UPDATE: August 2 - After further phone calls with the owner, he was willing to work with us and even issued us a FULL refund even though we had only asked for a refund for the unauthorized repairs.
UPDATE: When we spoke to the owner on Friday, July 8, through his rudeness, he said he was going to refund out money. However, when we called back on July 11, after several days of receiving no credit to our account, he said he decided he was NOT going to refund our money because he was MAD at us about the reviews we had left.
On July 5, we had a pipe burst and subsequently flood our basement. We contacted Comstock Plumbing because we had used them in the past. They came out the next day and gave us an estimate to fix the pipe ($285) and to fix all our toilets ($120). He fixed the pipe that day but got called away by dispatch so had to return the next day (July 7) to fix the toilets.
The work on the pipe was done quickly and well and they were there when they said we'd be.
When he came back to fix the toilet, he discovered he would need to cut a hole in our wall to replace the wall valve but asked my husband for permission to perform the work first since it would require the hole. My husband okayed it and prepared to pay the $124 invoice he had written up. His assistant then took him back upstairs and apparently while up there, they realized that just a flapper replacement (which he was going to do for us as a courtesy since it would only take 10 minutes) wasn't enough but they would also have to replace the flush valve.
At no point did they tell us of the new repairs required or inform us of any change in price. When they came back down, he added $110 to the invoice claiming he actually had to replace a flush valve. W were upset because we can replace a flush valve ourselves for about $15 but he had done it without authorization for $110. But my husband payed it so the plumber would leave. He later called to complain and requested our money back because the plumber had not received authorization to perform that additional work. The lady we spoke to said she would have the owner call us the next day.
When he called, he was insulting, rude, constantly interrupting and demeaning. As we explained the situation, he first tried to claim that we shouldn't be upset about the price because we weren't charged a service charge, which we refuted because we had been charged a service charge the first day for the pipe repair. He implied we should have also been charged a service charge for the second day, even though the only reason the plumber had to come back the second day was because he was called away by dispatch the first day so could not finish the work. When we explained we never would have authorized a flush valve repair for $110 when we could do it ourselves for $15, he laughed and insulted us.
We then when on to explain how, upon examination, the flush valves in our toilets were the same ones that were there when the plumber arrived, so we don't think he actually DID the repair he charged us for, he got belligerent. When we further pointed out that two of the three toilets he claimed to repair were still having problems he said "well you obviously don't like us so call someone else to fix it" and hung up. read more