“I had a leak at my new property in Edgware Road and two of the Pimlico Plumbers team arrived and spent around 5 hours trying to figure out where it was coming from. In the end they concluded there is no leak from my property which was great, but I was presented with a bill of £1700 I had to pay there. I paid it part in cash and part or card. A week or so later I got several calls from their collections department that I still owed £300 as they had not included any VAT when I settled the works on the day.
In short be mindful what you’re charged for and when you pay as it seems they have poor systems, are possibly not trained on how to use them or are incompetent regarding charges. The job they needed to do was fine however they are expensive and to me seem to have hidden charges which appear even after you have paid what was asked for. Mistakes can happen but I was clearly told if I don’t pay the extra charges my details would be passed over to debt collectors.
That’s Pimlico Plumbers, not owning up to own errors and well its your problem you got to deal with it and pay. Id suggest looking for a cheaper alternative unless you really have to have them out and well will be paying for it.”
“I called them for a very simple job to fix the water leaks from the radiator's valve. The engineer who came around my place spent 10mins checking the radiator's valve and other unnecessary parts at first. Then he told me that he has to go shopping for the parts. And he returned to my place with empty hands and told me he needed to go to another shop. Obviously, he tried to extend as much time as possible to charge me more without doing anything. And he also told me that he needs to charge 25% markup for the shopping he does. Soon after he told me that, I told him to leave immediately and made complaints to the service team. However, the service team told me they still needed to charge me £125 plus VAT even though there was no service. What a rip-off company....... I will never call them again.”
“I was charged £845 pounds for a job that only cost £120 pounds . I had bad experiences in my life but nothing like this one. I complaint and even prove the known costs without avail . I did file a complaint with the appropriate authorities and awaiting to hear”
“An electrician did some work in the house but left some holes. Hé left without filling the holes because he was feeling unwell. I accepted to pay thé full balance based on his promise that he would finish the work with no extra cost when I Book another service as there are différent jobs I booked with Pilmico. Now, I booked for two différent services and can't get these holes repaired with no extra cost. I was too stupid to trust this company.”
“I had used Pimlico Plumbers a few times in the past. They were OK but rather expensive. Last Saturday afternoon, I called them for an emergency. Tom Staple came after 35 minutes of my call. He was very polite and agreeable. He found out the cause of the problem and repaired it right away. He even cleaned up the water leaked from the upstairs bathroom into a very tall wood cabinet downstairs which had collected water like a pond. As the ceiling is almost 4 meters high, he had to go into a very cluttered storeroom to get an extremely heavy ladder to dry the area. Nothing was too much for him. I would highly recommend him for his professionalism and good nature. I would have given him 5 stars for his service but as Pimlico Plumbers is quite pricey, I give the company an overall 4 stars.”
“Should be avoided at all cost. We called them out to repair a bath where the pop-up plug wouldn't engage and so needed fixing. They emphasise that they cannot guarantee their work. However, you might think this means that they can't be sure the work will solve the problem, not that we should accept that the bath now drains through the ceiling. They conducted an "investigation" into the issue (without speaking to us) and decided they were in the clear. Expensive and incompetent and no interest in remedying the problems they cause.”
“Today (29 December 2022) I called a plumber at around 9:00 am to unblock my kitchen sink. I was told that today's rate would be £190 + VAT per hour. I was told that the plumber would come within 1 hour. At 10:45 I called them again to say that the plumber was not here yet. I was told he was just round the corner. He came at 11:15. After less than half an hour he told me that he finished the job. The blockage was gone. But he told me that during his work a small part of the plastic fittings was broken and now water was leaking. I asked him to sort that out. He went out, came back after about 20 minutes and fitted the new plastic part in less than 10 minutes. He than charged me for 1 hour 30 minutes work + cost of the plastic spare part (£37.50) that he had broken. The total that I had to pay was £387. But when he left my place I noticed that water was still leaking. I panicked, rushed out, and found his van was still outside. I implored him to come back and deal with the leaking. He came again and stopped leaking by tightening the spare part. Then when he left I carefully examined the old spare part that he had replaced. Nothing was broken in there. I WAS SHOCKED THAT PIMLICO EMPLOYED SUCH PEOPLE.”
“We booked Pimlico Plumbers a few days in advance of needing a couple of wall mounted heaters fitted. It is a simple job at a fixed price of £175 all in.
Because we were booking in advance, we were promised an appointment slot today on Friday, between 12pm - 6pm
My other half took the day off, moved the furniture for the fitting, and waited. And waited... and waited. They did not turn up.
The excuse? "We don't have an electrician." Curious as we'd already booked them.
