WHO ARE THEY?
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I know of Mastercare's range of purchase insurance products through purchases I have made in PC World and Currys. I currently have "policies" on my PC, washing machine, dishwasher and replacement tumbledryer. Effectively Mastercare cover you for any ... Read review
Advantages: Permanent replacement product if not repaired in 6 weeks Disadvantages: The above can happpen too frequently; rude subcontractors
...and replacement tumbledryer. Effectively Mastercare cover you for any repairs that need to be performed on your appliance including normal parts and call out fees. Simple stuff like fuses and plugs aren't covered but they're hardly bank-breaking and you should check that it's not either of these two causing you problems before you call out Mastercare. Their cover ranges 1 to 5 years and in my experience the 5 year £79.95 option is best.
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Then I re-read our Mastercare agreement. "If we can't fix your appliance within 6 six weeks of your first call, we will replace it with an identical model" said one of their "promises". So we put the call in, got fobbed off twice, but ten days later a voucher for £189.95 arrived in the post. It was redeemable only at Currys and was for the exact amount of a White Knight tumble dryer. This model appeared to do everything our ... more
WHO ARE THEY? ------------------------- I know of Mastercare's range of purchase insurance products through purchases I have made in PC World and Currys. I currently have "policies" on my PC, washing machine, dishwasher and replacement tumbledryer. Effectively Mastercare cover you for any repairs that need to be performed on your appliance including normal parts and call out fees. Simple stuff like fuses and plugs aren't covered but they're hardly bank-breaking and you should check that it's not either of these two causing you problems before you call out Mastercare. Their cover ranges 1 to 5 years and in my experience the 5 year £79.95 option is best.
MY STORY SIMPLIFIED ------------------------------- A lot of reviewers on Ciao seem to have had a torrid time with Mastercare. I am no exception. I won't bore you with the dates and grisly details, but to cut a long story short after seven weeks, 11 calls, three visits from two different engineers (one of whom offered to post the part through the door with instructions on how to fit it on a post it note!), we were still no nearer to having our tumble dryer fixed. With two kids and two adults in our house, we do a lot of tumble drying. For seven weeks we used clothes horses and sporadic good weather/washing line to get our things dry.
THE SMALL PRINT -------------------------- Then I re-read our Mastercare agreement. "If we can't fix your appliance within 6 six weeks of your first call, we will replace it with an identical model" said one of their "promises". So we put the call in, got fobbed off twice, but ten days later a voucher for £189.95 arrived in the post. It was redeemable only at Currys and was for the exact amount of a White Knight tumble dryer. This model appeared to do everything our old clapped out model did and.......it looked a lot cleaner! So we handed our voucher over. We were told to collect the dryer from our local Mastercare depot and that was that.
THE DEPOT ----------------- Our local depot is on the bank of the Thames on the edge of an industrial estate in Belvedere, Kent. I was sceptical, but I needn't have been. I was greeted with a friendly smile, told the receptionist who I was and she showed me a fax she had just received from Curry's authorising both my arrival and my procurement of the tumble dryer. Then two young lads came down with the machine. Whilst I was signing some paperwork at the reception, I asked them if they could unlock the black Escort outside. No problem! By the time I had got to my car, the dryer was in the back, no scratches, no trouble, they had respectfully moved a couple of my kids' umbrellas and were holding them ready to give to me. I could have tipped them, they were so polite!
THE CALL-CENTRE AND ENGINEERS ----------------------------------------------------- Currys are not the problem. Mastercare's depot and workers are not the problem. It appears to be the lack of communication between the call centre and their sub-contracting engineers. Whilst at first this was frustrating, I now know what to do.
HOW TO BEAT MASTERCARE ----------------------------------------- OK "beat" is a bit confrontational, but I hope you get my drift. When our washing machine broke down, my wife was on the phone three times a week trying to avert a similar disaster to the tumble dryer. The same problems occurred: rude subcontractors, no sign of our initial call on their system, the engineer turning up late/with wrong part/not at all (delete as applicable). Unfortunately, the washing machine was fixed within 5 weeks (thus disqualifying us from claiming a brand new, similar product). It's the lack of communication that I'm relying on in future. Here's what I plan to do: NOTHING. If you can live without a microwave, or (especially in the summer) your tumble dryer for six weeks, do nothing. Log the problem with the call centre. If the engineer doesn't turn up when specified, don't panic. Give it a couple of days and call them again. But take your time, drag it out. Before you know it, it's six weeks and you'll be used to hanging your washing out; or using your office PC to send and receive emails (and use Ciao). Then as soon as the six weeks are up and there is no sign of your product being fixed, call them, quote the promise and wait for your voucher. OK this might sound cynical but with the trouble I've had with the dryer and the washing machine, I can't accept that this has only happened to me. In fact, reading the other reviews has convinced me of that!
