The electrician that was sent out to our home to provide us with a quote for a Ford Electric Car charger installation was about as slimy as a person can be. He immediately started to criticize our home, said that he, "Could tell that it was old." His definition of old must be less than 15 years because it's barely seen more than a decade so far.
He also told us that because we lived in a townhome, it was more complicated because it wasn't like a "real" home.
Meanwhile, I'm pointing to the garage wall that is shared by the electrical panel itself with room for two extra breakers. You can't get much more straightforward than that. He began telling us that it wouldn't be approved by the county inspector unless we started buying extra equipment beyond what the charger and installation covered.
So we start asking questions about price according to what he though the correct solution was.
He assured us that he had personally done over 2,500 installations of these charger units, but that he was absolutely forbidden to talk to us about price. I asked him why would his company be ashamed of their own pricing? His reply was that it wasn't Capital City Electrical Services that insisted on them not mentioning anything about cost, it was QMerit that forbid them from talking about it.
It did not take much effort to find out that QMerit has bought out Capital City Electrical Services, and are therefore the exact same company now. He insisted that installation doesn't cover having to cut into the sheet rock at all. Just in case anyone is unaware, you have to cut into the sheet rock somewhere if you're going to install a new 240 line.
The electrician began telling us what our options were. I asked him what the difference was, he replied, "Cost. The money is the difference."
When I asked him how much different is the money he replied, "I can't tell you that."
I informed the guy that if he didn't have enough experience installing these units to provide me with a ballpark idea of what the cost difference was between my options, then I wouldn't be able to tell him what I wanted. Somebody was going to have to budge and talk about the price of our options. He insisted that he would love to, but that QMerit insists that they can't discuss price until after they plug in what they're going to do.
We will be getting multiple bids on this project now even though Ford claims to provide "free" installation through QMerit because we no longer have any trust in QMerit to be honest and transparent with us about their pricing or even open and honest about Capital City Electrical Services being owned by them.
If they are willing to lie to a homeowner's face about QMerit and Capital City Electrical Services being completely separate companies, how can you trust anything else they say? If their electricians are trained to try to poke holes at your home by making ridiculous claims about its age in order to prepare you for costs well beyond what was promised, how can you trust that they place any value on integrity or even just basic decency? read more
