AAA AUGER Plumbing Services

I was impressed with the quality of work, and how Mr [redacted] listen to my concern and offered the best solution to the problem I had explained to him that I had call another company I will never do that again So I recommend AAA Auger they are best!!

Complaint: [redacted] I am rejecting this response because: The explanation does NOT explain why I would have been charged such an incredible labor fee if the work completedIt is a water heater,not a car! The fact is the technician wrote an invoice with the amount of $ That means I would be obligated to pay that amount after work was completed on the water heater that was under warranty [redacted] warranty department stated to me that they pay the plumbing company for repairs, labor and all The consumer is not to pay anything out of pocket You can't tell me your business practice, in this case, was not unethical! Regards, [redacted]

Once again, Ms. [redacted] responded before talking with me. We finally did speak, but not until she responded twice here in writing. Here is her second response: "I am rejecting this response because: The explanation does NOT explain why I would have been charged such an incredible labor fee if the work completed. It is a water heater,not a car! The fact is the technician wrote an invoice with the amount of $387.50. That means I would be obligated to pay that amount after work was completed on the water heater that was under warranty. [redacted] warranty department stated to me that they pay the plumbing company for repairs, labor and all. The consumer is not to pay anything out of pocket. You can't tell me your business practice, in this case, was not unethical! Regards, [redacted] " When Ms. [redacted] and I did speak, I told her that there was a mistake on our part, that we incorrectly left out [redacted] as the customer, and that would have precluded her from any charges, since we do their warranty work. Now that I see her second response, I would like to further clear things up. First of all: AAA AUGER goes to a service call, at no charge, evaluate the situation and then provide upfront charges to the customer. Once Authorized to start by having the customer sign our upfront charges, our plumber begins the work. Since Ms. [redacted] did not wish to begin the work, our plumber left. No money exchanged hands. That's the procedure we've used for over fifty years. As for the remarks about the "incredible labor fees", AAA AUGER has a pricing menu based on market analysis of competitive pricing, parts, labor, insurance, etc. - the price of doing business. We believe our pricing is fair and competitive. We employ licensed plumbers who have spent thousands of hours developing their trade. That's why we have no service charge - basically a customer can call us to find out what's wrong with their plumbing, and get a "free estimate" on what the repair is, dismiss us, and then call another company to shop our price. To be fair, if Ms. [redacted] has a problem with what we charge, I suggest she call another company to see what they charge. We're all governed by the TSBPE. That entity would know if we are being unethical. But the bottom line here is that we made an honest error, no money exchanged hands and we didn't take advantage of her. [redacted] Business Manager

8/20/
Call before 10;with a water leak in the front yard, and had it fixed by a very amazing plumber named Darrell who showed up in earlier afternoon and got a amazing low price*** was very professional and friendly and efficient *** B

Consumer...

