I would strongly recommend avoiding Gerner Energy. Our experience with their billing practices and subsequent customer service was abhorrent, and I would frankly never trust this company with any matter again.
We called Gerner on 8/12 regarding a propane leak in the line that goes into our generator. We shut the line off in advance of calling Gerner. We were explicitly told during this call that there was a diagnostic fee of $139 and that the technician would diagnose the problem and Gerner would provide us with a quote BEFORE any repairs were performed. We agreed to a service call on that basis.
The technician came to our home same day on 8/12 and was at the house for a little over an hour. He diagnosed the issue and, unknown to us at the time, performed repairs without our knowledge or consent. There were no new parts on the line when we checked it later that day, so naturally we assumed that Gerner was going to provide us with the promised quote and that we would schedule repairs from there.
Unfortunately, that did not happen. On 8/17, we received both an invoice and a $417 charge on our card for those repairs. The invoice provided no meaningful explanation or itemization of how Gerner arrived at $417. Even more absurdly, that invoice we received on 8/17 stated our card was to be charged on 8/13. Apparently we were supposed to travel back in time if we wanted an opportunity to question the bill before being charged.
We've spoken with Gerner a handful of times and received shifting explanations of what that $417 represents. Initially, we were told that the $139 fee covered an hour and essentially re-triggered as soon as the technician was there for more than an hour. Interesting explanation considering that $417 would imply 3 hours of labor despite the fact that the technician was at our home for roughly an hour.
The next explanation was that actually $278 was the "minimum" charge and that this had supposedly been disclosed to us when we originally scheduled the appointment. It was not. Had we been told that the minimum charge was $278, we would not have scheduled the service call in the first place. Not to mention that every explanation we received from the office conveniently failed to address the fundamental issue: we did NOT authorize the repairs in the first place.
On Wednesday, 8/19, my husband finally had the opportunity to speak with the owner, Kip Gerner. His proposed resolution was a $50 CREDIT to our account. We told him that this was not a fair resolution and that we wanted a refund. Kip said he would think about it and get back to us.
Later that same day, he left a voicemail stating that he was willing to consider a larger credit, but the voicemail ended abruptly. We called Gerner less than 10 minutes after Kip left the voicemail and were told that he was "too busy" to speak with us now and that he would give us a call back later.
It is now Friday and we have not heard from him.
At this point, the money isn't even the most concerning part. It is the complete lack of trust created by this experience.
We agreed to a $139 diagnostic visit after being explicitly told we would receive a quote before repairs. Instead, repairs were performed without a quote or approved price and $417 was charged to our card. When we questioned it, we received changing explanations for the bill, offers of a future account credit instead of an actual refund, and finally a promise from the owner to follow up that he simply did not keep.
We gave Gerner multiple opportunities to explain the charge and make this right. They chose not to.
If you are considering using Gerner Energy, I would strongly suggest saving yourself the headache and calling someone else. read more
