PM247 

Modest call out charge turned into c £600 to fix a minor issue with cistern. Less than an hour, 10 mins of which plumber was on phone to HQ. I agreed to pay (he said he could be sacked!) but system failed in 5 days and new quote was for about £500 more. I'm seeking refund and complaining to trading standards org.

Avoid at all costs

The invoice totals £534 (£445 + VAT) for what was essentially a 10-minute job. This charge is grossly disproportionate to the time, complexity, and resources involved, and I believe it represents an unfair and unreasonable cost.

The circumstances make the situation even more unreasonable: I was in the final stages of vacating my property following its sale and had no choice but to act urgently. I was never clearly informed of the breakdown of costs or given a reasonable alternative before the work commenced, leaving me in a vulnerable position.

I'd advise NOT using this company if its an emergency, they left us waiting, with no usable toilets & despite promising the engineer would give us a call to confirm a time, 4 hours later & still no contact!

Absolute scammers and totally unsafe ripped off for a repair they did not even do. Charge upfront to come out then quote a huge price and dont even complete the job correctly avoid at all cost.

Please do NOT go near this company!

My mums living room ceiling fell down while she was in hospital, due to a leaking boiler upstairs. I called PM247 in an emergency and I have lost over £1,000 on a boiler that was never fixed. Despite them coming back several times, the leak persisted in the living room. The heating turned on automatically if you turned on the hot water (in the recent 30 degree heatwave), and the overflow pipe was leaking water all down the side of the house. No pipes were replaced in the living room.

I have since discovered from reputable plumbers that the invoice and parts they charged me for were under £50, and they had essentially cleaned a boiler for over 1k.

This company target vulnerable people, in vulnerable situations. Do not pay plumbers in advance until the job is done and fixed. Please do not let this be you in future and stay well clear of PM247.

I was quoted £120 for a call out to replace an isolation valve. After the plumber arrived and assessed the job the company called to ask for £450 plus VAT! I could not believe this. I said I would rather do the work myself and got the part for under £5. I still had to pay £144 for the call out but I'm still glad I refused to accept the excessive potential charge,

I had drilled through a water pipe in the wall in our newly fitted kitchen.I looked for emergency plumbers in my area and Pm 247 came up.They arrived within the hour and looked at the job then their office rang me and gave me a price of £894 to complete without returning wal to previous condition.I just wanted it done so said ok.Then the fitter told me i had to pay the total amount before thge work started so i went to pay through my bank but thet blocked it and froze my online account. After a long call with the bank they said they wanted to carry out more checks but then hung up on me.Then the office from pm247 rang again asking what was the problem and in the end the job did not happen!! The fitter in his van was parked outside until i had made the call out payment.(Intimidation!!??)Another call from their office asking about the call out payment and i told them it had just gone through after more checks from my bank. Altogether a not very nice experience and still a flooded kitchen with no water!!

This is the worst business I have ever dealt with, and I am in my 80's. They charged well over £700 to replace about 12 inches of outdoor plastic piping that they said was blocked and stopping water draining from our boiler. I saw no such blockage and the problem persists. They claimed to be subcontractors for Dyno Rod, which I am currently checking out, as I doubt that claim. Work took about an hour and there were hardly any materials involved. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

Tried to charge £695 to unblock a drain. Another company did it for £120. They charge you in advance and then try for more. Guy was rude also. They also tried to renegotiate price , once for cash and then the company phoning me. Avoid like the plague, in my view they are rogue traders as the price is not justified at all.

Please avoid
Full of excuses and lies
They prey on vulnerable old people and bully them into paying extremely high prices for unblocking pipe. No customer service
Avoid them at all costs

Absolutely terrible experience. I was quoted £120 (including VAT) with a total of £144 upfront to attend the property and carry out the work on my blocked kitchen sink. I paid this in advance, expecting the issue to be resolved.

When the engineer arrived, he took one quick look at the sink and said he needed to go to the van to get equipment. Next thing I know, I’m getting a call from their office saying this “wasn’t standard work” and that it would now cost £630 to use a snake and some machinery to clear the blockage. No work had even started yet! It felt like a classic bait-and-switch tactic.

The whole thing felt like a scam, and I honestly regret using this company. It’s completely unacceptable to be hit with such a huge extra charge after already paying in advance. I ended up wasting time, money, and patience. I would strongly advise others to steer clear — there are plenty of other companies out there who are far more honest, professional, and charge fair prices.

We were quoted £144 (£120 + vat) for someone to unblock a drain. This is clearly shown on the web site and we also received an email to confirm this. Fair enough. However what we got was maybe 15 minutes work - basically someone turning up and lifting 2 manhole covers and making a judgement without any apparent attempt to fix the problem.
After the initial assessment which we can only assume will have been guess work, they quoted £800 (not including vat). We declined that and argued it was an unreasonable amount. They called back and offered a lower price of around £650 (not including vat) which we turned down. They called again and offered another price of around £575 (not including vat). We declined and paid them £144.
A neighbour was aware of what was going on and they offered to try and fix the problem which they did the following day. They came round with a set of rods and unblocked the drain. It’s been working fine ever since (roughly a month ago).
Why couldn’t PM247 do that?

I have no complaints about the plumber who attended—he was polite, thorough, and did a good job. However, I do take issue with the pricing.

While I was made aware of the call-out fee in advance and agreed to it, the total cost quickly escalated to £595 once the plumber arrived. At that point, I felt I had little choice but to go ahead, knowing I’d still be liable for the call-out fee even if I declined the work.

The job itself was completed in under an hour. Before starting, the plumber left to pick up a few parts from Screwfix—just a couple of elbow joints and a short length of pipe. These are fairly standard items and, in my view, should have been stocked in the van. I suspect that trip contributed further to the high cost.

