Nick and his well trained team of scam artists (I'm looking at you, Lucy) lied to our faces about what was wrong with one of our heaters. It turned out to be a bad $45 thermopile, which we replaced inside of 15 minutes. Instead, Nick claimed that the "pilot line was cracked," and that was why the heater didn't ignite. He also then claimed that "the control valve, pilot generator, sensor system, pilot light and pilot assembly, and the thermostat" were all broken and needed to be replaced. His "manager," Lucy gave us an outrageous quote of $1850 for this service on top of $205 for a 4-minute "diagnosis" for the two heaters.
After we fixed the thermopile ourselves, we called Nick back to confront him about lying to us. He justified his deception by saying, "I have to make a living." He insisted that those perfectly functional additional parts might "go bad someday" and that he might as well replace them anyway. When we asked why he would replace any parts at all when a comparable new heater by the same manufacturer cost around $900 and around $450 for labor, he had no satisfactory answer.
If you enjoy being lied to, ripped off, and talked to like a child by a self-admitted crook, then Nick and Lucy are the right team for you.
Now here's an update in response to Nick's mendacious and obfuscatory response below: Nick, neither you or your "customer service" person Lucy ever framed your diagnosis as a "safety issue." You claimed the "pilot line was cracked" and that's why the heater didn't work. It wasn't cracked. You lied. The heater didn't work because the thermopile was broken.
If it really was a "safety issue," then why not just replace this twenty year old heater entirely for a fraction of your comical "repair price?" Answer: you didn't suggest replacing it because your regular scam is to dupe people who don't know any better into paying for needless repairs. Your "safety" angle is a clever bit of plausible deniability in case you get caught padding your bid like you did here. No repair is ever going to be safer than a new heater. For this specific Williams heater, a new installation would have run 400 to 500 dollars cheaper than your "repair" of randomly selected items.
You can make all of the excuses in the world; but a cursory review of your 1 star reviews will betray a troubling and familiar pattern. You probably do good repair work. But lying on a bid is still a "no-no" in the eyes of the CSLB. You may want to stick to the repairs and skip the lying in the future or it will eventually cost you your license.
Update on February 24, 2021:
For some reason, Nick has updated his response to my review. And I'm sorry to say, Nick, you've learned nothing in the intervening time. Your response is full of falsehoods. 1) the house was a private residence, not an apartment rental. 2) the house was built in 1992 with all brand new heaters installed at the time. Therefore it's impossible that the heater was "60 years old." Nice try though! This review is clearly affecting your business; and you're trying, long after the fact, to impugn it and blunt its impact. Instead, you should admit that you lied about a heater that IS STILL WORKING after I replaced the thermopile myself! There never were any "safety issues." If there were, no competent repair person would recommend sinking more than the cost of a new heater into "repairing" it. They would simply replace it. But the phony "repair" is much more lucrative for you. So instead of the money going to some big manufacturer of new heaters, it goes into your dishonest pockets instead. Look, you've been lying to people for so long, it's clear that the trail of cheated customers is all starting to blend together for you in your mind. You probably have difficulty recalling the fact that this was my own home, not my "tenant," and that the heater was no where near "60 years old." But you were the only crooked repairman who came to my house and gave me an inflated bid for unnecessary repairs and then lied about it in 2019, so the events of that day are still emblazoned in crystal clear, sharp relief in my memory. Instead of owning up to being caught red-handed trying to cheat and lie, you come back years later, when you clearly can't remember any of the details to try and refute my very precise and detailed review of my experience with your company. Let me recommend that you try being honest instead. That way you don't have to struggle to remember the details of the lies you've told in the past. read more