The spring on our garage door broke on a Saturday morning. I was at an exercise class and my husband - instead of checking the yellow pages - called Information and asked for a company that fixes garage doors and was told Garage Door Service Company. He was quoted a price of $188 for a single spring, plus service call, plus labor. The guy tried to talk him into a double spring for over $500, which he declined. He did the work in less than 30 minutes and charged almost $400 (the labor charge for less than 30 minutes was $145, I don't know how they can justify that or why my husband did not question that ludicrous amount). When I got home I thought the price he paid was excessive and called around several places to hear numerous times that the price for replacing a spring was around $200 which includes the service call and labor. I was furious and on Monday morning stopped payment on the check and called the company.
They told me to call back at 4:30 to talk to the "night manager." I called back later that afternoon and told them I was not happy with the price. The guy I spoke to, "Christopher", was rude from the start. And when I told him I had stopped payment on the check and wanted to negotiate a more reasonable rate closer to $200 he became irate and said, "now we're talking about theft by check", and he threatened legal action, affidavits, and police. I explained that it's any customer's perogative to stop payment on a check when they are not happy with the service or the charges and he started screaming that my husband had signed (altho our copy is NOT signed) and we owe the money or legal action would be taken immediately. I told him they were obviously unreputable and I'd be calling the Better Business Bureau and the TV stations consumer advocates to report their excessive prices and horrendous customer service.
The threats started again and I hung up. The next day my husband called them and Christopher told him him that I had "totally lost it" when talking to him. He told my husband that they'd take $50 off the price. My husband sent them another check, which I was unhappy about, but at this point I'll have to chalk it up to a loss. (And I advised my husband to NEVER call 411 to get that kind of info - to check the yellow pages, get a couple of quotes, or wait for me to get home so I could handle it in the future!!!) It was a disastrous experience. I'm a Senior Human Resources Manager for one of the largest global corporations in the world and have hired thousands of people over many years. Christopher is in desperate need of some customer service coaching, if not firing! He was the absolute worst I've ever encountered!!
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