Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because: PLEASE READ BELOW.
Regards,
[redacted] PLEASE SEE BELOW OUR POINT BY POINT RESPONSES TO THE Ed Phillips Plumbing RESPONSE: 1. ED PHILLIPS: " The customer called our office the morning of March 28 to schedule an appointment for a bathroom toilet valve that wasn’t working properly. An appointment was scheduled for the following morning. Upon arrival to the home the technician found that the homeowner’s wife had actually taken the toilet apart in an attempt to make the repair herself, but she was unable to figure out how to make the repair. The technician replaced fill valve (supplied by customer), flush valve, tank to bowl kit, and supply line and tested the toilet for proper function and to check for leaks. No problem was found at this time." OUR ANSWER: This is only partially true and not in regard to the critical details. It is true that we replaced the fill valve using a Fluidmaster kit that we purchased at Lowe's. We had very recently used the same Fluidmaster Kit to replace ourselves the fill valve in our master bathroom toilet, the repair was 100% successful & that toilet works perfectly. Although we were successful in replacing the fill valve using the FLUIDMASTER kit in the toilet which needed repair, when we turned the water on, the toilet was still leaking exactly as before, that is through the O-Ring connecting the tank to the bowl. At that point we realized that the problem was not with the fill valve kit that we had successfully replaced,but with THE CONNECTION OF THE TANK TO THE BOWL. We did not have the tools & know how to proceed further and MOST CERTAINLY we HAD NOT TAKEN THE TOILET APART OR DESTROYED it in any way. At that point we made a service call to Ed Phillips Plumbing asking themto advise us and repair the toilet if they could. A crew of two came, they disassembled the toilet for the FIRST time, disconnecting the tank from the lower part ,and they said that:Its repair is straightforward and it can be completed at a total cost of about 150 dollars including the costof the service call.We found this very reasonable and asked them to proceed with the repair.The crew replaced the leaking o-ring with their own part, and the fill valve using our Fluidmaster kit, as they say,it took about 15 minutes, more or less, they declared the toilet fully repaired & operational, they charged us around 150 andthey were PAID in FULL via CC. Within one or two hours after the Ed Phillips crew left the toilet started releasing water from the tank into the bowl every once in a while. We did not pay much attention at first because it happened at relatively long intervals.However the frequency got higher and higher as the days passed, and after a few days we called Ed Phillips Plumbing asking them TO COMPLETE THE REPAIR OF THE TOILET THAT THEY HAD DECLARED FIXED AND WERE PAID IN FULL FOR BUT THE TOILET WAS NOT REALLY WORKING PROPERLY WITHIN A COUPLE OF HOURS AFTER THEY COMPLETED THE REPAIR AND LEFT OUR HOME. 2. Regarding the reply about the SECOND service THERE ARE MANY CRITICAL INACCURACIES in the reply of ED PHILLIPS. To properly address them WE will break down his response and ANSWER POINT BY POINT.2a: ED PHILLIPS: "On the morning of April 4, the customer called the office to state that the toilet was running. We scheduled a technician to return to the home the following afternoon to check on the toilet. The technician changed out the flapper to see if that corrected the problem. It did not correct the problem so he then took the toilet apart and noticed a ridge in the tank from the factory."OUR ANSWER: We called the office and they sent us a DIFFERENT CREW.They NEVER replaced the flapper or ANYTHING ELSE.They did NOT take the toilet apart and they NEVER show** us any defect in the toilet.They ONLY thing that they did was to put was liquid color in the tank, in order to prove that the tank was leaking into the toilet activating the fill valve . They did prove this by showing us the color in the water being released from the tank.It is important to underline that: THEY NEVER TOOK THE TOILET APART and they DID NOT SHOW US ANY CONSTRUCTION DEFECT.2b. ED PHILLIPS: "We showed this to the customer and explained that it may or may not stop the leak and that we could not guarantee that it would not leak even when we replaced the gasket. We recommended replacing the toilet because the toilet was made in 1999 and the company that made that toilet had since gone out of business. "OUR ANSWER: They NEVER showed us any defect, because they did NOT take apart the toilet during the second service call before suggesting replacement. They ONLY showed us the color in the water. They had taken the toilet apart during the first service call but this was by a different crew and they did not mention or showed us anything about defect. The crew during the second service call told us:"We do not have the right part needed to fix it, because the toilet is out of production, the company moved from Hearne TX to MEXICO, and they wondered:How did the first crew attemp to repair the toilet in the first service call not having access to the RIGHT part?"2c. ED PHILLIPS: "The customer was told that the toilet and the necessary supplies to install the toilet would cost around $300 plus the labor to install the toilet. They were also told that this was for a Builder’s Grade toilet, that it was not a top of the line toilet or a bottom of the line toilet. The customer agreed to replacing the toilet." OUR ANSWER:THERE IS NO DOUBT that the technician PROMISED my wife to put a nice toilet of the SAME quality andaesthetics for a TOTAL of 300 dollars including everything, LABOR, PARTS & TOILET. HE DID NOT MENTION ANYTHING ABOUT GRADE.My wife assumed that his offer would be fair taking into account that we had already paid around 150 forthe first service which, taking into account all the facts, was INDEED a MISSERVICE.ALSO: The technician made no effort to show my wife an internet picture of the toilet that he proposed. He NEVER stated or explained that it will be "Builder's Grade" quality. He only said "I will put you a toilet like the one you have. It will be very nice and you will like it". Trusting the technician's promises about QUALITY and TOTAL price of 300. dollars, my wife told the technician to proceed2d. ED PHILLIPS: "The technician went to the supply house to pick up the toilet. When they returned the customer watched one of the technicians put the toilet together while the other one uninstalled the old toilet. The new toilet was then installed. The type of toilet that was installed was a Vortens Comfort Height with an elongated bowl similar to the one they had. Vortens is of the same quality as the 17 year old Crane toilet that they had. After the toilet was replaced the technician went out to the truck to do the paperwork and when he went back up to the house to get the customer signature and also collect payment, the customer would not open the door."OUR ANSWER: My wife was not able to take a good look at the toilet until it was installed in the half bathroom.At that time she realized that it was grossly oversized and ugly for the small half bathroom. She did not like it at all. She told this to to technician and he replied: "We put this toilet to many homes. People do not care how it looks. They just get a toilet. Why you do not like it ?" It is TOTALLY UNTRUE that my wife did not open the door. My wife opened the door promplty and when the technician asked her to sign for the payment she told him "until my husband would discuss with Ed Phillips himself I will not sign anything because I was grossly misled about price & aesthetics".2e. ED PHILLIPS: "She told the technician that she was not paying for the toilet because she did not like it."This is correct but it contradicts the earlier statement that my wife would not open the door.The technician ringed the door, my wife OPENED it and she told the technician that she does not want this uglyoversize toilet in the small room. My wife was NOT GIVEN ANY CHANCE TO CHOOSE and she told the technician does not want this one. 2f. ED PHILLIPS: " The technician told her that he would remove the toilet and put the old toilet back in until she could purchase her own toilet. She would not let us in to remove the new toilet."This is correct because in the meantime my wife called me. I told her to let me see it, may it is not so bad.I was in Houston at the time and after talking to my wife I immediatelly called the Ed Phillips office and told ** thatwe do not like the toilet that they installed. ** said: "Do not use this toilet, go and buy one that you like and we will install it for you." When I asked about the total cost ** said: "Let us NOT worry about this right now, when all is done we will discuss it and I will make surethat everybody is happy" ** did not want to discuss about our cost. 2g. ED PHILLIPS: "The technician tried to explain to her that if she did not let us remove the toilet that she would have to pay for it because we can not sell a used toilet. She still refused. The technician called ** to inform him of the situation. ** spoke with the husband and explained this to him and he still would not let us come remove the new toilet and reinstall the old one. The customer purchased a new high grade toilet and we returned to install the toilet when we tried to collect payment they refused to pay for the work that had been performed. "This is because ** promised to discuss the TOTAL price at the end and to make everybody happy.His toilet stayed in the house less than 24 hrs and we DID NOT USE IT.We tried to contact ** several times even through his cell phone to discuss about our cost. We were not able.Then we left for Europe for 4 weeks to take care of our aging & sick parents. When we came back we found 2 bills in the mail,one for the 2nd service WHICH we consider a GROSS MISSERVICE, like was also the first service that was paid in full,and one for the 3rd service when they came the following day to install the toilet that we bought.The total labor & service call cost was more than 1000. while the cost of their toilet was less than 300.This is most certainly a MISSERVICE.When I talked to ** from Houston he made it clear that he will discuss the final priceto make everybody happy. We thought that we should wait for the final assessment, taking into account everything, before we pay any more bills.We therefore called Ed, who was hard to reach because of some floods/bad weather in College Stationthe previous days.2e. ED PHILLIPS: "When ** spoke with the customer again they stated that they did not think they should have to pay for any of the work. Proclaiming that we are prejudice because they were foreign and make more money. ** assured him that was not the case, every customer is subject to paying the same hourly labor rate. She also told ** that if he didn’t give her a discount that she was going to put negative reviews on social media because she could write good English. ** told her that she was welcome to speak her opinion but that wasn’t the way to negotiate the price."OUR RESPONSE: We tried to tell ** that we had to discuss the whole repair starting at the beginning with the fist service call, which we strongly feel that it was a MISSERVICE as well.