Frequently Asked Questions
About Us
Absolutely not. We are a local family run company with our own engineers and we never outsource any repairs to other appliance repair companies.
We believe in having a fully transparent approach to pricing and we feel that publishing all of our pricing online is the best way to accomplish that. We also do not believe in forcing you to book only during office hours as a problem occurring after hours would then mean waiting until the next morning to arrange an appointment. In our case, you could book in the middle of the night for the next morning and our engineer could have repaired your appliance before other companies even return your call to arrange an appointment.
All of our engineers are direct employees, we do not use self-employed engineers to carry out work for us. You can view photos of our engineers on the About page listed above.
Coverage
Unfortunately we are only able to carry out jobs for private customers within our coverage area. We do at times expand our areas to help cover for some of our larger contract customers, but the areas listed here would always be updated in that case. If your area is not currently listed as being covered, we would unfortunately be unable to help at this time.
We currently cover the complete EH postcode area for all customers. We also cover the ML, G, KA and PA postcode areas for Samsung branded appliances only. Please note that coverage of some postcodes in G, KA and PA starts Aug 2024. Our booking system will advise if we currently cover your area for your specific appliance
Do you repair?
As a Samsung Authorised Service Centre, we do repair commercial Samsung appliances excluding commercial Microwaves. We do not however repair any other brands or hold parts in stock for any other commercial appliances.
Sorry, we do not repair vacuum cleaners at present.
We are unable to repair gas appliances, however we can normally help with electrical issues on dual-fuel appliances, such as faulty electric ovens. Please note that we are not able to help with any gas issues or issues with the gas ignition system.
Sorry, this is not a service we provide. We would recommend contacting your manufacturer as they will likely be able to advise who can repair your item.
Sorry, we only repair kitchen appliances and do not repair any audio/visual products.
Sorry, however as top loaders are not as common as front loaders, our engineers simply do not all have the necessary experience of such an appliance to be able to guarantee an effective repair in all cases. It is for this reason we do not accept repairs for top loader appliances and would advise you contact the manufacturer of your appliance for details of their service network.
Our engineers are trained to be specialist appliance engineers, which means they are neither electricians nor plumbers, but their job does crossover with large portions of each of those jobs in addition to all their appliance specific training. We do not carry out any electrical repairs beyond the connection to the wall and we do not carry out any plumbing repairs beyond the connection to your plumbing, we specialise in repairs to the appliance itself.
As general guidance, if the issue is with the plumbing, you need a plumber. If the issue is with your house electrics, you need an electrician. If however your issue is with an appliance, you need an appliance engineer.
In most cases we can visit to generate a report of your appliance fault, however some specific faults may be problematic for us to create a report for and in these cases we would be unable to help. In the case of a report being provided, there is a labour charge for the report itself and any further repair would be treated as a new job with new pricing. Reports can only be provided where you have contacted us first and arranged a full report while booking the visit, it cannot be arranged once the engineer is on-site. Please note that although you would be commissioning any report, it would be fully impartial and this may mean our engineer reports something you are not happy with, this is outwith our control as we must remain impartial. Also, any report generated uses a specific format we use for insurance reports, it is not the customer's choice what format the report takes, or whether something is, or is not included in the report.
Booking
Sorry, we do not accept any appliances being dropped off to us as all of our repairs are carried out in the customer's premises.
Please visit our Samsung Booking Page where you can provide details to us and raise a job. If you have already provided details to us or to Samsung and they were going to raise a job, please use the text message sent to you or use our Dedicated Booking Section if you booked using a landline. If you have only reported this within the last 1 business day and have not received a text message from us, please wait for this to arrive, there is nothing we can do until this is sent out and you can then use that text to book an appointment. If you reported this more than 1 business day and have not received a text message from us, please email us including your address details and when you reported it.
The quickest and easiest way to get a quote or to book an appointment is to use our Online Booking Facility which is available 24 hours a day and can be used even when our offices are closed.
Please visit our Dedicated Booking Section where you can enter a few details and see our real-time availability.
While most of our online booking system is automated, in the background we do still manually review all jobs submitted. These steps are for fraud purposes to ensure all bookings are valid. Please note this is not to check the fault provided, so entering questions or other information into the fault description will not result in us seeing it, the fault description should be only relating to the actual issue. You can rest assured if we have accepted your date, we will be with you on that date and if any unforeseen issues do arise that may affect your appointment, we will be in touch.
During booking, if you choose to be added to our cancellation list, we would automatically notify you of any earlier dates that become available. When a date opens up, our system will loop through all people who have requested to be contacted and send a text message. This text message contains a link that will allow you to view the available dates and switch if you wish. If you do not proceed to view the dates, we may assume that you are no longer interested in being notified and may stop further cancellation texts being sent to you. Our texts are only sent out between 7am and 11pm and normally limited to 1 per day for our cancellation list, although in some cases you may receive more than this. While we only send out cancellation texts during these hours, we have no control over delays that may result in messages being received outwith these times. Please note that this service is automated, our office staff do not have any control over this process, if you have not been offered an earlier date, our office staff do not have earlier dates to offer.
Appointment
The manufacturer may misinterpret your reported fault and pass it to us as something else or they may miss a crucial detail you have provided as they didn't think it was relevant. By asking you directly what the issue you are experiencing is, we get first hand the details from you rather than someone else's wording of what they think the issue is. Once our engineer arrives they will once again ask for the details directly from you to ensure nothing has changed since you reported it to us.
The dates we show you during booking are real-time, meaning they are are only shown if we have available slots during that time and they change immediately if someone else books or reschedules away from from that slot, however some jobs are manually flagged for approval from our staff and this can take some time, especially outwith office hours. We always aim to let you know ASAP if there is any problem with the slot chosen.
We always aim to offer appointments as soon as possible, though specific availability depends on current demand and scheduling. To determine the soonest appointment, please request a quote online and proceed to the booking page. Our availability dynamically adjusts based on demand in various areas. For instance, if demand is higher in West Lothian than in Edinburgh, we may prioritise scheduling in West Lothian to ensure prompt service where it's needed most. This flexibility allows us to allocate resources efficiently and meet service demands effectively.
As standard, we offer 3 different appointment slots, morning between 8am-2pm, afternoon between 12pm-6pm and we also offer a 2 hour window appointment. Please note that all appointments are offered based on availability and certain appointments may not be available on specific dates.
The slots we have available at any time are shown on our booking system for anyone to choose, we do not hold back appointment slots for emergency visits. If you require a visit to your appliance for any reason, whether it is an intial visit or a revisit if a problem occurs after a repair, you would be required to pick from the currently available slots. Please take this into account when deciding to use our service, we are not a commercial service and do not provide an emergency response of any type, although we do aim to offer same/next working day appointments whenever possible.
When choosing an appointment one of the options you may be provided is our 2 hour window. This appointment is initially booked for the day of your choice between 8am and 6pm, then on the day of the appointment our engineer will send you a text message advising of a 2 hour window during which they will arrive on-site. This window will be sent to you with at least one hour notice of the window. So if for example, your appointment window is 4pm-6pm, the engineer would notify you of this window by at least 3pm. This means if you are leaving work for the engineer, you can schedule for a few hours off rather than sitting in all day. Please note however that to take advantage of this window, you must be available for any 2 hour window sent to you and must provide a mobile number for us to provide the window on.
Unfortunately we are unable to provide exact times for appointments. Our engineers route their own runs on the day and due to reschedules, new jobs being added, having to help other engineers with jobs or other factors such as traffic they encounter or jobs being quicker/taking longer than expected, their run can and does change multiple times during a day. At the start of the day you may be allocated the last slot in the morning, but at any time that could change due to any of the above reasons and you end up being one of their first appointments instead, or vice-versa. This is why we provide appointment slots rather than exact times.
The engineer will send a courtesy text to you around 10 minutes before visiting but we do require that someone is on-site when they arrive.
A lot of companies will claim to provide exact times, but as they are restricted by the same constraints as us, they are simply promising something that they will likely be regularly unable to provide. We believe it is better to be upfront and advise we can't do it before you book, rather than waiting until the day of the appointment and then turning up earlier or later than arranged anyway.
If you require extended notice such as an hour before we visit, please see the above mentioned 2 hour window appointment as this provides at least 1 hours notice before visiting.
As standard for our morning and afternoon appointments, our engineer will send you a text message and you will also receive an automated call to advise they are on their way to your property. Please note these messages are provided as a courtesy and we cannot be responsible for any delays in the delivery of the message.
