My water heater was beginning to leak and I called this company. They promptly dispatched 2 service men. The service techs showed up and determined that yes indeed I needed a new unit. They placed a hose to drain the water heater and told me they would be back later after the unit had drained. They DID NOT say they were going then to pick up a new water heater. If they had done so, I would have told them I needed to be thrifty in the choice.
One hour later they showed back up with a new hot water heater. They changed the units out, loaded my old one in the truck and came back in and told me they were finished. I asked them if I need to pay them and the replied, "NO, you will be getting a bill." At this point I inquired if I needed to sign off on anything which they also said no to.
Ten days later, I received a service invoice and imagine my shocked surprise to find out that I owed almost $800.00! Not having this amount of money, I wrote out a $200.00 check and sent a letter explaining my situation and letting the company know that I would have to make payments on the bill. My check was cashed and I received no correspondence from the company. I made payments on this for 4 months and just as I was about to write my final payment I received a personal call from the owner of the company telling me that when I made my last payment I needed to include a hefty late charge because "they didn't take payments." I let him know that the time to be telling me that was when I first sent my letter and payment because he could have refused my payment and let me know that he had to have the full amount. Also, he cashed all of my subsequent payments, therefore I felt he had in effect agreed to the terms of my letter.
He was very hateful, threatened legal action and told me I was stupid because the service invoice clearly stated that there was a late charge assessed if the bill was not paid within 5 days of service. I responded to this with the fact that I was not in receipt of the service invoice until almost 2 weeks after the work was done, therefore, I couldn't have complied even if I had the means to do so.
This business owner was not happy to receive a grossly inflated cost of his service. I checked in several local hardware stores and found heaters for around $200.00 which means that his service for putting it in was about $600.00 for an hours work.
Unethical, unprofessional and ungrateful for a customer handling their debt in a reliable and timely manner.
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