** completely REFUSED to listen to us just repeating that he cannot sell the toilet that he took back from our home.When it became impossible to get anything through to ** my wife mentioned the word DISCRIMINATION.She really felt discriminated by the way that she was treated by the technician of the 2nd service call, and by the way that ** was stonewalling our efforts to explain to him what his people did. This really caught Ed's attention and I felt that I needed to intervene to soften what my wife felt about discrimination by saying what I said and is written down by Ed. We do not exactly know what is discrimination but we know what is BAD SERVICE and Parochial BEhavior towards anamerican citizen with an accent. The technician seemed amused by my wife's accent and he asked her in a disrespectful way where she is from. I was there at the very beginning of the 2nd service call and noticed this behavior, but did not say anything at the time. I had an urgent appointment in Houston and I left my wife to deal with the repair. To the question of the technician about where she is from my wife answered that she is a US Citizen. By the way the whole affair went, and from what I observed before leaving for Houston, we feel that the technician was not honest towards my wife making her believe that it will be one thingthen changing it. On top of that he was disrespectful. My wife & I were very respectful toward the technician all the time. We would like to strongly underline that this is the first time that we felt misled in such a way that we feel obligated to STRONGLY protest. My wife told ** that she will report to the Revdex.com. I intervened and said that we will not do this if ** will try to make good of his promise to make everybody happy. ** said that he will speak once more to his people, reassess and let us know. After this we had to leave town, I work at the [redacted] in Albuquerque during the summer. From there, I was unsuccessful to get through to ** after several tries at the office or his private number. After this, we received the same bills in the mail. At that point we decided to write our detailed complain to the Revdex.com. 2g. ED PHILIPS "Several attempts have been made to collect payment and they still refuse. ** has called several times and always has to leave messages. He leaves his cell number for them to call back because he is usually out with customers, therefore rarely in the office. They choose to only call the office to reach him."This could not be further away from the truth. We tried to call both numbers as indicated in the complain, and only after feeling that our efforts are futile we proceeded with our complain.** has my cell number. I NEVER received a call from him after the repair.My last attempt was through the office, I left my name and they put me on hold forever.As you see our complain is quite detailed and it would not be possible to transmit it through the phone,especially if WE ARE NOT GIVEN A FAIR CHANCE TO BE HEARD.** pretended to talk to us but he would not listen.** never had or wanted to have a first hand experience of what happened.His response was based on info he collected from his crews after we submitted our complainalmost FOUR MONTHS after the service. 2f. ** PHILLIPS: "I have attached photos of the Crane toilet that was in the home, the Vortens toilet that we supplied, and the Kohler toilet that the customer purchased. As you can tell the toilet that we supplied looks similar to the one that was originally in the home. The only difference is the Vortens was a comfort height toilet so it stood a little taller than the Crane."OUR RESPONSE: The separate pictures do not compare because their scales are rather different. They do not reflect the relative sizes of the toilets and also they are taken from above. The sizes are rather different and so are the aesthetics.My wife was not given a fair chance to choose and we strongly feel that they tried to impose on us a low quality solution using a piecemeal incremental approach to run up the labor costs to more than 1000 dollars.The Better Business Approach would have been TO LET US KNOW CLEARLY & HONESTLY from the very beginning that They could not fix the toilet; and tell us to either 2) buy a new one that we like and they would install it, or 3) To ask us to pay them for the Service Call and to pursue a solution using another company. Instead they got us in a incremental process which was very UNFAIR to us from the point of view of the choices that we were offered, the total price, the amount of labor that we were charged, and they got us into a stressful unpleasant time consuming nightmarish experience trying to prove that we are guilty of things like not paying, not opening the door etc.We have lived for 28 years in College Station, and we never had any dispute with anybody, and wemaintain a most excellent credit. The answer by the company contains many inaccuracies WHICH confirm the basis of our complain. In conclusion we feel that the ED PHILLIPS Company resorts to unfair business practices to ratchet up the labor cost and deny the customer his right to a high quality solution at a fair price. An at the end of this instead of receiving an apology and a fair adjustment for the terrible service an experience, we are accused of things like not paying bills, not opening doors, not speaking good English and experienced huge disrespect from ** himself, by the way he refuses to listen to our point of view and to come to a reasonable agreement. ** and his company have already caused a lot of stress stress and huge loss of a lot of time and piece of mind. ** disrespects his customers and so do his workers and he employs unfair business practices trying to set up a huge claim for collection.