While booking, if you can't get the specific date/appointment you wanted you can either choose another date or you can keep checking. Our online booking dates shown do change in real-time, so a date not available just now may become available later. Once booked, you will receive a reschedule link in the text message sent to you and clicking this link will allow you to reschedule your appointment if required.
Our goal is to provide the best possible service, and part of that includes communicating effectively about our schedules. Here are the reasons why it can be challenging for us to provide a precise time for our engineer arrival at your property:
- Wide Coverage Area
Our engineers cover a vast area of Central Scotland, which means travel times can vary significantly. - Unpredictable Job Durations
Engineers cannot predict how long each job will take until they arrive and start working. Some jobs may have unforeseen complications that extend the duration. - Multiple Time Slots
Our engineers have several appointments each day, and each one can influence the next. A delay in one appointment can affect the rest of the day's schedule. - Coordination Between Engineers
There are times when an engineer might need assistance from another engineer, which can cause delays or changes in their schedule. - Traffic Conditions
Heavy traffic can unexpectedly alter the planned route and timing, causing delays. - Customer Rescheduling
Customers may need to reschedule, or new appointments might be booked on the same day, affecting the original schedule. - Emergency Situations
Emergency issues that require immediate attention can arise, disrupting the planned schedule. - Unexpected Issues on Site
Occasionally, jobs that seem straightforward may encounter problems, such as a power cut, preventing the engineer from completing the work as planned. That 2 hour job, is now a 5 minute job. - Last-Minute Changes
The assigned engineer or the timing of a job can change at the last minute, right up until the point they send a text saying they are on the way so we can't even say for sure who is visiting until that point.
Providing Estimates
We often receive requests for time estimates, even when we have explained that they are not reliable. We want to avoid any inconvenience to you, which is why we refrain from giving inaccurate estimates. If we could narrow down the timeslot accurately, we would provide this information without hesitation.
If our engineer can narrow down the slot on the day, they will send a text to inform you. However, due to the reasons mentioned above, this is not always possible.
Nipping Out?
Even when we can't narrow down your slot, if you need to nip to the local shop or take your dog for a quick walk, feel free to get in touch. Where possible, we will confirm that the engineer will not be with you within a certain timeframe. For example, if the engineer is an hour driving away from your house, we can tell you he definitely won't be with you within an hour, allowing you to go about your day as much as possible. It's easier to say he won't be there within an hour than to say exactly when he will be there.
While the manufacturer may ask you which appointment date you would prefer, this is simply a preferred date and is used internally to calculate whether targets are being met or not. Any date you arrange with them is not a confirmed booking for us to visit as they do not have access to book jobs on our diary. Once the job has been pulled into our system, you will be contacted by us and you must then select a date for the visit to take place .
Warranty
Sometimes when you explain your issue to the manufacturer, they report a different issue to us as they have simply misunderstood the issue you are reporting. To prevent issues where we order parts based on an incorrect fault report, we ask you to provide details of the issue to us directly, this lets us triage your job based on your words, not the description someone else has taken from what they understood you were trying to report.
If your repair is to be carried out under warranty, please contact the manufacturer and they will be able to raise a new warranty call. A call raised any other way will not result in a visit under warranty. Once the manufacturer passes this information to us, one of our engineers will triage the most likely parts and we would then send you a booking text that will allow you to choose an appointment. Please rest assured that once we have your job details sent over we will be in touch, however please note it can take up to 6 hours for this text to be received and we ask that you allow this time before contacting us as our office would be unable to help you until this text has been sent to you. Any contact attempts sent before this text will automatically be closed when the system sends the text to you.
Please contact the manufacturer directly and provide them with the model and serial number for your appliance, they should then advise whether or not your appliance is covered by any warranty and arrange a warranty call if required.
Manufacturer warranties only normally cover defects in materials and workmanship. This means if our engineer visits and cannot find a manufacturing defect with your appliance, it would normally be treated as a chargeable visit. Issues that are not manufacturing defects include but are not limited to , incorrect installation, physical damage, lack of maintenance or no fault found. So to give a real-life example, if our engineer visits under warranty because your washing machine is not draining and they find the pump has failed due to a manufacturing fault, this would be fully repaired under warranty at no cost to you. If however the engineer visited and found the pump had failed due to something getting stuck in it like a coin or other foreign object, this would not be covered by your warranty and you would be fully responsible for the cost of repair, including labour and any parts required. If you refuse to accept charges when advised, then we would not be able to visit your property and the warranty call would be cancelled in that case.