While the workmanship wasn’t in question, the pricing felt excessive for the nature and duration of the job.

The plumbers sent by the company are fine, and when you need an emergency repair you should expect to pay more, albeit their prices are still high.
The finance side of the business however suffers from a hyper-aggressive culture, demanding instant payments, and repetitive harassment of customers who do not immediately comply even when evidence of future payment has been provided. This includes daily calls, texts, messages and voicemails, including at the weekend and to people at home. I would with regret not recommend on that basis. More like a syndicate than a business.

AVOID .... blocked waste sewer pipe , engineer attended, £125 plus vat call out. put a rod in and said the 90 degree branch is blocked and will take further work to clear, quoted nearly £600 , stated all ready have to pay the call out fee, offered cash reduction and pensioner reduction like other peoples feedback , blockage cleared stating used grade 3 fluid warthog and cutter, to clear dissolve cut and sanitise. BUT .... 3 weeks later blocked again, asking for £144 plus vat if not related to original blockage I had another company attend as I do not trust this company and they put a camera down the pipe which is approx 12ft long and has NO 90 degree branch in it, and they cleared the blockage with rods.

Your guy called within the hour ✔️
Your guy visited next day✔️
Your guy determind the issue✔️
Your guy said he would return with spare part in 2 days and there were to be no more charges other than the cost of the part. ➿️
I paid your guy in full ✔️
Never saw him again✖️
Did not respond to calls ✖️
Your guy simply dissappeared ✖️
Left me without washing m/c ✖️
Site is good idea but open to abuse by your users ✖️

Paid £144 for someone to give me a quote 3 times bigger than local plumber and even got Scarlet to start shouting/raise her voice and give me no answers. They did not explain this payment, they explain this on the email that you receive but by then you have to pay £75 cancellation fee already. Avoid at all costs

We called this company as we had sewage coming into the shower. We were quoted £140 for the call out which would include rods and plungers, we were informed that cameras, machinery and chemicals would be more. The engineer arrived within two hours. Tried rods and plungers but couldn’t clear the blockage. The office called after the engineer reported the situation to them. It was now afternoon and we still had sewage backing up into the shower. The office told us that due to cameras being needed, the price was now £954. We were shocked but the thought of getting a different company and starting again was too much of a risk with the situation. The engineer eventually found a collapsed drain outside which couldn’t be fixed there and then. When I emailed the company for a break down of the costs over and above the £140, they told me it was a fixed cost for any of the described equipment. I asked why they couldn’t tell me that when they quoted the call out cost. They responded that they can’t quote until they have the engineer report. The report simply stated that the block was too deep and cameras were needed. There were lots of emails but essentially, cameras, jetting and chemicals are a fixed cost. I feel that the company know what the additional costs will be but withhold the information on the basis that once they are there you are less likely to look somewhere else as you will just want the problem resolved.

Very helpful and friendly. Your employee helped us understand what the problem was and could not have been more helpful sorting it out. We shall definitely be using your services again - if needed.

Update: Less than 24 hours after the visit the toilet blockage recurred. PM247 warned me there would likely be additional charges if they came out so I decided to cut my losses (£1,074), not throw any good money after bad, and call out a local company. They responded quickly and undertook all of the work that was supposed to have been done by PM247 (including a CCTV survey that showed the blockage in the section that had meant to have been cleared) for well under a third of the cost.

Don't fall for all the quick responses from PM247 to critical reviews where they claim to be a company that cares about their customers and customer satisfaction and encourages reviewers to contact them at their info email address so that issues can be resolved. I suspect that most customers, if not all, who do that, like me, get fobbed off with template replies quoting business Ts & Cs and contracts whilst claiming all of the work charged for was undertaken properly.

I now feel completely ripped off by an unscrupulous company who are quick to take advantage of a crisis in customers' lives. I shall be contacting Advertising Standards and Citizens Advice, the latter with the objective of getting this company referred to Trading Standards. In the meantime, I'd urge people to avoid PM247 and find a local engineer.

Original review:

My very strong advice is to avoid this company if you’re panicking and need a quick fix of something like a blocked toilet/downpipe. In my opinion, they will exploit your situation to enable them to charge significantly over what would be a reasonable cost for the work undertaken.

Quotes are supposedly free but if an engineer needs to come out to assess what is needed, you are immediately on the hook for £144 whether or not you accept their quote an agree to proceed. In my case it was dressed up as the engineer attending and attempting to clear with a plunger and one rod when I’d already explained that the blockage couldn’t be cleared that way.

Furthermore, their engineer will be told to sit in their van and wait until you have signed a contract and paid in full, before they will start work. In my own case this happened no less than three times as they amended the work brief and added disclaimers/indemnities.

They claim that they will accept payment by cash or card but then force you to make payment by bank transfer claiming they only accept payments by card for small amounts for their own protection! They’ve now said they will make that clearer in future but I won’t hold my breath waiting for the change to be made on their website.

Costs are in no shape or form transparent. Yes, I was given a summary of the work to be undertaken but none of the elements were individually costed. I was simply given a grand total, which made it almost impossible to cross check for competitiveness with their engineer sat outside and sales reps/advisers from the company ringing to tell me to let them know if I was experiencing any difficulties signing the contract and/or making the payment.

Unfortunately, I had little option but to proceed by the time the engineer arrived and I was quoted a price, as I was already £144 out of pocket and our daughter, son in law & 4 year-old granddaughter less than a day later.

The cost? £1,074 to remove toilet, picote through line to stack pipe to clear, CCTV to check clearance and integrity of the line, reconnect toilet and test. 3hrs 25 mins on site (some of which was spent in the van waiting for contracts to be signed etc. Even allowing for travelling time, with hindsight and no longer in a panic this seems excessive.