After initially refusing to let my girlfriend speak to a manager, I called them myself. I spoke to someone who claimed he was quite high up in the office. I explained that my girlfriend had taken the day off work and was needing those heaters fitted, either this evening or Sat morning - because heck, we'd been promised an appointment today!
Turns out they can come around this evening - but they'll charge extra because them arriving late would be "after hours." Yes you read that right.. for turning up late, they want to charge us extra.
Now that's a nice little scam. Don't turn up for a job, offer to come later, and charge more - presumably because they hope the customer will be desperate after they haven't turned up when expected.
Now Pimlico Plumbers survive ONLY because they front a reputation of being trustworthy and dependable. People are happy to pay more than an independent tradesperson, because they promote themselves as being reliable.
But it turns out they're NOT reliable.
They're NOT trustworthy.
They don't turn up, and then charge extra when they're late.
Why would anyone employ their services?
Now of course I gave them every opportunity to see the error of charging a higher rate for turning up late. But no, they just don't care.
(Oh they did offer to come later in the week with the PROMISE that they'd actually turn up NEXT time... honestly... Presumably we just keep taking time off work until they get their diary right).
I reminded them how they'd once earlier tried charging my girlfriend more than agreed on a fixed-price job, when they'd agreed to dispose an item F.O.C. after the work. (Yep - an agreed-price is something they try to overcharge on quite often). We'd thought we'd give them a 2nd chance because heck, they'd not try that on again... you'd think...
Seems overcharging in in Pimlico's blood. They'll agree terms, and then try and extract extra ££ in a dodgy underhand way. Turning up late and trying to charge extra because they're late is about as dodgy as it gets.
So before you believe the hype of why Pimlico is more trustworthy than the next, before you pay extra ££ because they say you can trust them more than the rest...
Ask yourself, do you want to deal with a company who will ignore any agreements, in an effort to extort more money?
Do you feel that a tradesperson should turn up to do a job on the day agreed, and do that (simple) job for the hourly rate already agreed.
Do you want to held to ransom by a greedy company who will delay its tradesmen's arrival, in order to charge a higher out-of-hours rate.
Are Pimlico's higher prices justified when they give a lower level of honesty than any other trades service I've encountered in the last 40+ years.
(Let's not forget that Pimlico Plumbers will charge us the customer £100 if we don't stick to the agreed appointment time)
AVOID AVOID AVOID. Give your money to an independent tradesperson - it's easy to find good ones.
Don't let this greedy company try and rip you off.”
“Rip off merchants, had a plumber come in for 14 mins and tell me to replace a flush he would have to replace my whole toilet sisters that would take 3.5 hours so the whole job would cost me £864 I said I might as well get a new toilet he then told me I had to pay £192 for the 15 mins he was there so I paid for 15 mins of him telling me what the cost would be!!!
Don’t use them proper rip of merchants!!!!”
“Rubbish service
Rubbish service
They come and cause constant leaks and they will charge you thousands of pounds for it.Also, they make sure to not fini the work and make it for another visit which will cause you another thousands of pounds”
“So this is my experience with Pimlico.
We suddenly had an issue with the place we just bought, water couldn’t drain from the bathtub. Classic !!!
So obviously it’s some kind of emergency so we called them not knowing much.
They came pretty fast I must say. Very nice guy no problem with that.
£150 an hour so he came TikTok TikTok, he had a look at the pipes then took off for 30 minutes buying some stuff I guess to fix it.
So that’s £75 already well spent.
Then of course it’s a big job apparently blah blah blah, 3 to 4 hours to be fixed, but he couldn’t fix it after trying for an extra hour.
So that makes it a total of £275 and he told me he knocked off £30 generously. The problem that was not fixed.
So he recommended me an engineer expert on unplugging. ( I didn’t even know that unplugging specialised people existed )
Of course same company, they could’ve been here within an hour £200 plus VAT an hour.
So of course we didn’t book that and found a plumber that we use a few years ago.
Thank you WhatsApp I retrieve his number after a long search.
He stayed three hours, changed the piping, removing everything that he had to remove and most importantly he fixed the problem.
The issue was not the blocked pipe, the issue was the gravity that made the water stay and not drain.
This is why he couldn’t unblock it… because it wasn’t blocked.
Getting an appointment with the “engineer on unplugging pipe” from pimlico would have cost me at least another £300/£400 And still the problem would have been still here.
My plumber told me that he loves Pimlico because they are giving him a lot of job to to.
He also told me that two minute walk away from where we live is the best bathroom shop and you can find everything you want if you need it.
After making a complaint and asking for a refund for paying a service that was not done, it got denied of course and they assume they’ve done nothing wrong.
So my advice is :
if Pimlico is the only plumbing company in the entire planet………..go on YouTube !!!
