I just stumbled across this site researching another miserable company entirely, but when I saw American Home Shield's ugly, evil, wretched name, I just HAD to tell this story.
I didn't purchase AHS's crappy home warranty. The sellers of my home purchased it as part of the sales agreement. We were first time home buyers, what did we know about home warranties? What could it hurt, we thought? And HA, we sure found out, and have managed to avoid bankruptcy by the hairs on our chinny chin chins.
AHS would, according to the policy we were given upon closing, pay for all repairs for air conditioning, electric, heating, cooktop/stove, dishwasher, disposal, plumbing, compactor, ductwork, and water heater for the period of one calendar year from the date of closing. Sounds good, doesn't it?
They would only charge us the lesser of $50 or the serviceperson's call fee. What a deal, we thought!
We called AHS when we had a giant leak at our kitchen sink. We paid the $50 service fee right upfront. And then, the AHS-sanctioned plumber informed us that faucets weren't covered under the AHS warranty. I looked over the policy, and sure enough, in teeny tiny little miniscule fine print on a page literally covered in fine print, faucets were not covered. Okay, my bad. (I guess I was supposed to pay for a private plumber to diagnose the condition and make sure it was covered under AHS before I actually called AHS. Like, duh.)
We called AHS a for the second time in July (with four months left on our warranty) when our central air conditioner gave up the ghost. They sent out a serviceman to diagnose the problem, and he told me the condenser was shot and recommended replacement of the unit, which would run about $2000. No problem, because I was using a magnifying glass to read the AHS policy this time and it said as plain as daylight that air conditioning was fully covered as long as it wasn't a wall/window unit.
The service technician called AHS and gave them the diagnosis. AHS no likey. AHS doesn't want to spend $2000 to repair a legally covered expense when the warranty only cost $450. How can they make money that way? So AHS sent out a different technician who made the exact same diagnosis (and charged us the $50 service fee AGAIN), so AHS agreed the unit needed to be replaced. End of story, right?
Oh, heck no.
After 1 month and no action, I called AHS, sweating like a goat in the August heat with no relief but a little box fan and demanded to know just when the heck they were planning on doing something about my air conditioning. And they tell me they're going to mail a check as soon as it's authorized by some big hoohah. Whatever.
September. No check for the repair. I call again and I'm informed that the check-cutting process takes 60 days from the date the file is opened. I say, it's been 60 days, where's the check? They say, the file wasn't opened until the second technician confirmed the need of replacement of the unit. GAH!
October. The air is feeling a bit nippy with the arrival of fall and I'm making my 2-year-old daughter wear two sweaters so she doesn't get chilled in the cold. No check for the repair. I call yet again. It's been more than 60 days since the file was opened. Winter is coming and I have no heat, people! Where is my @%&$ check?! There was an error in processing the claim, and the check will be cut at the beginning of the next cycle. And when is that, I ask, frustration pouring through the phone line in waves. At the beginning of November. Just ducky!
November. Winter is here early this year (already three snow storms) and I'm freezing. I sleep under three blankets. My daughter sleeps in my bed so we can share body heat. I wear my winter coat around the house. WHERE THE HECK IS MY CHECK! It's almost finished "processing". I make ugly threats about my lawyer making ugly phone calls and bark at the hapless idiot on the other end of the phone.
December. I'm running the emergency heat at full blast and the house is barely warm. Finally, FIVE MONTHS after I first called these wahoos, I get the repair check on December 13. It's only for $900.06.
Huh? The new unit is going to cost $2000. Why am I only getting $900.06? And where the heck am I going to find the other $1099.94?!
I call AHS and they inform me that the warranty only covers expenses up to $1500. I say, where is that mentioned in MY paperwork?! And anyway, if $1500 is covered, why am I only getting $900.06? Well, the $1500 is meant to cover TWO air-conditioning units. And I ask in complete incredulity, how many private homes do you know of that need TWO air-conditioning units? Run-around, talk to this supervisor who is out to lunch (for the next six months), write this letter that conveniently gets hijacked to Mars and never reaches AHS, leave this voice mail that gets sucked into the Black Void, and lordy, they're giving me less than half of what the new unit will cost. (That's not even counting installation, folks!)
Since I was running my emergency heat 24/7 so my toddler wouldn't freeze the next time she wet her diaper, our heating bill was outlandish. $300 for the month of November, $330 for the month of December, $290 for January (I turned the heat down to 60 despite the fact that the average daily temperature was 17 outside in order to trim the monster heating bills), $250 for February, $200 for March. Our heating bills, based on the previous winter, should have been $400 for all five of those months and was built into our budget.
Instead, we ended up having to pay $1370, over TRIPLE what it should have cost. We ended up having to use the check we got from AHS to pay for the heating bills that AHS's failure to fix our heat pump/air conditioning unit as warrantied caused us. Even that $900.06 left us short, and we got behind on the credit cards, who started getting surly and raising interest rates and tacking on penalties we could ill afford, and in December of we found ourselves mired in debt that was only worsened by the giant heating bills for the winter of 2004 (since we had to pay interest and penalties on the credit cards and didn't have ten cents to get a new heat pump).
By Spring 2004 the situation became desperate as all the accrued bills started making us late on the mortgage payments. It's taken us two very, VERY long hard years since then (and an absolute horror of declaring bankruptcy that helped us to sell practically everything we own of value) to get our financial health back. We couldn't even afford a lawyer to sue these miserable idiots.
Thank you, AHS. I have fed a family of three on $30 a week for two years. (We eat lots of pasta and hamburger and I only eat one meal a day.) I wear underwear with 2-inch holes in them because I can't afford to go to Wal-mart and spend $1.00 on new ones. My shoes have a giant crack across the sole that lets rainwater leak in, but I can't spare the $7.00 to get a new pair at KMart. I'm driving a sixteen year old car that makes threatening noises at me everytime I pull it out of the driveway, but I dare not go into debt to get a new car. (Like I'd even qualify with my shredded credit!)
Thanks so much for your outright corruption. You've cost my husband and I our credit ratings (which were STELLAR until I called you guys). I've been frozen for six months and dying of heat exhaustion for the other six for three years. I had to sell my wedding ring to pay the electric bill last winter.
It was only $1000 to you. To me? It was my life.
Nana
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.
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