I called this company on Monday 10/31 to service my air conditioner that was not blowing cold. They told me that the service call would be $45. I agreed.
Their technicians arrived and identified that my A/C system had a faulty capacitor. They also told me that I required a hard start kit to get my compressor to kick on. Next their technicians told me that my system was low on Freon. Then they told me that they performed a leak check on my system and that I had a valve that was leaking and I needed to replace it. They said they were not going to charge me the $180 for the leak check. They told me that my system took five pounds of Freon, but at no point did they use a Freon scale or show me evidence. To tell you the truth I never saw them hook up the Freon tank to charge my system. Their technicians were at my home for a total of 35-40 minutes. I complained to them that I thought the $555 they were charging me was really high. They then said we are only going to charge you for four pounds of Freon. The technicians then wrote their cell phone number on my invoice and told me that they did work on the side for much less and next time I should just call them directly. At this point I lost all trust in these technicians.
One of my neighbors works in HVAC and when he got home I asked him to come and take a look at my system. He informed me that my air conditioning system holds no more than ten pounds total and that it would have been not cooling very well at all if it was missing half of its Freon. He told me that it was impossible for my system to have taken five pounds. He then asked me if it was blowing any cooler at the vents. We went inside and there was no temperature difference at the vents. He told me if they added five pounds which equals fifty percent of the total Freon in my system, I would for sure be able to tell a difference.in addition I work at home and sit under an A/C vent. I am very cold natured and I can tell no difference. When I told him about the technicians offering to do work on the side he told me that a lot of untrustworthy technicians who do side work will lie about putting Freon in a system so they can steal it and use it on one of their side installation jobs behind their companies backs.
I then asked about the other repairs that they performed and he informed me that I did not need the hard start kit and that it is really just an optional item. I was sold it by the technicians and told that I needed it for my system to come on. At that moment my neighbor removed the hard start kit and showed me that my air conditioner ran perfectly fine without it. He then looked at the valve they replaced and informed me that it was not indeed replaced.in addition he told me that valve takes less than a minute to install and the part costs less than $3. I was charged $125 for this. He said there was no way that they performed a leak check because that takes more than an hour and they have to completely pump out all of the Freon and pull a vacuum on the tubes to find the leak. It was his professional opinion that I got ripped off. He told me that I only needed a new capacitor and that was it. He explained these service technicians get paid a low hourly rate and then they get paid a 10% commission on everything they sell. This means they are in the business of selling you things that you do not need so they make the commissions.
I called several Other HVAC companies, explaining the story and every single one of the company owners that I spoke to told me again that I got ripped off. They told me that there was no way my system took five pounds of Freon if it was cooling fine before the capacitor went out and that Cool Air USA just ran the bill up with frivolous charges. Not one contractor told me that my system taking five pounds was a possibility. Do not call these guys!!! They will rip you off the same way they ripped me off!!!
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