Complaint / Review
A & E Factory Service
Can't or will not provide estimates before coming out

I am not saying that A & E Factory Service is a rip off, I just was cautious after reading so many complaints about their service so I called them and was frustrated by their call centers replies to my questions and canceled the appointment I had.

I made an appointment for my gas dryer to be repaired over the weekend through Whirlpool and was told to call A & E after the weekend to get the cost of the service call and confirm that they got the message of what part I knew I needed for sure.

When I called, the rep said that it would be a $65.00 service call and that I would receive an estimate from the technician at that time. Knowing for sure that I needed a part replaced (and I provided the part #) I simply asked if I could get an estimate over the phone for just that part & labor if indeed the technician found nothing else wrong.

He said "we are just a call center and can't do that, only the technician on site can do that". I told him I thought that I understood the technician could find something else wrong with the dryer and I would accept that, I just wanted to get an idea of the additional parts and labor costs based on what I knew I needed so I could figure out if it was even worth repairing.

Then he floored me with his reply of "Sorry again sir, but I can't do that and we NEVER listen to what a customer thinks they need, that's the technicians job".

LOL - I can understand that lots of consumers aren't experts, but if I know I need a $5.00 part and can maybe get lucky and not have to have the guy make 2 trips, cant they focus on the customer and at least say it will cost about this much sir and if you are wrong about the part, no returns! I could live with that!

So, canceled since I have no idea what their final charges could have approximately been and decided to buy mama a new one since the old one is about 12 years old.

I did suggest to the rep to tell his boss how they lost business as in these difficult economic times, it did not seem to me that A&E was customer focused at all based on my conversation with him.