To be Avoided like the plague”
“Recently shelled out £20K+ to refit the tinyest cubicle bathroom, by 2 men, which couldn't be completed in 10 days. So the scenario goes like this:
- They will turn up at your house to do a small job and tell you that you need to fix something else
- You will get a quote
- Once the job has started, they will find something else
- They will then use this as an excuse to procrastinate and prolong the job. They turned up at 8.30 and left at 4.30, and took an hour worth of breaks at least. They would also turn up in the morning then disappear for literally 2 hours "to get materials"
- More stops to the van to sit in there for 30 mins drinking coffee ( on your clock), so you are paying for the materials and labour and time fannying about in the van
- You will never get a receipt for the materials if you ask them to produce them, although they and the people in the call centre will also promise to send them but never will
- You will never know exactly how much work has been done unless you are at home monitoring the exact hours spent on the job minus breaks
- The vans have trackers, so all the time spent fannying around in the van is also on your time
Overall, there is no way of determining if you are getting your moneys works, unless you micro manage their every move. They are smarmy con artists and don't be fooled by the greasy facade.
These people should get an oscar.
Enjoy your plumbing (and spending money down the drain).”
“DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT BOOK WITH PIMPLICO PLUMBERS! THEY ARE A RIP OFF!!!!!!!!! JUST PAID £144 FOR A 20 MINUTES WORK BECAUSE I WAS MISLED TO THINK THE WORK WOULD TAKE AN HOUR AND THEY REFUSE TO GIVE ME A REFUND!!!”
“I have been using Pimlico Plumbers for many, many years and have always found them excellent and very reliable.
However, this week I needed them to fix a pump that had stopped working.. The plumber came and advised installing a new "Top of the Range" pump (£750+vat) which took a couple of hours to arrive. He eventually installed it, but he couldn't get it to work - something about an air lock.
I was charged £1800+ TO STLL NOT WORK!!! Unbelievable..Daylight robbery as many of my friends have said. I am never using Pimlico Plumbers again.”
“Pimlico came highly recommended by two reliable and trusted sources and as such my husband and I had high expectations of Pimlico’s workmanship and customer service. However, based on our recent experience with Pimlico we do not believe they are as dedicated to their customer as they claim to be: 'Our dedication to fulfilling our customer's needs has always been central to the way we operate and we adapt our services in order to achieve this. We work with the intent that once a customer uses Pimlico they become a customer for life.'
When Pimlico were originally contacted they were (i) given extensive background information regarding the drainage issues we were experiencing and (ii) informed that two other plumbers had been called in before them to fix the problem. Two months after Pimlico’s initial visit the problem not only started recurring but worsened. Pimlico were contacted again to fix the problem that they had originally been called out for and almost £2,000 later Pimlico fixed the issue on their second visit.
Our dissatisfaction with Pimlico is based on the following two issues, first, why should the customer have to pay for TWO visits to a fix a problem that should have been fixed in ONE visit? Based on this rationale we thought it was a reasonable request to ask Pimlico to pay for the first cheaper visit and for us to pay for the second (three times more expensive) visit. However, Pimlico refused to do so saying their engineers were not at fault. This is not an issue about ascribing ‘fault’. This is an issue about honouring Pimlico’s brand promise and treating one’s customer fairly.
The second issue we have with Pimlico is the fact that the engineer did not pay any heed to the information he had been given about the history of our plumbing problem. Had he listened to the customer’s problems from day 1 he would/ should have conducted a more thorough inspection of the drainage pipes in his first visit; instead, we had to pay for two visits for the problem to resolved.
On the day I spoke to Pimlico’s Marketing Department I asked them to clarify what they meant when they state on their website 'For your peace of mind, we guarantee most of our jobs against faulty workmanship for 12 months. Due to the nature of certain works or repairs, such as drain blockages, we are unable to provide the 12 month labour guarantee.'
When I read this I get the impression that a guarantee (albeit partial) is available to the customer if the customer comes back before the 12 month mark. If this is not the case, would it not be clearer and fairer to the customer to simply state that Pimlico do not offer any guarantee on drainage problems. I find the wording of Pimlico’s brand promise misleading.
Finally, in the same conversation with the Marketing Department I was never told about Pimlico’s customer loyalty program. See Pimlico's website where it states: 'Our Customer Loyalty Discount allows return customers to get up to 25% discount off hourly labour rates.'
When the engineer was asked specifically about a discount for the second visit he never mentioned that this program existed nor was this discount offered to me when I spoke to the Marketing Department.
Given how much Pimlico talks about the importance of fulfilling the customer’s needs and the fact that over 78% of its customers are returning customers, we were surprised by how poorly we - an existing customer, was treated by Pimlico. Had they shown us that they were willing to meet part way Pimlico would have had us as a long term customer but the company’s shortsightedness has sadly precluded this as an option.”
