Nicor sent out post cards to customers (this one is my mother in law) for
"complimentary fixed bill furnace and water heater peak performance tune up. This service, which can retail for up to 100.00, is yours at no charge as part of your nicor solutions fixed bill agreement."
Mother in law called for the service, why not its paid for right? Guy comes out from Hawthorne Heating (Nicor owned company i discovered) opens furnace, looks in for 30 seconds and tells her there is a crack in the heat exchanger and will be 400.00 to fix. Mother in law called the local heating co. That she has used for years to rip them for not catching problem when they were out in fall for the regular work they do for her. Owner of regular co. Called and said will send tech to double check Nicor employee findings at no charge. She called me upset because the nicor guy scared the crap out of her saying she could DIE. Told her to calm down and will come over to take a look. The man from the local company was there when i got there and showed me the area that was said to be cracked. Pointed out that there was a gouge from what looked to be a screw driver or tool. Said there is no crack and he was of the opinion that the Nicor guy put that there to generate some $ for his company. I personally work on cars for a living and have an idea of what im looking at with mechanical things and it did indeed look to be a fresh scratch. Asked the worker how he can be absolutely sure there was no crack. He then started up furnace and used a gas detector to check. Showed me the reading and was not high at all. He also put a camera up into the furnace to check everything for problems and showed me the image and told me what i should be looking for, again everything looked fine. Told him that i was pretty convinced but was still concerned, he called his boss to see if he would personally come out and examine the furnace and have a 2nd opinion. Owner told worker to put me on the phone, spoke with the owner about my worries and he offered to pay for any company with a clean BBB report to check out the unit again to remove any doubt, so it would not look like they were covering there own butts.
Owner also explained Nicor has bought up numerous local heating companies, markets their gas customers with low quality services if not out right fraud. He even knew the the Nicor guy did not even finish checking the furnace or water heater, the card for the service was just a ruse to get in the house and make some $. Also commented that he has been at local meetings and seminars where the guys that work for the Heating companies owned by Nicor brag about how they screw customers.
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