While we visited and carried out the original repair, it is actually the manufacturer who holds any warranty or guarantee on that job or any parts fitted to your appliance and we cannot attend without them first raising a new job authorising us to visit. This is not something we can do on our end, please contact the manufacturer directly for them to arrange this.
We give a 90-day limited guarantee on all parts we supply for private customers. Appliances within a commercial property are provided with a maximum of 7 days guarantee. If you are quoted for parts, day 1 of the guarantee would be the date you approved the quote, otherwise day 1 would be the day the part was fitted. Please note that some terms do apply, please see our Terms & Conditions for full details.
Due to Samsung's policy, we have to offer appointment dates within the next 7 days. If we can't provide a date within that time, we'll offer the first available date we have. Unfortunately, we can’t book dates beyond this period as it leads to financial penalties for us, so the dates we're offering are the only ones available for this job. Similarly, once an appointment is booked, we cannot accept any reschedules to a later date.
Typically, we're in most areas every second day. For example, if we're in your area on Monday, we'll usually be there again on Wednesday and Friday. The following week, this rotates, so we'd usually be there on Tuesday and Thursday. However, this can change based on factors like demand and engineer availability.
If the offered dates don’t work for you, the only option would be for us to cancel the current job. You can then contact Samsung closer to your preferred date to raise a new job. Please note that the new job will again offer dates within the next 7 days or the first available date after that. Keep this in mind before raising the job again, as re-raising a job immediately after it's been cancelled would result in the same dates being offered again.
Payment
During signup please select that you are a landlord and you will be requested to provide payment details for the repair.
You pay a fixed one-off labour charge that covers the engineer's time on your property to correct the reported issue and get you back using your appliance again. This labour charge is not an hourly charge, it is a one-off payment regardless of whether the resolution requires a mechanical or electrical fix or even if it's just some customer education that is required. This means whether the engineer takes a few minutes or a few hours to correct the issue, you can rest assured that you know in advance the labour cost of the visit with no nasty surprises. In essence, you are paying for the end result, not the action or time taken for it to be completed. If parts are required and the engineer has them on their van, they would quote you on-site and you can choose whether or not to proceed. If you don't want to proceed, the engineer is unable to replicate the issue or the appliance is not repairable, you simply pay a discounted diagnosis charge instead. If the engineer doesn't have the required parts on their van, you pay the discounted diagnosis charge on the first visit, then the office will quote you and the diagnosis charge paid will be deducted from the total cost, meaning you don't pay any extra for the return visit.
While our fixed labour rate covers 99% of repairs, it does not cover some specialist or very time-consuming repairs, such as regasses, compressor changes, tub/drum or bearing replacement. In these situations, we would advise of costs involved before proceeding.
Please note that you must have the physical card in your possession, as our engineers carry card readers, they cannot accept written details of a card.
We do not under any circumstances accept cheques or invoice private customers.
While booking a repair, you will be offered the ability to enter multiple appliances to be looked at during the same visit from the Cart page. If you add multiple repairs to be looked at within a single visit, the most expensive repair on the day would be charged at full price and all other repairs would receive a 50% discount.
Our standard labour charges are fixed prices and we allocate the same amount of time regardless of how easy the repair may seem as some potentially easy repairs end up taking hours if we hit a problem. We are not able to charge less for quicker/easier repairs, just as we don't charge more for difficult/time-consuming repairs. Essentially, you are paying for the end result and not the time taken to get there, so the charge is the same no matter how long the repair takes or how difficult the repair was.
On the Day
Please note that the appointment you are provided with is the time the engineer can arrive at your property, so for example if your appointment is booked between 8am-2pm then our engineer may arrive at any point up until 2pm. In some extreme circumstances, delays can occur and we are unable to meet your arranged appointment, however we would where possible do our very best to keep you informed about any potential delays.
