This is a recap of a letter I sent in desperation to a local news station who is supposed to help consumers but I have heard nothing back for them so I am writting this to you.
We just purchased a new home in November and I have exhausted every avenue trying to get our Home Warranty from HWA Home Warranty of America to honor our contract for a leak we have in our heating system and the following is a statement of facts of just some of the actions I have taken in this process. We are getting our home ready to occupy on February 1. We hope you can help us because this has been so stressful that both my husband and I have become ill in the process.
HWA Home warranty of America has been stalling me with a leak that I have in our new home. I submitted a claim on January 10 and I can't get anyone to call me back. I have tried at least 4 times to try to get to a supervisor but they keep telling me that is not possible and I have to deal with the customer service reps. I am supposed to be covered for the leak in my condensation pipes due to improper installation. I have done everything they have asked and have sent (4 times now), my complete Home Inspection Report that we had done prior to purchasing this home in November. They keep telling me that their claims department has to review it to make sure it was not reported as a problem in that inspection, which it was not. Everything with the heating system was working fine until we discovered a leak on the plywood sub-floor in the basement. Now we are concerned about mold forming.
Here is the breakdown of events to date.
January 10 I called to request a service call and I was referred to Hug Plumbing. I waited for 3 days and never got a call so I called HWA back and told them it was unacceptable that no one had called me and I reminded them that this was a leak. They told me they would call out another HVAC contractor “Guerneville Guys” and they should be in contact with me soon. A few hours later Guerneville Guys called me and scheduled an appointment. They came out and met with my husband at the new house. They told him that the heater had been installed improperly and was too close to the wall and had to be moved in order to fix the leak. They said that they would need to get approval from HWA before they could fix the problem. My husband tried to pay them but they did not accept American Express so they left. I waited another few days and called them back to see what was planned and I was told that I would have to call HWA for their decision but that they thought HWA was not going to cover it.By this time a week had gone by. I called HWA and they told me that our problem was pre existing so they would not cover us to fix the problem. They then told me that Guerneville Guys (GG’s) were supposed to have given me the decision and I told them the story GG’s had given me. They would not consider the claim any further.
A week later I received an email stating that I owed HWA $60 for the service fee. When I called HWA I complained that the GG’s had done nothing but take one look at our heater and tell us that it was installed wrong. Then the service rep told me that my Home Warranty policy had been canceled due to non - payment of the service fee. I was outraged because the GG’s had not even billed us for the fee and had refused to take the credit card my husband offered to pay them with. HWA had just canceled our policy that we paid about $560 for in escrow. I asked to speak to a supervisor and she refused. I agreed to pay the $60 fee on my VISA card to get our policy reinstated but told them I was angry that they never even gave us a chance to even pay the fee before they canceled our policy without any notice. It was then that the rep Juana Garcia @ ext 735, told me that I had purchased the orange plus protection and she thought our claim should be covered by that extra coverage we purchased for improper installation and as long as I paid the $60 service call fee they would open the claim up again. This was Thursday Jan. 24. She asked me to send them the Home Inspection which I immediately sent off to her. I called her back to make sure that she had received it but she did not answer her phone and never called me back to confirm she received it. So I called again and left another message for her which was also never returned. And then I called a third time two hours later with no response.
The next day, January 25, I called the main number again (888) 492-7359 and was connected to Aaron @ ext #859. I was told that Juana did not work on Fridays and that she would return on Saturday. I said OK can you tell me if my Home Inspection had been received and he said that it did not show up in the system so I asked if I could send it again. This time I sent it to [email protected] for the second time. He said that would insure the Home Inspection was received by the claims department and let me know because Juana had me send it to her attention on Thursday the 24th as follows: [email protected]. I waited and received no response then I called back and spoke to Lisa Hoelscher @ extension 850. She also said that she did not show that anyone from the claims department had received the home Inspection and would I send it again this time to her attention so for the third time I sent it to [email protected]. I asked a second time to speak with a supervisor and was told that was not possible at their company and that I just had to wait for someone from the claims department to review our Home Inspection report and then would decide if we were covered. I reminded her that this was a leak that had been called in on January 10. She empathized with me but said it had to go through the process to be considered. I asked if they would email me with their decision and she said that it is their policy to not put anything in writing and that they would call me with the decision.
I waited until January 26th to call Juana Garcia back since she works on Saturday but she did not answer her phone and never called me back nor did I receive any calls from HWA’s claims dept. This is a leak and getting worse by the day! I think they want us to take care of it ourselves because then they can deny the claim for the fact that we already had it fixed without their permission even though we should be covered. I am also not happy with the contractors they have working for them as the first one Hugs Plumbing never even called me and the (GG’s) solution to fix a leaking pipe was to remove the heater and relocate it further away from the wall so they could get to it. That seems to me like the tail wagging the dog!
So we need your help desperately before we have a huge problem made worse by all of these delays for almost 3 weeks. My insurance does not cover mold so this is a big concern with the water standing on the wood subfloor in our basement. Can you help us? We have been turned over to so many people that seem to do nothing to get our claim reviewed or insure us that the Home Inspection report has in fact been received for review. No one follows up on anything there and they refuse to let me speak to a supervisor despite me asking for one each time I call in. I have never dealt with such an unethical company in my life!
January 29
I have been trying for days to reach 7 on your side about an urgent problem with Home Warranty of America. Your link does not seem to work and I have even tried to email you using regular email instead of your link. (HWA) Home Warranty of America is a despicable company to do business with and I have been trying since January 10 to get them to fix a problem leak in our house that is supposed to be covered. First they denied me and never told me that I was denied. They just kept me waiting and waiting until I called back to complain. Long story short, I was finally approved for the claim on Monday, January 28. The HVAC Vendor they use is Guerneville Guys, who were not returning my calls to them to get an update as to when they were coming out to finish the job. I finally got through to then on an alternate phone number and Guerneville Guys just told me that they had not been paid by Home Warranty of America for their service call and that they were notorious for not paying in a timely manner so they will not help us at all until they get the $60 we already paid Home Warranty of America for their service call. I did not think it was very professional of Guerneville Guys to leave a customer waiting without any communication especially with a leak happening. They also do business as Rainbow Comfort. I also found out from HWA Home Warranty of America that they no longer use Hug Plumbing and Heating any longer and that they would need to find a new vendor for us.
Home Warranty of America needs to be called on the carpet for their unethical business practices and need to have the Attorney General Investigate their business practices. Seven on your side is my only recourse at this point and I really need their help! I have a leak that is going to cause serious damage if it is not fixed soon. Home Warranty of America had the nerve to tell me that they would not cover secondary damages due to problems caused by the original problem! And they are the ones to cause the water damage problem by not responding in a timely manner and taking care of the leak. Please help me. I will never ever use Home Warranty of America HWA again and will tell everyone I can what they did to try to get out of honoring their warranty that we paid $550 for in escrow when we purchased this home. I am praying that I get a response from you.
I can only estimate the damages at this point because no one will get back to me. We have paid $60 to just get the HVAC contractor to come out and look at the leak. Now there is water leaking and adding to the damages we will be forced to seek besides repairing the installation of the heater. The cost of the policy was $550 and seems to be useless. There needs to be regulation on these home Warranty companies as to the amount of time they can take to respond to problems that are supposed to be covered. They should be regulated in similar fashion to the insurance industry.
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