I never have time to write reviews but I had such a bad experience and am so upset that I had to spend some time warning others and wish I had been warned myself against these people.
We were really taken advantage of. We called this company because we had their sticker on our thermostat. We felt our electricity bills were too high and wanted him to check the system. On the phone they said that to check the system cost about $50, and any repair would cost extra so I said OK.
The next day they came, opened everything up, the owner was there himself with one of his sons, and the owner was almost blind (waiting cataract surgery) so he asked his son to read him everything, which is great, but they ended up staying over 3 hours. They said that one of our outside compressors was not turning on. I said that maybe because we had gotten one of our cords repaired and maybe it had been done incorrectly. But he said it was the fault of our thermostat, and we needed to change the thermostat for $475 dollars. I said we couldn't afford that, so he said, well if you get a different sort of thermostat but still the Trane brand, it will be $275. I said, "please just put it all back together and I will think about it after I speak with my husband."
Then he said, "No wait it has only been set up wrong, I will set it up" and he pulled out a manual with his son and pressed some buttons. Then he told me that I owed him $375. I didn't know what to do, so I paid. I am a new home owner and didn't understand I could have refused to pay. He wrote me a "ticket" that said $120 to service compressor #1, $120 to service compressor #2 (what service? he only opened them up... I stood outside almost the entire time with them and they didn't do any repair..) and $100 to "set up" the thermostat (when he was pressing the buttons).
Then he looked at the compressor outside and said, "No that cord needs to be replaced right. I need to come back tomorrow and replace it." I had thought there might be a problem with the cord, so I said OK, and he came back the next day and replaced A DIFFERENT CORD for $275 and asked me to make the check out to him personally (the owner.) I told him I could not do that.
THEN he started saying that he had not checked the freon in the second compressor (OH MY GOSH... why did I pay $120 again for that compressor for you to open it up?) and at this point I started thinking that he might even be breaking things so that he could "fix" them. He left and said that he wanted to come back again in the spring to "check the freon" when we started using the air conditioning. There is no way I want him anywhere near my house again. I felt he was really dishonest, he did not get approval before doing things, he did not tell me how much things would cost, I thought it was all included in the "checking."
Really dishonest person. If only I could go back in time and never call them. Now I have to call somebody else to make sure the system wasn't messed with.
Funny thing is I asked my parents (who used to own this house, we bought it from them) afterwards, and my dad told me that they bullied him last time they came (and my dad is really good, he worked 30 years in construction and really knows what he is about with building houses and taking care of them), and he said that they felt they got ripped off as well. So I would say, darn.
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