The customer called our office the morning of March 28 to schedule an appointment for a bathroom toilet valve that wasn’t working properly. An appointment was scheduled for the following morning. Upon arrival to the home the technician found that the homeowner’s wife had actually taken...
the toilet apart in an attempt to make the repair herself, but she was unable to figure out how to make the repair. The technician replaced fill valve (supplied by customer), flush valve, tank to bowl kit, and supply line and tested the toilet for proper function and to check for leaks. No problem was found at this time. On the morning of April 4, the customer called the office to state that the toilet was running. We scheduled a technician to return to the home the following afternoon to check on the toilet. The technician changed out the flapper to see if that corrected the problem. It did not correct the problem so he then took the toilet apart and noticed a ridge in the tank from the factory. He showed this to the customer and explained that it may or may not stop the leak and that we could not guarantee that it would not leak even when we replaced the gasket. We recommended replacing the toilet because the toilet was made in 1999 and the company that made that toilet had since gone out of business. The customer was told that the toilet and the necessary supplies to install the toilet would cost around $300 plus the labor to install the toilet. They were also told that this was for a Builder’s Grade toilet, that it was not a top of the line toilet or a bottom of the line toilet. The customer agreed to replacing the toilet. The technician went to the supply house to pick up the toilet. When they returned the customer watched one of the technicians put the toilet together while the other one uninstalled the old toilet. The new toilet was then installed. The type of toilet that was installed was a Vortens Comfort Height with an elongated bowl similar to the one they had. Vortens is of the same quality as the 17 year old Crane toilet that they had. After the toilet was replaced the technician went out to the truck to do the paperwork and when he went back up to the house to get the customer signature and also collect payment, the customer would not open the door. She told the technician that she was not paying for the toilet because she did not like it. The technician told her that he would remove the toilet and put the old toilet back in until she could purchase her own toilet. She would not let us in to remove the new toilet. The technician tried to explain to her that if she did not let us remove the toilet that she would have to pay for it because we can not sell a used toilet. She still refused. The technician called ** to inform him of the situation. ** spoke with the husband and explained this to him and he still would not let us come remove the new toilet and reinstall the old one. The customer purchased a new high grade toilet and we returned to install the toilet when we tried to collect payment they refused to pay for the work that had been performed. When ** spoke with the customer again they stated that they did not think they should have to pay for any of the work. Proclaiming that we are prejudice because they were foreign and make more money. ** assured him that was not the case, every customer is subject to paying the same hourly labor rate. She also told ** that if he didn’t give her a discount that she was going to put negative reviews on social media because she could write good English. ** told her that she was welcome to speak her opinion but that wasn’t the way to negotiate the price. Several attempts have been made to collect payment and they still refuse. ** has called several times and always has to leave messages. He leaves his cell number for them to call back because he is usually out with customers, therefore rarely in the office. They choose to only call the office to reach him. I have attached photos of the Crane toilet that was in the home, the Vortens toilet that we supplied, and the Kohler toilet that the customer purchased. As you can tell the toilet that we supplied looks similar to the one that was originally in the home. The only difference is the Vortens was a comfort height toilet so it stood a little taller than the Crane.
Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because: PLEASE READ BELOW.
Regards,
[redacted] PLEASE SEE BELOW OUR POINT BY POINT RESPONSES TO THE Ed Phillips Plumbing RESPONSE: 1. ED PHILLIPS: " The customer called our office the morning of March 28 to schedule an appointment for a bathroom toilet valve that wasn’t working properly. An appointment was scheduled for the following morning. Upon arrival to the home the technician found that the homeowner’s wife had actually taken the toilet apart in an attempt to make the repair herself, but she was unable to figure out how to make the repair. The technician replaced fill valve (supplied by customer), flush valve, tank to bowl kit, and supply line and tested the toilet for proper function and to check for leaks. No problem was found at this time." OUR ANSWER: This is only partially true and not in regard to the critical details. It is true that we replaced the fill valve using a Fluidmaster kit that we purchased at Lowe's. We had very recently used the same Fluidmaster Kit to replace ourselves the fill valve in our master bathroom toilet, the repair was 100% successful & that toilet works perfectly. Although we were successful in replacing the fill valve using the FLUIDMASTER kit in the toilet which needed repair, when we turned the water on, the toilet was still leaking exactly as before, that is through the O-Ring connecting the tank to the bowl. At that point we realized that the problem was not with the fill valve kit that we had successfully replaced,but with THE CONNECTION OF THE TANK TO THE BOWL. We did not have the tools & know how to proceed further and MOST CERTAINLY we HAD NOT TAKEN THE TOILET APART OR DESTROYED it in any way. At that point we made a service call to Ed Phillips Plumbing asking themto advise us and repair the toilet if they could. A crew of two came, they disassembled the toilet for the FIRST time, disconnecting the tank from the lower part ,and they said that:Its repair is straightforward and it can be completed at a total cost of about 150 dollars including the costof the service call.We found this very reasonable and asked them to proceed with the repair.The crew replaced the leaking o-ring with their own part, and the fill valve using our Fluidmaster kit, as they say,it took about 15 minutes, more or less, they declared the toilet fully repaired & operational, they charged us around 150 andthey were PAID in FULL via CC. Within one or two hours after the Ed Phillips crew left the toilet started releasing water from the tank into the bowl every once in a while. We did not pay much attention at first because it happened at relatively long intervals.However the frequency got higher and higher as the days passed, and after a few days we called Ed Phillips Plumbing asking them TO COMPLETE THE REPAIR OF THE TOILET THAT THEY HAD DECLARED FIXED AND WERE PAID IN FULL FOR BUT THE TOILET WAS NOT REALLY WORKING PROPERLY WITHIN A COUPLE OF HOURS AFTER THEY COMPLETED THE REPAIR AND LEFT OUR HOME. 2. Regarding the reply about the SECOND service THERE ARE MANY CRITICAL INACCURACIES in the reply of ED PHILLIPS. To properly address them WE will break down his response and ANSWER POINT BY POINT.2a: ED PHILLIPS: "On the morning of April 4, the customer called the office to state that the toilet was running. We scheduled a technician to return to the home the following afternoon to check on the toilet. The technician changed out the flapper to see if that corrected the problem. It did not correct the problem so he then took the toilet apart and noticed a ridge in the tank from the factory."OUR ANSWER: We called the office and they sent us a DIFFERENT CREW.They NEVER replaced the flapper or ANYTHING ELSE.They did NOT take the toilet apart and they NEVER show** us any defect in the toilet.They ONLY thing that they did was to put was liquid color in the tank, in order to prove that the tank was leaking into the toilet activating the fill valve . They did prove this by showing us the color in the water being released from the tank.It is important to underline that: THEY NEVER TOOK THE TOILET APART and they DID NOT SHOW US ANY CONSTRUCTION DEFECT.2b. ED PHILLIPS: "We showed this to the customer and explained that it may or may not stop the leak and that we could not guarantee that it would not leak even when we replaced the gasket. We recommended replacing the toilet because the toilet was made in 1999 and the company that made that toilet had since gone out of business. "OUR ANSWER: They NEVER showed us any defect, because they did NOT take apart the toilet during the second service call before suggesting replacement. They ONLY showed us the color in the water. They had taken the toilet apart during the first service call but this was by a different crew and they did not mention or showed us anything about defect. The crew during the second service call told us:"We do not have the right part needed to fix it, because the toilet is out of production, the company moved from Hearne TX to MEXICO, and they wondered:How did the first crew attemp to repair the toilet in the first service call not having access to the RIGHT part?"2c. ED PHILLIPS: "The customer was told that the toilet and the necessary supplies to install the toilet would cost around $300 plus the labor to install the toilet. They were also told that this was for a Builder’s Grade toilet, that it was not a top of the line toilet or a bottom of the line toilet. The customer agreed to replacing the toilet." OUR ANSWER:THERE IS NO DOUBT that the technician PROMISED my wife to put a nice toilet of the SAME quality andaesthetics for a TOTAL of 300 dollars including everything, LABOR, PARTS & TOILET. HE DID NOT MENTION ANYTHING ABOUT GRADE.My wife assumed that his offer would be fair taking into account that we had already paid around 150 forthe first service which, taking into account all the facts, was INDEED a MISSERVICE.ALSO: The technician made no effort to show my wife an internet picture of the toilet that he proposed. He NEVER stated or explained that it will be "Builder's Grade" quality. He only said "I will put you a toilet like the one you have. It will be very nice and you will like it". Trusting the technician's promises about QUALITY and TOTAL price of 300. dollars, my wife told the technician to proceed2d. ED PHILLIPS: "The technician went to the supply house to pick up the toilet. When they returned the customer watched one of the technicians put the toilet together while the other one uninstalled the old toilet. The new toilet was then installed. The type of toilet that was installed was a Vortens Comfort Height with an elongated bowl similar to the one they had. Vortens is of the same quality as the 17 year old Crane toilet that they had. After the toilet was replaced the technician went out to the truck to do the paperwork and when he went back up to the house to get the customer signature and also collect payment, the customer would not open the door."OUR ANSWER: My wife was not able to take a good look at the toilet until it was installed in the half bathroom.At that time she realized that it was grossly oversized and ugly for the small half bathroom. She did not like it at all. She told this to to technician and he replied: "We put this toilet to many homes. People do not care how it looks. They just get a toilet. Why you do not like it ?" It is TOTALLY UNTRUE that my wife did not open the door. My wife opened the door promplty and when the technician asked her to sign for the payment she told him "until my husband would discuss with Ed Phillips himself I will not sign anything because I was grossly misled about price & aesthetics".2e. ED PHILLIPS: "She told the technician that she was not paying for the toilet because she did not like it."This is correct but it contradicts the earlier statement that my wife would not open the door.The technician ringed the door, my wife OPENED it and she told the technician that she does not want this uglyoversize toilet in the small room. My wife was NOT GIVEN ANY CHANCE TO CHOOSE and she told the technician does not want this one. 2f. ED PHILLIPS: " The technician told her that he would remove the toilet and put the old toilet back in until she could purchase her own toilet. She would not let us in to remove the new toilet."This is correct because in the meantime my wife called me. I told her to let me see it, may it is not so bad.I was in Houston at the time and after talking to my wife I immediatelly called the Ed Phillips office and told ** thatwe do not like the toilet that they installed. ** said: "Do not use this toilet, go and buy one that you like and we will install it for you." When I asked about the total cost ** said: "Let us NOT worry about this right now, when all is done we will discuss it and I will make surethat everybody is happy" ** did not want to discuss about our cost. 2g. ED PHILLIPS: "The technician tried to explain to her that if she did not let us remove the toilet that she would have to pay for it because we can not sell a used toilet. She still refused. The technician called ** to inform him of the situation. ** spoke with the husband and explained this to him and he still would not let us come remove the new toilet and reinstall the old one. The customer purchased a new high grade toilet and we returned to install the toilet when we tried to collect payment they refused to pay for the work that had been performed. "This is because ** promised to discuss the TOTAL price at the end and to make everybody happy.His toilet stayed in the house less than 24 hrs and we DID NOT USE IT.We tried to contact ** several times even through his cell phone to discuss about our cost. We were not able.Then we left for Europe for 4 weeks to take care of our aging & sick parents. When we came back we found 2 bills in the mail,one for the 2nd service WHICH we consider a GROSS MISSERVICE, like was also the first service that was paid in full,and one for the 3rd service when they came the following day to install the toilet that we bought.The total labor & service call cost was more than 1000. while the cost of their toilet was less than 300.This is most certainly a MISSERVICE.When I talked to ** from Houston he made it clear that he will discuss the final priceto make everybody happy. We thought that we should wait for the final assessment, taking into account everything, before we pay any more bills.We therefore called Ed, who was hard to reach because of some floods/bad weather in College Stationthe previous days.2e. ED PHILLIPS: "When ** spoke with the customer again they stated that they did not think they should have to pay for any of the work. Proclaiming that we are prejudice because they were foreign and make more money. ** assured him that was not the case, every customer is subject to paying the same hourly labor rate. She also told ** that if he didn’t give her a discount that she was going to put negative reviews on social media because she could write good English. ** told her that she was welcome to speak her opinion but that wasn’t the way to negotiate the price."OUR RESPONSE: We tried to tell ** that we had to discuss the whole repair starting at the beginning with the fist service call, which we strongly feel that it was a MISSERVICE as well.** completely REFUSED to listen to us just repeating that he cannot sell the toilet that he took back from our home.When it became impossible to get anything through to ** my wife mentioned the word DISCRIMINATION.She really felt discriminated by the way that she was treated by the technician of the 2nd service call, and by the way that ** was stonewalling our efforts to explain to him what his people did. This really caught Ed's attention and I felt that I needed to intervene to soften what my wife felt about discrimination by saying what I said and is written down by Ed. We do not exactly know what is discrimination but we know what is BAD SERVICE and Parochial BEhavior towards anamerican citizen with an accent. The technician seemed amused by my wife's accent and he asked her in a disrespectful way where she is from. I was there at the very beginning of the 2nd service call and noticed this behavior, but did not say anything at the time. I had an urgent appointment in Houston and I left my wife to deal with the repair. To the question of the technician about where she is from my wife answered that she is a US Citizen. By the way the whole affair went, and from what I observed before leaving for Houston, we feel that the technician was not honest towards my wife making her believe that it will be one thingthen changing it. On top of that he was disrespectful. My wife & I were very respectful toward the technician all the time. We would like to strongly underline that this is the first time that we felt misled in such a way that we feel obligated to STRONGLY protest. My wife told ** that she will report to the Revdex.com. I intervened and said that we will not do this if ** will try to make good of his promise to make everybody happy. ** said that he will speak once more to his people, reassess and let us know. After this we had to leave town, I work at the [redacted] in Albuquerque during the summer. From there, I was unsuccessful to get through to ** after several tries at the office or his private number. After this, we received the same bills in the mail. At that point we decided to write our detailed complain to the Revdex.com. 2g. ED PHILIPS "Several attempts have been made to collect payment and they still refuse. ** has called several times and always has to leave messages. He leaves his cell number for them to call back because he is usually out with customers, therefore rarely in the office. They choose to only call the office to reach him."This could not be further away from the truth. We tried to call both numbers as indicated in the complain, and only after feeling that our efforts are futile we proceeded with our complain.** has my cell number. I NEVER received a call from him after the repair.My last attempt was through the office, I left my name and they put me on hold forever.As you see our complain is quite detailed and it would not be possible to transmit it through the phone,especially if WE ARE NOT GIVEN A FAIR CHANCE TO BE HEARD.** pretended to talk to us but he would not listen.** never had or wanted to have a first hand experience of what happened.His response was based on info he collected from his crews after we submitted our complainalmost FOUR MONTHS after the service. 2f. ** PHILLIPS: "I have attached photos of the Crane toilet that was in the home, the Vortens toilet that we supplied, and the Kohler toilet that the customer purchased. As you can tell the toilet that we supplied looks similar to the one that was originally in the home. The only difference is the Vortens was a comfort height toilet so it stood a little taller than the Crane."OUR RESPONSE: The separate pictures do not compare because their scales are rather different. They do not reflect the relative sizes of the toilets and also they are taken from above. The sizes are rather different and so are the aesthetics.My wife was not given a fair chance to choose and we strongly feel that they tried to impose on us a low quality solution using a piecemeal incremental approach to run up the labor costs to more than 1000 dollars.The Better Business Approach would have been TO LET US KNOW CLEARLY & HONESTLY from the very beginning that They could not fix the toilet; and tell us to either 2) buy a new one that we like and they would install it, or 3) To ask us to pay them for the Service Call and to pursue a solution using another company. Instead they got us in a incremental process which was very UNFAIR to us from the point of view of the choices that we were offered, the total price, the amount of labor that we were charged, and they got us into a stressful unpleasant time consuming nightmarish experience trying to prove that we are guilty of things like not paying, not opening the door etc.We have lived for 28 years in College Station, and we never had any dispute with anybody, and wemaintain a most excellent credit. The answer by the company contains many inaccuracies WHICH confirm the basis of our complain. In conclusion we feel that the ED PHILLIPS Company resorts to unfair business practices to ratchet up the labor cost and deny the customer his right to a high quality solution at a fair price. An at the end of this instead of receiving an apology and a fair adjustment for the terrible service an experience, we are accused of things like not paying bills, not opening doors, not speaking good English and experienced huge disrespect from ** himself, by the way he refuses to listen to our point of view and to come to a reasonable agreement. ** and his company have already caused a lot of stress stress and huge loss of a lot of time and piece of mind. ** disrespects his customers and so do his workers and he employs unfair business practices trying to set up a huge claim for collection.