As we allow customers to book and reschedule even on the day, this means our diary is completely fluid and changes regularly. Up until the point the engineer notifies you that they are on their way to your property, they may be diverted to an emergency job or may hit heavy traffic and change their original route to compensate. Due to this, we are unable to narrow down your appointment on the day and can only advise that our engineer will be with you during the originally scheduled appointment slot.
Every one of our engineers carry digital identification. If you are booking for an elderly relative, we would always suggest that you use a mobile phone number where possible and this will mean when our engineer is on the way to their property, they will send a text message advising how long until they arrive and also very importantly, the text message will also contain the name of the engineer who will be visiting. They can then ask for identification when the engineer arrives and match that to the name provided in the text message. You can also provide a password to us and our engineer will quote that password when they arrive on-site.
If your appliance was not working when you reported it but it has started working on the day of the visit, it may be that you are better to postpone the visit until it stops working again. When our engineer visits, if the appliance is working then any checks carried out would highly likely result in us being unable to find the fault, meaning there is nothing for us to repair. This is especially true for a lot of fridge freezer faults, as if the appliance is cooling correctly when we visit, there is not really a way for us to say why it stopped working in the past. If you are in any doubt about whether to continue with the visit or not, please call our office ASAP.
Landlords
During signup on our online booking system there is an option to select that you are the landlord and you want to pay by phone.
Yes, this is the way we operate. During booking, you will be asked for your tenant's contact details and we will contact them directly, keeping you up to date by email along the way.
We value all of our landlords and because of this we make MyLothian available for all landlords, regardless of how many jobs you have sent us or how many properties you have.
As a landlord, you will automatically receive an email from us when a new receipt has been created. Please allow 7 days after job completion. For private customers, a receipt will be provided on-site when the engineer processes payment.
During the process of booking a new job, you will be able to specify that you are a landlord. After booking with this option, you will be automatically setup on our MyLothian system and an email will be sent advising of your login details.
During signup, simply select that you are a landlord and you will be given an option to login to Mylothian. Logging in means we only need to ask for details relating to your new job and nothing else.
Cancel
To cancel, please use the link in the text message that was sent to you or call us on 0131 516 2080 asap. If you are calling us, please be sure to provide details of your appointment/property as without this we will have no way to know who you are. Once we have received your message, we will process your cancellation asap. Cancellations through the text provided are processed immediately. Please note that no confirmation will be sent for cancelled appointments.
Reschedule
When you booked your appointment, you would have been sent a text message and this should include a link that allows you to reschedule. If you have not received a text or do not have it any more, please call us and leave a message with your details and mention that you wish to reschedule, we will send you a new booking text to allow picking of a suitable appointment. Please note that reschedules are prevented after a certain time on the day, based on your chosen appointment.
Before the visit date, you can reschedule at any time. On the day of the visit, we can normally reschedule as follows:
Private Customers
- For AM appointments you can reschedule until 09:59 or until the engineer notifies you that they are on their way to your property if this is earlier.
- For PM appointments you can reschedule until 12:59 or until the engineer notifies you that they are on their way to your property if this is earlier.
- For 2 Hour Window appointments you can reschedule until 09:59 or until our engineer notifies you of your specific 2 hour window if this is earlier.
Warranty Customers
- For AM appointments or 2 Hour Window Appointment you can cancel until 07:59 on the day of the visit.
- For PM appointments you can cancel the appointment until 9:59am on the day of the appointment.
Appointments changed after these times may be treated as a failed visit and charges may apply, even for warranty calls. For recall visits under our repair guarantee, please note that any reschedule requests to later dates may affect the status of our repair guarantee offered, please contact us in advance in this case.
Please note that our reschedule option is available for unexpected issues that arise, it is not designed for people who know they will not be available for a portion of the slot to wait and reschedule if the engineer has not arrived at the time they need to leave. Our office staff are advised to cancel any appointment where the customer has advised they are not available for the entire slot.
Samsung Customers: Please note that reschedule requests can only be accepted for earlier dates online, our system will not allow reschedules to later dates due to Samsung booking policies.
