Charlie's Heating & Cooling

Good Afternoon,     I am responding for Charlie's Heating & Cooling in regards to a complaint that was issued towards our company. This customer called us out on Thursday 1/30/18 in regards to the home not having any heat. Every customer that calls us out for a demand call in...

which they have no heat or A/C they are required to pay a diagnostic/service call fee. The amount is given to the customer on the phone in advance and agreed upon before the tech is given the call for dispatch. So no matter what the outcome when the customer agrees to have us come out they are also agreeing to pay that diagnostic fee. Our service tech immediately found the disconnect for the heat pump completely melted and not sending out power. The tech needed that to be resolved before moving forward at all with any further diagnosis. The customer was given a price to replace the disconnect and was also told this will not completely resolve the full problem but would give the system power for more trouble shooting, the customer agreed to this repair as they did to the diagnostic fee prior to us coming out. After the disconnect was replaced and the system was turned on the system would then immediately trip one leg on the breaker outside. The tech then gave the customer options on replacing the breaker. The customer then stated that they were considering replacing the entire system due to age and cost of repairs. Our service tech then gave them pricing and financing options for the replacement of the system and no further trouble shooting was done. After the tech and Mr [redacted] talked about the options he called Mrs [redacted] and she was very upset at the news and ordered the tech to take off the disconnect that he had already been given permission to replace and said that she was not paying for any of it. Our service tech took off the disconnect that he had replaced and then took payment for the previously agreed upon diagnostic fee. Mr. [redacted] paid the diagnostic fee and the service tech left the home. Mrs. [redacted] came home and she called someone else out to check it out and get another opinion. They told her she had an electrical issue with the power coming into the home and needed an electrician out to resolve the problem. She in return called me at the office and demanded her money back for the diagnostic fee stating the service tech had lied to her and was just trying to scam her out of $600. She said there was nothing wrong with the HVAC and it was an electrical issue so she thinks she should not have to pay an HVAC company to diagnose that. The issue with this is that they called us as customers stating the had no heat and wanted us to come out and check it for them. Our receptionist told the customer how much the fee was to come out and they agreed to the amount. So no matter what was the findings of the trip they had called us to come out and agreed to pay the fee for the trip. Mrs. [redacted] is upset that she did not get news that she wanted to hear and doesn't want to pay for services that they had already agreed upon. Our tech did not lie about anything as she states. The disconnect was indeed melted and after it was replaced it tripped the breakers, and after that he was told by the customer to price a new system and did not move past the already found issues to look for the power issues. In other words he was told to stop trouble shooting and price a new system, had he been given the opportunity to continue his work he would also have found the power issues and told them to seek out an electrician to resolve the power problems. I refused to refund the diagnostic fee because they had agreed to pay it before we went to their home, and plus they called us for the HVAC issue. It is not our fault that the issue was a electrical problem, it is just not what they wanted to hear. Our company nor our service tech did anything wrong on this call. He went by the book as normal and the customer just did not agree with what was found. In other words I do not agree with having to pay back a fee that was agreed upon long before we stepped foot on the property, a property in which we were called to and asked to trouble shoot why they had no heat. There are many occasions in which we are called out due to no heat or air and the problem is stemmed from another underlying issue. Those customers always pay the agreed diagnostic fee and then get help from the appropriate party needed to resolve the issue that caused the problem. I feel we as a company did nothing wrong or out of bounds with this matter, that is why I did not refund the diagnostic fee. Please let me know if I am wrong about this and hopefully we can get it resolved. Thank you, Ryan S[redacted]Service / Office ManagerCharlie's Tin Shop, Inc.[redacted]