congratulate and thank us for our services.

However, unfortunately there still remains a very true saying:-

"You can please some of the people all of the time, and you can please all of the people some of the time, but you
can’t please all of the people all of the time".

One downfall of dealing with the general public in all types of service industry is that there will always be the odd customer who "prefers" to believe that just because your business has replaced one part on a boiler, or a car, etc,
that you should then be permanently indebted to them for anything else that goes wrong with the same boiler, or car, etc, forever more.

We operate in the same way as any other company; we guarantee the parts we fit in the repair we are effecting at the time of the incident. We cannot subsequently guarantee everything else on the boiler, or appliance, etc; or anything else that happens to go wrong in the customer’s life afterwards.

That said, it goes without saying that any engineer proven not to be following proper and fair protocol within this company would obviously be instantly dismissed.

The company has passed details of these blogs to it solicitors with a view to issuing proceedings for libel if in its deemed in its best interest to do so.

Claim title: fixing a stop cock, fixing a leak to a washing machine and in the drainage

[27/05/2009] Vicky Davis: This company have so many complaints against them can you drop me a line at vickdavis1976@googlemail.com so we can compare stories

Claim title: Late, expensive, ineffective boiler repair

[23/08/2010] Chaffoteaux customer: Update on my Chaffoteaux water heater problem: after visiting this site earlier this morning I spoke to Consumer Direct (www.consumerdirect.gov.uk 0845 4 04 05 06). They advised me that I was within my rights to cancel the contract. The adviser said that when the engineer arrived I should have been given a printed document saying that I had a 7-day cooling-off period, and giving the terms for this period. Since I received no such document the contract was "legally unenforceable" under the terms of the Cancellation of Contracts Made in a Consumer's Home or Place of Work etc. Regulations 2008 (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2008/1816/made). The adviser recommended that I inform the company in writing of my decision to cancel.

Meanwhile, I looked on the net for the original site where I got the company details. The URL was http://chaffoteaux.boilers-repaired.co.uk ; the site had the Chaffoteaux logo and advertised "all models repaired". No mention of First National Associates.

I called the company and they said the engineer would call me at mid-day. I said I wanted to cancel, and they put me on to the manager. After he gave me various excuses as to why the repair had not been done, I said I wanted to cancel. He said I still had to pay for the engineer's time, despite the legislation that I have quoted above. I got back to Consumer Direct and they said the legislation applies to all parts of the contract - including the tradesman's time.

So I think I've escaped from this one - but buyers beware!

Claim title: Boiler repair exploitation

[12/01/2011] Eloise Maher: Hi All,

We have just had a similar situation with First National....where they are filing me for Bankruptcy, held me hostage in my house demanding myself pay £2,546.64 and they did no work for the 4 hours they were at my house except potentially fix a leak.
We are in the process of disputing this and if any of you get this please repsond. I will be writing more on this once our dispute is over. The company are dodgy cowboys and should not be allowed to trade in the business.