DON'T BE PUT OFF BY MASTERCARE ----------------------------------------------------- When we went to get our replacement tumble dryer from Currys, the saleman tried to sell us another Mastercare policy (the old one automatically expires upon replacement). What did we do? We ummed and ahhed and told him that we were in Currys getting a replacement because of Mastercare! His response? To knock the price for a five year cover from £79.95 down to £50! £10 per year with the possibility of a replacement item if Mastercare (almost guaranteed) don't get their act together? As David Dickinson would say: it's a Bobby Dazzler!
...modem wasnt working! I phoned Mastercare and the got it working over the phone. I then had a good view of mastercare and thought my money was well spent....BOY I WAS WRONG!!!!
THE 2ND PROBLEM
This was a bit more serious! About 4 1/2 years later my computer smelled of TCP and was smoking (I keep telling it to give up!!!)! I called Mastercare and they said that the fan had probably gone and they would order me a new one. I thought thats was the right ... ...if you dont believe me read more ops, we all feel the same! Pc world have now STOPPED using Mastercare and have swithced to PC Performance, though we are not positive that this is a new company! It may be Mastercare just under a different name!
BEWARE! ...
Roberts 30.08.2001 (24.10.2001)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Mastercare
Advantages: 24 Hour Support Lines, Email Support, Theft Cover Disadvantages: Customer Service, Speed of Repairs,
...a fault on PC to Mastercare (part of the Dixons Group) for a fault on my PC which I had purchased 2 years earlier from PC World in West Thurrock. The fault was in fact the whole PC itself had no power supply. We had tried the obvious to get power to it from switching cable to changing fuses but still nothing!
It was at this point I remembered taking out a 5 year Coverplan with Mastercare, which in effect should cover my PC for 5 years for any faults ... ...I would recommend Coverplan and Mastercare to people but if you are going to take out this cover make sure you read the small print and the conditions under which they have to repair your product as without me discovering the so called 6 week rule it could have been 4 or 5 months without a PC. The Coverplan also covers you against theft of the product so that too can be a huge advantage should the worst happen. Let’s just hope I had a one off unfortunate ...
Andy0304 13.09.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Mastercare
Advantages: None that I can think of! Disadvantages: Expensive, Botched up jobs, little knowledge of computer systems, avoid jobs as far as possible
...the helpful *cough* people at mastercare at least 3 times, but once again it had been completely reformatted. This time I lost everything because I didnt have a power supply to feed my dead-as-a-dodo battery so I couldn't reformat it. 10 GB of home recorded flute music and family photos and vids down the drain! I was not amused. The next time I sent it off, I needed a new heatsink fan as the one I had kept cutting out all of the time. This job took ... ...reformatted the hard drive, the computer has never been slower. It now takes 10 minutes at the fastest to switch on and load up, and Instead of the already useless 128 Mb memory module showing up, the computer claimed to be running on 64Mb! I managed to sort this problem, but I have had to install windows 2000 now as the thing can't run XP whatsoever.
The most recent annoyance with this thing is that I sent the laptop off on Monday October 17th ...
la_chique 01.11.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Mastercare
Advantages: None. Maybe saving $50 callouts? Disadvantages: Terrible service and not worth the money
...widescreen TV. My wife contacted Mastercare on the 24 hour hotline only to have someone at the other end of the phone to say that the "24 hour home service" would take two or three days.
Accepting this was no option as we had paid for the service and needed the TV repaired. The TV was duely inspected by an engineer three days later. (Not bad you think!)
It was pronounced faulty and nothing that the engineer could fix on site. The engineer could ... ...TV was collected by more Mastercare staff.
One week later my wife and I decided to chase up the TV whereabouts. It had been repaired and would be returned the next day. It was returned but returned with a different fault. The TV had to sit faulty for another two days while we again waited for the TV to be inspected and another day for it to be collected. My wife demanded and received a loaner TV (not widescreen and not tuned in) two days later. ...
colinrj 03.01.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Mastercare
Advantages: Far too few. Disadvantages: Far too many.
It’s been three months since I’ve had full and permanent use of a laptop. It was taken from me back in July and as November knocks on the door under the pretence of trick-or-treaters, I find myself thinking a bit deeper about the situation. Last time I was able to actually sit down and write something properly was when it was about 30°C. I’m writing this at 18.49 and it’s pitch black out there. Back when I had the old laptop, the sun would be shining ... ...headache for about three weeks now and I went to the doctor’s last week. I had a locum because my proper doctor was on leave. She checked my blood pressure, signed me off work and gave me painkillers and told me, “go home and get some rest. You look awfully pale.”
Thanks. I went home and had a very relaxing week. Come Tuesday, there was a letter for me from Matercare. It contained two vouchers. One was to the tune of £999.99 and was for the use ...
relentless_behaviour 03.11.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Mastercare
Competitiveness of APR
Comprehensiveness of ra...
Product package
Efficiency of service
Value for money
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Advantages: Cover for repair work Disadvantages: Repair work takes too long, ignore agreement terms, poor cust. service
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