Air Care Inc

Review: We contacted this company and explained that we had a water leak in our chimney area and asked if that was something they did. They responded that they had folks on their staff who were experienced in that area and we scheduled an appointment. The service technician was at our location for one hour and was assisted by me. It was determined that the problem was that some of the seams needed more caulk and new caulk applied in the chimney area that had not had caulk in the past.. Two tubes of caulk were used in the repair.

Upon completion of the caulking the technician completed the bill and presented it it me. When I reviewed the bill I was charged $92.00 for the labor and a fee of $78.00 for a trip charge along with $16.00 for the caulk. When I asked about the trip charge I was told that it was necessary per company policy, but that if I had a issue with it I should contact the company for resolution. I then contacted the company by phone and explained that this amounted to a hourly rate of $170.00, which was excessive. The billing department informed me that they had labor costs and needed to cover the time spent on the job. My response was that the $92.00 for the labor covered the labor cost and the added fee of $78.00 was never outlined to us when the appointment was set up. Our home is 8/10th of a mile from the Air Care facility.

I then wrote a letter to the owner of the company requesting a review of the situation and to contact me to explain the cost of $170.00 for the one hour of work and the fact that after the next rain we continued to have a water leak in the same area. That letter was mailed to the owner on July 29th and the call to the billing department was onJuly 8th. As of this date we have not received any response. In addition, we did pay the full bill of $196.23 prior to my letter being sent to the owner.

In summary, we were fully prepared to pay for the technical services provided by this company and did pay the bill. However, the business practice of not disclosing a add-on trip fee for a local scheduled appointment with an identified problem is "stealing" from the consumer. Their lack of response and blatant disregard for the high cost is unacceptable. We truly believe the trip charge should be refunded at the very least, even ignoring the fact that the problem they came to the house to repair was not corrected.

Business

Response:

With respect to customer concern ID [redacted], kindly see the attached correspondence to Mr. [redacted] dated 8/8/14 and authored that evening… and which was mailed on Monday, 8/11/14.

It is likely that that Mr. [redacted] had not yet received our correspondence when the complaint was submitted on 8/11/14 at 3:49:39 pm.

In the correspondence, we invite the resolution desired by Mr. [redacted].

If you will kindly advise, please, we’ll be most appreciative.

Thank you.

[redacted], founder

Consumer

Response: