Our Money team helps a reader every week with their consumer issue or financial dispute…
Today, the problem comes from a reader called Gail…
I had a plumbing emergency. I called Emergency Hero and made an appointment. A few minutes later, I then cancelled it because a neighbour offered to help. They still charged me £270 for no service. They said I should have been told that, but I wasn’t. Can you help?
Our Money live reporter Jess Sharp tackled this one…
Thanks for getting in touch, Gail. We spoke a little more about your circumstances after you emailed, and you explained that you had called, booked, cancelled and sent a follow-up email to Emergency Hero within around 30 minutes.
You said you had made the booking over the phone, and nobody mentioned it being non-refundable or set out the terms and conditions to you at the time.
Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, we would expect you to be made aware of the booking being non-refundable, as it would be considered a key term in your agreement with Emergency Hero.
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I had a look at the company’s terms and conditions on its website, and it does say that the fee you pay is non-refundable if a contractor has successfully been instructed.
If a contractor had not been instructed, it says the refundable amount is 50% of the initial call-out fee to cover any time spent in trying to find a plumber to do the work.
It also states: “By making payment over the phone for our services, you explicitly agree to the terms above and accept that any refunds made outside of the above terms are done so purely at the discretion of Emergency Hero management.”
Considering the short timeframe between booking and cancelling, I first wondered if Emergency Hero had managed to hire a plumber.
I contacted the company to ask, and its chief executive, Aaron Mcwilliam, told me that one had been instructed and had started travelling to the site. The plumber automatically received £180 of the £270 you paid for taking on the job.
The other £90 went to Emergency Hero.
He said: “It’s important to note, that in accepting Gail’s request, the engineer turned down other emergency work offers from us and other companies.
“This is the reason we do not offer refunds of the fees in the event of a contractor accepting the job, regardless of timeframes between acceptance and cancellation.”
He said a copy of the terms and conditions gets automatically sent by the system via email to the customer at the time of the booking.
“Emergency Hero is not a big scary faceless corporate – we’re actually just a small team of 10 staff members who work hard to facilitate emergency appointments across the whole UK in the plumbing, heating and electrical trades,” he added.
But he also said it was “understandable” that Gail felt hard done by, considering the “very reasonable” timeframe she cancelled in.
“I do feel it’s reasonable on this occasion that we can refund the full 100% of the £90 call-out fee we received in the process, as a gesture of goodwill,” he said.
Was it a ‘distressed purchase’?
We spoke to consumer rights expert Scott Dixon, also known as The Complaints Resolver, to get his thoughts and he said Gail’s call-out could be seen as a “distressed purchase”.
Considering she was acting in an emergency, he would argue that means the company should have explicitly set out the terms and conditions over the phone and not just over email.
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Key terms of the agreement need to be prominent, bold, fair and transparent. If they are buried in the small print or sent after payment, they are unlikely to meet the requirements for clear pre-contract information.
“If that was not clearly explained verbally at the time of booking, I would argue the consumer has grounds to dispute the full charge,” Dixon said.
Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, shoppers are entitled to a refund if they were misled about a product or service. Misleading selling can include keeping important information about the product or service hidden or obscured.
The act also has a fairness test and prohibits misleading and aggressive practices, actions and omissions.
“I take the view that this was a ‘distressed purchase’ and Gail was under duress to agree immediately under the time-pressured circumstances. Consumers cannot reasonably be expected to trawl through T&Cs when they urgently need an emergency plumber,” Dixon said.
“Although the firm has presented their case, the law ultimately leans towards transparency and fairness. Consumers must be clearly told about any non-refundable fees before they agree.”
What should you do if this happens to you?
Typically, if you’ve booked a service, you get a 14-day cooling-off period under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, which means you can cancel for any reason and get your money back.
But this is not the case if you have asked for the services to be provided within the cooling-off period.
In this case, the business will keep any money needed to cover the costs of services provided up until you cancelled.
But as Dixon points out, in this scenario the key question isn’t whether the plumber lost work. It’s whether the consumer gave informed consent to a non-refundable payment.
He said: “If this happened to me, I would formally dispute the charge in writing and ask the firm to evidence precisely what costs were incurred and when the contractor was instructed.
“I would also submit a Data Subject Access Request to retrieve call records, emails, texts and communications as part of the paper trail before any call records are deleted.
“I’d cross-reference my complaint and case to the relevant consumer laws.”
If they refused, Dixon said he would make a chargeback with the bank or credit card provider citing that the service was not provided, key terms were not disclosed at the time and he was not given the opportunity to make an informed decision under duress.
“If my chargeback was refused, I would escalate it to the Financial Ombudsman Service for review,” he said.
“I would then take a two-pronged approach and prepare draft court papers and send screenshots by email and put them on seven days’ notice that if they refused to refund me, I will proceed with legal action without further notice.
“I wouldn’t let them off the hook. If they are confident they can rely on what they say, they can prove it either on a chargeback or in the small claims court.”
You might also be able to try an alternative dispute resolution.
An alternative dispute resolution can help resolve consumer issues without court action being taken through means such as mediation and arbitration, but not all companies are part of an ADR scheme.
You should first check that they are part of an ADR scheme, which you should be able to do on their website or in their terms and conditions.
Citizens Advice says if you can’t see anything about ADR, look for phrases like “what to do if you’re still unhappy” or “escalating your complaint”.
If it says your complaint will be passed on to another organisation, it’s likely to be an ADR scheme.
You can then send your complaint to the scheme, and it has to deal with your case within 90 days.
If they are not part of a scheme, you can ask if they would be willing to use one.