The customer called our office the morning of March 28 to schedule an appointment for a bathroom toilet valve that wasn’t working properly. An appointment was scheduled for the following morning. Upon arrival to the home the technician found that the homeowner’s wife had actually taken...
the toilet apart in an attempt to make the repair herself, but she was unable to figure out how to make the repair. The technician replaced fill valve (supplied by customer), flush valve, tank to bowl kit, and supply line and tested the toilet for proper function and to check for leaks. No problem was found at this time. On the morning of April 4, the customer called the office to state that the toilet was running. We scheduled a technician to return to the home the following afternoon to check on the toilet. The technician changed out the flapper to see if that corrected the problem. It did not correct the problem so he then took the toilet apart and noticed a ridge in the tank from the factory. He showed this to the customer and explained that it may or may not stop the leak and that we could not guarantee that it would not leak even when we replaced the gasket. We recommended replacing the toilet because the toilet was made in 1999 and the company that made that toilet had since gone out of business. The customer was told that the toilet and the necessary supplies to install the toilet would cost around $300 plus the labor to install the toilet. They were also told that this was for a Builder’s Grade toilet, that it was not a top of the line toilet or a bottom of the line toilet. The customer agreed to replacing the toilet. The technician went to the supply house to pick up the toilet. When they returned the customer watched one of the technicians put the toilet together while the other one uninstalled the old toilet. The new toilet was then installed. The type of toilet that was installed was a Vortens Comfort Height with an elongated bowl similar to the one they had. Vortens is of the same quality as the 17 year old Crane toilet that they had. After the toilet was replaced the technician went out to the truck to do the paperwork and when he went back up to the house to get the customer signature and also collect payment, the customer would not open the door. She told the technician that she was not paying for the toilet because she did not like it. The technician told her that he would remove the toilet and put the old toilet back in until she could purchase her own toilet. She would not let us in to remove the new toilet. The technician tried to explain to her that if she did not let us remove the toilet that she would have to pay for it because we can not sell a used toilet. She still refused. The technician called ** to inform him of the situation. ** spoke with the husband and explained this to him and he still would not let us come remove the new toilet and reinstall the old one. The customer purchased a new high grade toilet and we returned to install the toilet when we tried to collect payment they refused to pay for the work that had been performed. When ** spoke with the customer again they stated that they did not think they should have to pay for any of the work. Proclaiming that we are prejudice because they were foreign and make more money. ** assured him that was not the case, every customer is subject to paying the same hourly labor rate. She also told ** that if he didn’t give her a discount that she was going to put negative reviews on social media because she could write good English. ** told her that she was welcome to speak her opinion but that wasn’t the way to negotiate the price. Several attempts have been made to collect payment and they still refuse. ** has called several times and always has to leave messages. He leaves his cell number for them to call back because he is usually out with customers, therefore rarely in the office. They choose to only call the office to reach him. I have attached photos of the Crane toilet that was in the home, the Vortens toilet that we supplied, and the Kohler toilet that the customer purchased. As you can tell the toilet that we supplied looks similar to the one that was originally in the home. The only difference is the Vortens was a comfort height toilet so it stood a little taller than the Crane.