Complaints

• Initial Complaint

  12/26/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Company came out on 12/1/23 because on no hot water. Technician was here for 3 hours and wasn't able to fix the issue or give me a diagnosis. During the time in my house he sat on my couch, left my basement a mess including leaving the hot water tank apart, leaving my panel box open and going thru my toolbox and unplugging my dehumidifier. All of these things are extremely unprofessional and alarming. After 3 hours he said he had to go. I called the office, and the receptionist indicated it was a major problem and couldn't tell me when it would be fixed. No invoice was given to me that day for any sort of payment. I had to call another **** company to come out and make my repair. They came out and it was fixed within an hour of them arriving. I received a bill today for $129.55 for the service call. I wasn't billed that day nor given a diagnosis other than the technician had to leave. They failed to diagnose a problem and are now billing me. I don't believe I should be charged for call in which they did nothing let alone the technician made himself at home in my private home. I contacted the company and asked to speak to the owner to try and resolve this but was told he wasn't available. I spoke to the same receptionist who was not helpful. She said they would send the same technician out, but I told her the repair was already made and there is no way I would ever allow one of their technicians back in my home especially since the technician they sent decided that he could go thru my house and make himself at home.

  Business response

  01/23/2024

  We are responding to your letter dated December 26, 2023 in regards to ******* ******* "service issues" complaint.  This had already been resolved back on December 27 as soon as the owner was able to speak with *******.  We apologize that was not relayed back to the BBB for an updated retraction resolution.  We charge a flat rate dispatch fee (which is industry standard) of $129.95 to come to a home.  That fee is not a "fix it fee" or "diagnostic fee."  After we determine the issue, we charge for labor and part(s) involved.  This is all industry standard.  As a one-time courtesy we removed that charge for *******.  The technician that went to *******'s home is an Engineer, is extremely knowledgably and has been with us for 10 years.  Our office manager has been with us for 9 years and is very knowledgeable in the industry as well.  We have never had a complaint about either one of them.  We are in hundreds of homes every year without issue.  We apologize if ******* was uncomfortable in any way as that is never our intent.  We always do our best to be professional but understand that we are human and there is always room for improvement.  We also understand that every customer is different.  As a matter of fact, this same technician was at *******'s home on August 8th to flush her ******.  In addition, another technician was at her home on September 26th to do a cleaning and inspection.  Both times ******* was happy without complaints.  Not all customers understand that when dealing with electronics not all issues are "cut and dry" and able to get resolved quickly.  Sometimes we must call the manufacturer, run to vendors to get parts, wait to come back until the unit has the same issue again and other times we need to come back after a day or longer because we also have other customers with scheduled service issues as well.  Again, this is all industry standard.  ******* was very aware that her ****** had intermittent issues.  Our technician explained to ******* that it is very difficult to diagnose properly unless you catch the equipment having the issue.  When the technician arrived at *******'s home the ****** had no fault codes, and it took our tech over an hour just to get the ****** to duplicate the issue.  The reason for having to call ****** was due to lack of error codes on the system, which is also not helpful in the diagnostic process.  Usually, a system will give us an error code.  We did not install this unit; ******* came to us in August.  Some companies will just start replacing parts and charge the customer for each part they tried regardless of if the system needed the part or not.  However, that is not the type of business we are.  Our tech tried, at no fault to his own, to call ****** which, unfortunately, took 1 hour and 40 minutes.  Possibly ****** was short on staff with all the sickness and holidays going on at that time- which is understandable.  Our tech did his due diligence for *******.  The technician left Friday knowing that he would be back possibly on Monday or Tuesday to finish but had to check with the office scheduling first.  After being at *******'s for so long the technician had to leave because he was now running late for his 3 other calls ahead of him that Friday.  We explained that we would have to come back but the technician had to go back to the office to figure out scheduling and the office manager had to speak to the technician to find out when to schedule the follow-up.  At that point, ******* had called neither person was able to speak about it yet.  The office manager called ******* on Monday to schedule, and the technician even went and picked up the flow valve.  We had tried 2x to schedule with ******* and she never called our company back.  We explained to ******* that the diagnosis was a "flow valve" so she would have been able to relay that to another company that would have then been able to fix the tank quickly because we had already done the diagnostic work.  We apologize if we didn't explain well enough that to diagnose her water heater properly, we needed to access all the faucets to try and get the water heater to duplicate the issue in order to try to diagnosis the issue.  The technician believed ******* understood this because she was with him most of the time and was even helping him turn on faucets throughout her home.  Our techs are told to never use customers' things and to ask permission to access any part of the home.  It is standard for this industry to have a technician access various rooms of a home to test or fix and diagnose properly.  The dehumidifier was unplugged because it was too loud and the technician could not hear what the ****** was doing to diagnose.  We must access the panel box to access power for safety and diagnosing as well.  We apologize if our tech sat on the couch because he had been for over an hour with ******.  We always try to be professional and appreciate any feedback for improvements.  Here is the history notes:  12/1/23 Tankless Water Heater:  ****** tankless takes too long to heat up.  ****** unit was working when tech arrived, ran downstairs sink, kitchen sink and upstairs showers many times, unit was working fine, ran upstairs shower for 15+ minutes and then water go cold, no-fault codes, tech was on hold with ****** tech support for 1 hr 40 mins, tech left a voice message- ****** tech support did not call back.  12/1/23 (Friday) ******* called because tech was there- he did not fix the problem and didn't know when he was going to go back.  Office manager told her she needed to talk to the tech to see what was going on.  ******* said she could call someone else to come out.  office manager told her she could, but tech was on hold with tech support for 1hr 40 minutes.  he could not get thru to anyone.  The next contractor might run into the same problem.  Office manager told her she would call back on Monday.  (it was a Friday and tech told office manager he told her he didn't know when he was going to be back because he didn't know what his Monday schedule looked like).  12/4/23 (Monday) our technician went to Vendor to pick up a part to try to be prepared when he went back.  Office manager left voicemail for ******* asking to set up an appointment today.  She didn't call back.  12/6/23 Lynn LVM to set up appointment.  ******* did not call back.  12/26/23 ******* called about invoice and wanted to talk to owner.  12/27/23 Owner called *******.  - discussed situation and voided invoice as customer courtesy.  12/29/23 Received a dated letter from BBB dated 12/26/23 see attached.  We always do our ebst but always look for ways to improve.  We know how hard our technicians work and certainly working 3 hours for ******* is not "doing nothing."  When we were able to speak to *******, we removed the flat rate dispatch as one-time courtesy.  We will say, however, that we certainly do not appreciate *******'s name calling that was very disrespectful, unnecessary, and unacceptable.  We have asked her not to call our company again.  Kind Regards, Mr. Dalton, Owner

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