Ron's Refrigeration & Air Conditioning, Inc.

Review: While still under warranty, our hot water heater stopped working - it provided no hot water. So I called [redacted] Refrigeration to service the unit. However, resolving the issues required several trips and nearly three weeks to fix the problem. During this time, my family did not have any hot water. Even though the repairman stated that everything was under warranty, he used / replaced two different parts and later charged me for them. I was billed for twelve hours of work, although he only spent short periods of the time in our home each of the three times that he was here. My wife and I were at home each time he came, and we were aware of how long he was present every time.

When I received the final bill, I spoke to both the person in charge of billing and the owner of the company and made them aware of the overcharging for labor as well as being charged for replaced parts under warranty. I requested that they reconsider their total charge. Several days later, I was sent the same bill with no further communication. I decided to pay.

I am reporting this company, [redacted] Refrigeration, because of their dishonesty and incompetence. I would like other citizens in the community to not fall prey to them in the future. If you require documentation and corroboration, please contact by mail or phone.Desired Settlement: The business should charge according to actual time spent fixing the problem.

Business

Response:

Re: Complaint ID [redacted]

Dear Ms. [redacted]:

I received your letter of complaint from [redacted] (ML). We did perform service for the customer. It did take several trips to resolve the issues he had with the heating system and there were components replaced.

Following is our response to each of the complaints listed in his letter:

This system was installed by another company at least 4 years old. It shipped from the factory in August 2009. We do not know the history of service on the system but we do know that at least one other company had worked on it before

we were called. We have no idea if ML had any scheduled maintenance done on the system but we doubt it.

The unit had a one year warranty from the manufacturer. ML stated he thought the unit was still covered under warranty and my tech said we would check. I did confirm with ML that the warranty was expired and the parts and labor were not

covered. He then called the original installer and was told that he sold them an extended warranty of some kind. Of course we had no way to cover our expenses under a warranty sold by another contractor.

I don’t believe that the home was without hot water for the entire time but they may have had some outages as it did take four trips to get all of the issues resolved

ML was billed for 9.25 hours of labor not 12 hours as stated. In addition I did not charge for one hour of labor as a concession to ML.

Our technicians are required to have their work orders signed by the customer when they are complete. I noticed that we do not have signatures for the trips to the home and when I asked the tech he stated that each time he arrived ML or his wife were on site but left shortly after to return to work so he could not get their signature. We would bill the time on site plus the travel time. They were never billed more than 2.5 hours for any trip so I am confident that the time charged was correct.

During my discussions with ML I confirmed to him that there is not any warranty on the parts. He expressed that he felt that he should get a break on the labor in the interest of future business and I told him that while I understood the cost we could not make any adjustments. The time charged was fair and proper.

I take offense at the statement that our company is dishonest and incompetent. We explained the situation to him during the repair process. It appears that ML has had some history of having issues with contractors on this system as we are at least the third to work on it since install less than four years ago. His statements are baseless. We take great pride in our service to our clients and have for the 40 years we have been in business. While we appreciated the opportunity to service the system for ML we need to be paid for our labor and parts. Like all businesses, we work with our customers all the time on billing questions and make concession when they are due and fair. Unfortunately ML feels that when a company does not adjust an invoice that makes them dishonest. Based on that logic no company is ethical.

In conclusion, we did have discussions with ML several times and explained our position. He received answers and explanations to all of his questions. He just didn’t get the ones he wanted.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Sincerely

President

Consumer

Response: