CPR Plumbing was sent to my house by AAA Homeowners Insurance to fix a water pipe leak in our home. They arrived at 3 PM to detect the leak. At 3:05 PM the leak was found to be in a pipe on the front yard. As our homeowner's insurance does not cover outside leaks we enquired about their rate and decided to get the job done since they were already there. Their hourly rate was $109 for first hour and $90 for subsequent hours. They left at 3:30PM to get parts and came back at 4:15PM and completed the job at 5:00PM. When I got the bill I found that they charged for 3 hours of labor (2:15 PM to 5:15PM). I was told that it was their policy that they start charging from the time they leave for the job and includes the time that is required to get supplies. I did not understand why they did not have basic pipes and commectors in their huge plumbing truck. May be this is to rip off customers. At the end I ended up paying twice the amount that was logically supposed to be billed. The contact person at CPR Plumbing was Jennifer. She told me that is the way they bill the Insurance companies and that is the way they bill the homeowners. They did not bother to inform the customer of their policy before they start a private job! Also after the leak was found they were instructed fromn their office (by Jeniffer?) to go ahead and do the diagnostic for more leaks on the house (obviously to bill the Insurance company! Which will ultimately come out from my deductables!). At that point I decided to get my leak fixed by them.
This is totally unfair for the customers to pay twice the amount that are charged by local plumbers (I did call other plumbing companies for rates —AFTER THE FACT-just to make sure that I did get ripped off). The Insurance companies probably do not care since most of it is covered by the Homeowners Deductables. But something needed to be done to stop CPR Plumbing from keeping on doing this type of Malpractice.
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