Where do I begin. First of all, Justin, the technician, showed up an hour late. As I waited for him, I finally see him pull up to my driveway. He waits in his company van for another 10 minutes, I assumed he was making a business call. So I finally decide to exit my house to greet him. He gets out and decides to light a match to take a cigarette break. So I wait another 2-3 minutes before he finally jumps into action. After finally getting to speak with him and telling him the issue (A/C stopped working) he informs me that he's been with the company for about 2 weeks. To add, he recently just finished his HVAC training. I was confused and a little apprehensive at first because I assumed I would be dealing with a seasoned pro, especially with their website stating, "The company has over 75 years of knowledge and experience... Our service department consists of all Connecticut state licensed technicians whose capabilities cover a wide spectrum of residential, commercial and light industrial troubleshooting skills and installation experience." Nonetheless, I still gave him the benefit of the doubt.
To my next point, with recent COVID concerns, I assumed the technician would come equipped with a face mask and shoe slip covers. Nope....that was not the case. It was a rainy day so imagine the muddy mess left behind on my wooden floors. But keep this in mind, I will revisit this later in my complaint.
Third, how can I put this...the guy had no idea what he was doing. He spent 2 hours going in and out the house trying to find things to do. Again, rainy day so imagine my frustration with the muddy floors. I have 2 A/C units, one for the first floor and the other for the second floor. He only needed to trouble shoot on the first floor, which was the unit not working. However, it seemed he ran out of ideas and decided to troubleshoot the working A/C unit on the second floor. Why? Because he "wanted to compare both units" to see why one was not working. Did it help with his investigation you ask? No! After 2 hours of Justin trying to resolve the issue on the non-working A/C unit he finally results to dig in his pocket to use his final life-line. He makes a call, and now we are waiting for a second "more experienced" technician to come and help out his buddy in distress. So while we wait another 25 minutes before the life-line arrives, Justin decides to light up another cigarette to calm him from this stressful situation.
Enters Paul, technician # 2 (I believe that was his name). At first glance I thought to myself, "oh no...another young kid. I hope they resolve this ASAP". So remember the face mask and shoe cover detailed above? Well, Paul didn't have a face mask but he did come handy with shoe covers. While I am sitting in the dining room working from home, I overhear Paul approach Justin outside, and Justin decides to tell him "You don't need to wear the shoe covers." Interesting. At this point, my floors are already a mess so I decide not to even mention it to either of them. So how many people does it take to unscrew a light bulb? These are licensed professionals and I assumed the job should not have taken more than 1.5 hours, 2 hours max. It took 2 technicians and 3 whole hours to finally get the A/C up and running. So when it came time for the final bill, I asked Justin for my invoice. He says that I will receive something in the mail. I then asked for an estimate, which he was unable to provide. According to him, "billing is done by the owner based on his written report and the amount of hours spent".
So finally, comes in the mailed invoice. I am billed for 3 hours of labor at $130/hr. I pretty much paid for Justin to take 2 cigarette breaks, about an hour of him fiddling around to make it seem he was staying busy, and another 30 minutes of him waiting for his lifeline to arrive. Oh...I forgot to mention, they decide to switch my thermostat with one of their own because it was "faulty" even though they both acknowledged their voltage tester read that it was providing continuous flow of 24 VAC power. Even after they switched the thermostat, A/C unit still did not turn on, so the problem had nothing to do with the thermostat. Their invoice listed their newly installed Honeywell Pro 4000 (TH4110D1007) thermostat for $150. So I decide to do a price check on the model with a simple Google search, $50.96. We are talking an up charge of $99.
I contacted Paul, Owner, to express my frustration with the job done. The guy was not trying to hear anything I had to say. He started yelling the second I answered his call back. He was very disrespectful and condescending. The highlight of the conversation was that he "runs a multimillion-dollar business and does not have time to be on the phone with anyone disputing small dollars." Then he proceeds to question me on what I do for work.
If you are considering these guys...Stay Away. Very unprofessional. read more