Info:                                     �...⇄ March 2, 2016 [redacted]                                   ...⇄ Case # [redacted]   To:  Revdex.com [redacted]     On Monday, February 22nd, 2016 [redacted] approached one of our plumbers (AAA AUGER) [redacted]z (J-35776) while he was working at a neighbor’s home.  She stated that she had a water leak at her home and if he would come over and shut off the water to her home.  [redacted] was happy and kind enough to oblige [redacted] request.    AAA AUGER sent another plumber [redacted]J-43672), to as and fix [redacted] water leak.   When [redacted] arrived, the water to home was still shut off.  He turned water on and was able to identify leak on water heater expansion tank.  [redacted] turned the water back off and installed ¾ iron pipe plug in place of the thermal expansion tank to stop water damage until a permanent repair could be made. He gave [redacted] up front charges for the repair and price was agreed upon.  [redacted] returned the following day (Tuesday, Feb 23rd) and replaced both faulty expansion tanks.  He tested the home’s water pressure.  It tested at 85 PSI and Plumber adjusted the pressure reducing valve to 80 PSI as per plumbing code.  He pressurized the expansion tank bladder to 85 PSI.  He turned off the water to the water heaters at water heater inlet shut off valve and depressurized the tanks by opening temperature / pressure relief valve He replaced the expansion tank and determined that second expansion tank was also faulty and not working properly.  He replaced second tank as well.    After repairs to expansion tanks were done [redacted] ask [redacted] if there was any additional work that she would like him to address.  She said that she had a leak under the hall bath lavatory sink, but she informed [redacted] that she was having her warranty plumbing company come out and look at it.  [redacted] said he would gladly take a look at the leaking lavatory and let [redacted] know what needed to be done.  While testing hot water at sink, the water turned a reddish color and lost pressure. He then checked Powder room lavatory faucet and found similar results.  He disconnected the supply line and determined obstruction was in the piping, and not the fixture.  At this time [redacted] was still unclear of what the reddish discharge was.  He would later realize that it was media (resin) coming from [redacted] ruptured water softener.   [redacted] checked all fixture and found that affected lavatories were hall bath, kitchen sink, powder room and daughter’s bathroom.  At this time [redacted] started the process of blowing the obstructions from the lines.  At [redacted] instruction [redacted] was to return to complete work clearing lines on Thursday, Feb. 25th.   On Thursday, Feb. 25th [redacted] called to inform AAA AUGER that she had a second opinion from “Second Opinion Plumbing”.  According to her they stated that we caused the softener media (resin) by turning the water on incorrectly.   AAA AUGER sent out Jaime Smith (M-38142) to help access her plumbing issue. Upon arrival [redacted] requested that he replace the faulty water softener and flush out the resin from the lines and she should not be charged for the work.    [redacted] explained to [redacted] that the water softener did not fail due to our first plumbers ([redacted]) work, but was caused by an over pressure situation that resulted from thermal expansion.  [redacted] did not except [redacted]’s diagnoses and felt that the problem occurred when [redacted] repaired her faulty thermal expansion tanks.  [redacted] stated again that she had two other plumbing companies’ opinions that AAA AUGER caused the issue by turning on the water to fast and caused the resin tank to burst and or rupture sending resin beads into the system.  [redacted] was unwilling to except [redacted]’s explanation of what actually caused the water softener failure.   AAA AUGER’s diagnosis was that from the facts available, when the expansion tanks failed (one was leaking from the top of the top of the expansion tank, indicating that there was no air in the tank) the plumbing system no longer had any protection against thermal expansion and an over pressure situation existed in the cold loop from the water softener to the cold supply on the water heaters.  The system was now a closed system because a PRV (Pressure Reducing Valve) existed in the domestic waterline at the meter (some water softeners can also close the system, depending upon the type of valves installed by the manufacturer). This over pressure situation damaged the water softener and caused it to fail.   AAA AUGER has given [redacted] options and pricing to correct the problem and she declined.   I contacted [redacted] via phone and she was not interested in talking to me regarding the situation.    Thank you for your help regarding this matter,   [redacted] COO AAA AUGER

AAA AUGER Plumbing Services sincerely apologizes for any misunderstanding we may have caused Ms [redacted].   Our Customer Service Creed states that our customer deserves prompt, consistent, and thorough communication. Our Creed also states that our customer deserve value for his/her money.  ...

 After carefully looking at this situation, I feel that we missed on both of those target goals.  We did not communication properly the full detail of the job and what it would cost the fix the plumbing issue and we also did not meet the target goal of proving value for our services.   [redacted] (Business Manager) gave Ms [redacted] a call to discuss the issue and apologized.  After speaking with her, he wrote her a refund check for $250.00 and delivered to her personally today.

I was impressed with the quality of work, and how Mr [redacted] listen to my concern and offered the best solution to the problem. I had explained to him that I had call another company I will never do that again. So I recommend AAA Auger they are best!!

Compliant ID [redacted]Revdex.comTo Whom it May Concern,The landlord, [redacted], called AAA AUGER on Thursday to schedule a plumber to look at the water heater located at [redacted]. The call was scheduled for after 4 pm. My office called Ms. [redacted] at 4:32 pm...

