I contacted Hirschberg because I had used them previously for a couple of small jobs. This time I needed a toilet fill valve replaced, a hot water faucet repaired, and possible insertion of a bidet wand on one toilet. I had the fill valve purchased new from Home Depot as I thought it would save me money to have my own new part. I also had the bidet wand. As is typical for some companies today there was a charge to come out--not to be applied towards my bill. The young man came in to see what the work was and then out to the truck to call the office on pricing. I told him/showed him, the fill valve I had purchased. He told me they will not use customer provided parts. I asked him to ask the office again about this policy , he did, and nothing changed. His pricing for these 3 jobs was over $900. I told him I wanted parts and labor to be itemized. Answer was 'we don't do that', 'we have flat fee pricing'. Between the cost and their refusal to use the new part I bought, I told him to only handle the fill valve part of the job however I insisted on an invoice with parts and labor itemized. Again, they refused to do so. I called the office to speak to the service manager, and he again refused to comply with my request, again repeated the flat fee pricing.
In the end I got no-where. I asked to see the box the new fill valve came in--no surprise--same company part as what I had purchased. Cost for the 11 minutes max it took him to replace the part? $373.12 to include the $79. arrival charge. Did not get an itemized bill. What are they hiding?
Knowing cost of parts and cost of labor is a routine and reasonable request of a customer, and many companies automatically provide this information without being asked.
Addendum: I had the other 2 parts of the initial job completed by another company for $265.00 and automatically received an itemized bill. Note that even combining the two companies charges, the total is not close to exceeding $900 which Hirschberg quoted when they job costed initially. read more
