Services Plus Mechanical

Over charged for serviceTo Revdex.com, We are writing to dispute an outrageous charge for cleaning of our furnace. My husband scheduled Service Plus Mechanical to clean our oil furnace on Friday Nov 7, 2014. The company gave my husband a verbal estimate over the phone of approximately $250. The service man arrived at 10:30AM; I showed him the furnace in the basement and bulkhead so he could come and go from his truck. At noon the service man came up to say he was going to lunch and it was going to take him much longer to clean. At that point the furnace was completely apart. Someone from Service Plus Mechanical spoke with my husband at work, and told him it would take longer than expected. We did not expect that the he was going to be way off on the estimate given, at this point with the unit apart and not wanting to put my family at risk felt I had no choice but to have him continue with the cleaning. In my opinion this is a typical strong arm maneuver used by some contractors to increase the cost of service. The company was called for cleaning service only, there was nothing wrong with the furnace and was in perfectly good working condition. By the end we were charged for a broken elbow that he obviously damaged during the cleaning and other parts totaling $76.21. He did not leave the house until 5:20 that evening for a total of 7 hours to clean a furnace. He handed me a bill for $576.21! The company who cleaned our furnace last time charged us $165 and was there for 2 hrs, a much more typical time frame and dollar amount. We tried to resolve this dispute with Service Plus Company but without any satisfaction.Desired Settlement$321Business Response on 10-28-14 [redacted] contacted us regarding a preventive maintenance to an oil fired boiler. I told him our normal charge for this service ( p/m ) was about 2 - 2 1/2 hours plus the cost of parts : nozzle, oil filter. However, if the unit has not been serviced for a year or more it may take longer, oil is very dirty and does create alot of soot. WE scheduled the p/m for 11-07-14, when we showed up to do the p/m , the first thing we noticed was the boiler was not in a good location, it was installed in a tight corner, making the unit harder to access for cleaning and the power venter was located above the unit and not very reachable, and we do clean the power venter as part of the p/m. It had to be done from the outside of the home , which was a first for us. The technician also noticed when he took apart the unit that it was very dirty and told [redacted] this will take about 4 hours, she said ok. He then noticed the elbow was rotted and the draft regulator needed to be replaced, he told her he needed to go to the supply house to pick up these replacement parts, which took about an hour round trip to get. Our job is to bring the equipment back to factory specs as it is in the best interest of the consumer and to make the equipment runs the most efficient it can be. This did take longer than a normal p/m but that was due to it not being serviced in 2 years and it was very dirty with soot and having to run to get parts and that it was very difficult to access, which I did explain to [redacted].We were there for a total of 6 1/2 hours and only invoiced for 5 1/2 hours, the extra time was for part pick up and installation of those parts, only then we could perform the combustion report, which is done after the p/m is complete. Consumer Response (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)In response to his accusation of having a dirty furnace. A friend stopped by and happened to know more about furnaces than we do. I asked her to come down stairs to look at the furnace while the tech was there. My friend turned to the tech and said that is not dirty I have seen worse. The tech did not say a word, which I found strange. When I went back down stairs he mentioned to me that he did not think it would take as long as he thought. Those were his exact words to me. The technician did not mention any specific time to me. The tech said it is going to take a couple more hours. Before coming to Revdex.com I did a three way call to the [redacted] of the company his [redacted] and the technician. I told the [redacted] of the company what was said and asked why the technician did not show me the elbow. The tech replied that he should have shown it to me. The elbow was put on incorrectly when the tech tried to re assemble it the first time that is why he could not get it on. The new elbow still appears to be not on the right way. We have a pellet stove on the first floor and one in the basement of our house. We use two hundred to two hundred and fifty gallons of oil every year. Most people use up to twelve hundred gallons on an oil per year. This furnace is hardly ever used. That's why we choose to clean every other year versus every year.Final Business Response We feel we have made a fair offer with regards to the 2 hours @ $90.00 refund equaling $180.00. The tech informed you that is was going to take about 4 hours to do the job and you didn't refuse the work at that time, also he had to replace 2 parts which we do not stock on the truck, therefor the tech. had to go to a supply house to pick up,which was also billed to you, the cleaning was told to your husband that it probably would take more than 2 hours since it hadn't been done in over a year.We are not an oil company and do not sell oil, alot of times they are in and out in an hour and a half, we are not, which again we informed your husband of this, we do take longer than most oil companies as we bring everything back as close to factory specs as possible and do a full combustion analysis. The technician that was on your job is a ** year licensed oil burner tech.. Please note that there is also a power venter there and that also takes time to service. Both pieces of equipment are located in a poor area in regards to servicing.Final Consumer Response (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)I am glad that your tech has ** years of experience. That's the more reason it should not have taken that long to clean our Furnace. I should hope that our New Yorker furnace is not the first furnace he had to work on. No one who has worked on this furnace has taken that long. As was said before the technician did not show me the elbow. The tech replied that he should have shown it to me. The elbow was put on incorrectly when the tech tried to re assemble it the first time that is why he could not get it on. The elbow was not broken prior to the service, so that fact that you are not only trying to charge us for the piece but the time it took the technician to go and get it is ridiculous. We are happy to pay the original quote that was given. Once again I must say no time limit was given to me your technician only said it will take longer than he expected. When I returned to the basement and the technician turned to me and said he doesn't think it will be taking as long as he expected, that was at about 1pm-1:30p. At about 5pm I went back to the basement and he was still there, at no point after that comment after his lunch did he say anything about there being a problem. I might point out too that each time I went to the stairs and made noise he would turn the vacuum on for a few minutes. But otherwise it was off. The whole situation seems shady and we are being taken advantage of. At this point we are going around in circles.