to inform her that we were running behind schedule. She provided the number to reach Mr. [redacted] at that time and requested that we contact him. My office did contact him immediately after and informed him of the scheduling conflict at that time. We kept him on the schedule in hopes that plumber would finish the job he was currently on and send him to Mr. [redacted] after. We called Mr. [redacted] again as a courtesy around 6 pm and at 7 pm to let him know he still has not freed up. At that time my office asked if it would be acceptable to reschedule the call for the next day. Mr. [redacted] informed my office that he would only be available between 12 and 1 pm. Because of the nature of our business, we are unable to set an appointment and he opted to have the plumber come out on Saturday instead. My office set up the call for Saturday at his request, this is why there was no contact with him on Friday.Saturday morning before 8 am my office called and spoke to [redacted]. We informed her that we would get a plumber out as soon as we could. [redacted] received another call around 11:30 letting her know we were still waiting on the plumber to free up. Immediately after, Mr. [redacted] called our office and became belligerent and began cursing at the dispatcher. The dispatcher did hang up on him while he was cursing at him. The dispatcher called me and he called the Quality Control Manager to inform us of the situation. The Quality Control Manager called Mr. [redacted] so he could help to diffuse the situation. Mr. [redacted] also cursed him out although he was trying to help. We did send out a plumber at 2:24 pm Saturday afternoon, free of charge. He looked at the water heater and saw an error code. He did some investigating by checking the electricity and the gas going to the water heater. While checking he found that there was no gas going to the water heater. He reattached the pipe and went outside to check the gas meter. He found the gas meter to be locked out by the gas company. There was not a red tag, that told him is was not locked due to a leak. The lock was on the meter due to non payment of the gas service. My plumber informed both Mr. [redacted] and [redacted] of what he found. He also checked the other appliances that used gas and found them not working either. Neither Mr. [redacted] nor [redacted] were charged for the service call or the investigation.  There was no exchange of monies.We do apologize for the inconvenience on the scheduling, however Mr. [redacted] was kept informed during the entire process. We do take our customer service very seriously, therefore all of our calls inbound and outbound are recorded and are available for your review upon request.  [redacted]Business Manager

There seems to be an initial error in procedures from our side that does not involve any actual intentional unethical practices, . The plumber's invoice
did not include any reference to [redacted] which would have instructed him to exclude any charges to the resident. Please see
attached copy...

of invoice. Certainly, AAA AUGER would not require any payment from the resident if we would be charging [redacted].
I truly wish Ms. [redacted] would have called us the day we were out there (Monday 10/20) and we could have avoided any incident. I did receive a call from
Ms. [redacted] on Friday, 10/24  and returned her call  at 3:00 PM. that same day. We unfortunately never spoke.
I can only apologize that we made a mistake, but please know we had  no intent to take advantage of Ms. [redacted]. We haven't been in business over 50 years
by practicing unethical methods of making money.
[redacted]

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:It is unfortunate that aaa auger has failed to apologize for the disservice and disrespect shown to my wife and we completely reject their premise that they did not cause the issue through the actions of their employees.  We have indeed contacted the Texas State Board of Plumbing and, along with that, we have no choice but to continue to let our issues become known with others in our community and throughout the real estate industry so that others don't have the same experience.  Their claims of not being responsible, as well as, the way they rejected the promises made to my wife (both to fix the issue and to not bring to our house the original plumber who's actions caused the major issue that we had to later pay to fix with a plumber who understood what had happened) were less than admirable for a company claiming to provide good customer service.We thank the Revdex.com for being in the business of resolution and for the service it provides to future potential victims so that they are not placed in the same positions as those who were harmed previously.  At this point we can see that aaa auger will do whatever it can to redirect blame for destroying a 4 year old water softener and two 4 year old water heaters, while also seriously impacting the entire plumbing system of our home.  While we would like them to take responsibility to fix the issues, getting the word out to others through sources such as the Revdex.com may be our only recourse at this time.  We would ask that the Revdex.com notifies us if aaa auger continues to make their flawed claims and we would further ask that the Revdex.com lets us know if any legal recourse would undo the complaint we have made, and will continue to make, to the Revdex.com as we cannot allow others to be drawn into this same type of reckless behavior and costly results.
Regards,
[redacted]

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:
The explanation does NOT explain why I would have been charged such an incredible labor fee if the work completed. It is a water heater,not a car!  The fact is the technician wrote an invoice with the amount of $387.50.  That means I would be obligated to pay that amount after work was completed on the water heater that was under warranty. [redacted] warranty department stated to me that they pay the plumbing company for repairs, labor and all.  The consumer is not to pay anything out of pocket.  You can't tell me your business practice, in this case, was not unethical!
Regards,
[redacted]

Consumer Info:                                                                                                                April 5, 2016[redacted]                                                                                                                   Case # [redacted] To:  Revdex.comAAA AUGER encouraged Mr. and [redacted] to contact the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners, which they have done.  A board inspector has contacted us and they will thoroughly investigate the situation and report their findings.  As we have stated there is nothing that we could have done to cause the problems that occurred.  Regardless, we look forward to getting this resolved.  We never shirk our responsibility and should the TSBPE find that we caused any of your other issues, we will certainly and happily make you whole.[redacted]

Once again, Ms. [redacted] responded before talking with me. We finally did speak, but not until she responded twice here in writing.
 Here is her second response:
"I am rejecting this response because:
The explanation does NOT explain why I would have been charged such an incredible labor fee if the work completed. It is a water heater,not a car!  The fact is the technician wrote an invoice with the amount of $387.50.  That means I would be obligated to pay that amount after work was completed on the water heater that was under warranty. [redacted] warranty department stated to me that they pay the plumbing company for repairs, labor and all.  The consumer is not to pay anything out of pocket.  You can't tell me your business practice, in this case, was not unethical!
Regards,
[redacted] "
When Ms. [redacted] and I did speak, I told her that there was a mistake on our part, that we incorrectly left out [redacted] as the customer, and that would have precluded her from any charges, since we do their warranty work. Now that I see her second response, I would like to further clear things up. First of all: AAA AUGER goes to a service call, at no charge, evaluate the situation and then provide upfront charges to the customer.
Once Authorized to start by having the customer sign our upfront charges, our plumber begins the work. Since Ms. [redacted] did not wish to begin the work, our plumber left. No money exchanged hands. That's the
procedure we've used for over fifty years. As for the remarks about the "incredible labor fees", AAA AUGER has a pricing menu based on market analysis of competitive pricing, parts, labor, insurance, etc. - the price of doing business. We believe our pricing is fair and competitive. We employ licensed plumbers who have spent thousands of hours developing their trade. That's why we have no service charge - basically a customer can call us to find out what's wrong with their plumbing, and get a "free estimate" on what the repair is, dismiss us, and then call another company to shop our price. To be fair, if Ms. [redacted] has a problem with what we charge, I suggest she call another company to see what they charge. We're all governed by the TSBPE. That entity would know if we are being unethical. But the bottom line here is that we made an honest error, no money exchanged hands and we didn't take advantage of her.                
[redacted]              
Business Manager

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:
We apologize for not responding earlier, but we were out of town the past two weeks and the request must have been lost in our email system as we do not recall seeing it. That said, we completely disagree with the incomplete and inaccurate account presented by AAA Auger.  Many of the facts are there, but the simple fact is that AAA Auger caused the issue by not pressurizing the system correctly and it occurred exactly when they were working on the system with no previous issues ever encountered prior to their work. We are most certainly not satisfied with the way they want to charge us to fix the system and we will never be as we have already hired another reputable plumber to fix the issues their apparently less than competent plumbers created.  Not only did they create the issue, they did not even have a clue what the issue was after the fact.  The plumber we used to fix it knew within 2 minutes of entering our house, simply by looking at what was coming out of the hot water pipes. AAA Auger has cost us a bunch of time and money.  Yes, they did come over quickly to turn off the water at the street and we appreciate that part, but everything after that point was a horrible experience where they caused more issues than they could resolve which has cost us greatly to replace two water heaters which were ruined by their actions as well as the water softener.  Please keep in mind the house is only 4 years old, so their claim that the equipment was faulty is also just a diversionary tactic to not stand up for the errors they caused. Please contact me at [redacted] if you have any further questions. Thank you, [redacted]

We run sewer machines down thousands of lines a year and have never seen an instance where the vibrations have knocked anything off a wall.  Our technician did act appropriately as far as what openings he ran his equipment through.  When water was ran through the kitchen sink/washing machine it backed up in the bathroom.  This is proved by the fact that when we ran the washing machine through a spin cycle to see if we had cleared the drain, it backed up in the bathroom which lead to us having the carpet cleaning company come out to clean it up.  At this point just to get this issue resolved I would be willing to do one of two things.  As an act of good will/customer service I would be willing to cut [redacted] a check for $ [redacted] that should could apply towards what she paid for her cabinets.  This is not an admission of guilt as AAA AUGER is adamant that there was no negligence or errors made on our end to cause the cabinet to fall.  If [redacted] rejects this offer then I will be more than happy to furnish her a copy of our general liability insurance.  She should understand that we are not authorizing a claim to be made on our insurance, rather, simply fulfilling her request for a copy of the information.

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because: I will take the information for their liability insurance. But it is up to the insurance company if they pay or not. It is not up to the company. If the insurance co. does not accept the claim then we will still have a problem. 
Regards,
[redacted]