Parts
As standard, unless we are advised otherwise by our customer, we take away all old parts after a repair. If you are a private customer raising a chargeable job, you are free to keep the old parts after a repair, but you must request this while the engineer is on-site, this cannot be arranged after the engineer has left due to legal issues with waste transfer. If however your repair is being carried out under warranty and the manufacturer's policy is that we do not leave parts on-site, then we are unfortunately unable to leave you the old parts as these now belong to the manufacturer and not you. To give an analogy, if you had bought a pair of jeans and they were torn, then the shop replaced them, you would keep the new pair and they would take the old pair to return to the supplier. In this case, the new part in the machine would belong to you, but the old part now belongs to the manufacturer as they have provided a replacement to you for that part.
When our engineers triage parts for your repair, they do so based on their experience and also your reported fault. In the case of triage parts, as we have not yet confirmed a fault or what is required to repair it, we do not disclose which parts specifically are triaged. This is because we have had cases of customers returning to the retailer or the manufacturer stating "The engineer said part x, y and z are needed." and we have not even attended and confirmed a fault yet.
Our engineers all carry a very extensive van stock at all times, however they need to first inspect the appliance to determine what parts are required. In the event that the engineer does not have the required part in their van, you would not be charged any extra for the return visit to fit the parts. Please note that for a chargeable visit, even if you advise a specific part is damaged the engineer would normally visit first to inspect the appliance to ensure that is the only part required. This is to prevent situations where we order parts and they are either not required or we are left out of pocket for those parts when we find another more major fault with the appliance. If you insist on us visiting with a specific part before inspection, please do not request this during booking, please call us before you request a date for visit. In this case, payment would be taken upfront for the part and it would be non-refundable in the event that the part is not actually required or does not repair the issue we are called out to. It is due to this that we ask that you allow us to inspect the appliance and only order the parts that we determine are actually required to complete your repair.
We only deal direct with a small number of manufacturers and the rest we use distributors to source parts. There are various reasons for not dealing direct with a manufacturer, such as required spend (some require a commitment to buy a certain amount of stock), return policies and delivery offerings to name a few. If we find that the part is out of stock with our distributors and we do not deal directly with that manufacturer, then we would where possible provide you with details so that you can buy the parts yourself and we can fit them for the remaining labour cost.
Yes, we do. Please visit our Part Shop at https://lothian.shop which contains over 10,000 Samsung parts that are available to buy and either have delivered to you, or to pick up from our Broxburn Office. Please note that this shop is for people who want to repair their own appliances, it is not for sourcing parts for us to fit as part of our repair service. If you are arranging a repair, the engineer would inspect and determine exactly what is required, we would then source and provide a quote for any parts required where necessary. Our engineers carry a huge van stock, so in most cases we already have the parts required with us, but if not then we can source them and quote if needed.
Contact
We are not a call centre so we do not have the resources to schedule outbound calls. This means if you leave a voicemail or send an email to us and we need to speak to you, we will call you when we are able to, but we cannot accommodate requests such as calling back only after a certain time. In those cases, you should call back when you are free.
We are unable to place a flag to prevent contact by other methods, but you are totally free to contact us back by your preferred method. So if for example we leave you a voicemail and you don't like speaking on the phone, you are free to reply to us by email advising that you are returning our message.
The quickest way by far to contact us is to submit a repair enquiry on our contact page.
Please check your junk/spam mail folder and also ensure we have not left you a vociemail message on your phone. Please do not continually submit requests, this will delay your overall response time. Our contact system works the same as an email client, so when you leave a voicemail or submit an enquiry to us, we deal with each request in order from the oldest to the newest. Just like an email client, if you send another email or leave another voicemail then your customer file is now updated, so goes to the end of the list. Due to this, you should only contact us again if you have new information to add as your request will be delayed.
Quotes
If parts are needed and our engineer does not have them in their stock, you would be sent a quote after the visit and can decide whether to proceed or not
We aim to get all quotes out within 1 business day, however almost all quotes are sent quicker than this. If there is likely to be a delay, we would let you know.
We currently only accept card payments for quotes and this is taken at the time of the quote being approved, however we are looking into expanding the available options in the future
All of our quotes are valid for 14 days unless stated otherwise.
Yes, in most cases we can reissue a quote, however please note that if the quote has expired, any diagnosis charge paid previously would no longer be able to be carried over to the new quote, full new charges would apply. This is because our system looks for a previous visit on that job within the last 14 days and applies any diagnostic charge paid against the quote. Our staff have no way to apply previously paid diagnosis charges against an expired quote.
Help
Please visit our Samsung Warranty Booking System Help Article