My experience with A Anderson Air Conditioning in Dallas (they also list addresses in Synnyvale and Plano) is pretty much the worst I've ever had with any company, period.

NOTE: Remember that there are two sides to every story and this is mine. I do not warrant that everything I've posted here is 100% accurate. I do, however, feel that A Anderson tried to rip me off, and I will not be using nor recommending their service.

To make this as brief as possible, my AC was out and I needed help. I called A Anderson, spoke with the owner, and we agreed on $69 for the diagnostic.

The technician came out and quoted me $830. He was very sketchy and made me uncomfortable by asking about all the electronics in my house, so I thanked him for his time and offered a check for the $69. He then talked to me for several minutes about needing me to let him do the work so he could earn his "points" on the service call. I made it clear I would not be having him do the work that day, at which point he called the owner and informed me that I owed the $69 plus an additional $72.50 because I was not doing the work with them.

I refused to pay the additional fee and eventually he left with the $69 after I had a lengthy conversation with the owner in which he yelled at me and cussed me out for "wasting" his company's time. In a later email, he explained that he had been upset because he was hungry and I was delaying him from eating the plate of Soulman's BBQ that was in front of him.

I then found out that the technician he sent over has no licenses in Texas whatsoever to be performing AC work (which is not required since he was operating under the company license, but their website SAID the technicians were actually licensed). To make matters more interesting, it appears that the owner has a long rap sheet that includes everything from driving without a license and speeding in a school zone to assault, theft by check, and deceptive business practices.

I filed some complaints and the owner refunded my $69 and tried to bribe me by paying my entire repair bill for whoever I ended up using out of his own pocket if I would agree not to file complaints. I thanked him for the gesture and declined to take his money but said I would see about retracting the complaints I'd issued.

The next day I received a stern warning from him that I needed to make sure the BBB complaint I filed was erased completely so his complaint record would go back to zero, and that if I did not do this then it would become a serious matter.

Here are some excerpts from the owner's latest email to me. Note that it has been edited a bit for space as indicated by the ellipses but is all straight from his message...

"What ever you have posted needs not have any residual. I am not going to be the one looking, but I can tell you right now that it will become a serious matter . . . The bottom line will not be about our service, our price, our potty mouth, our licensed technicians, old information on a web site . . .

You will need to do your part to put this issue to bed. Again, it does not matter how we acted prior to the agreement, it's the actions you took afterwards that are the question . . . As you have stated in previous email, you will retract what you have done, posted, or filed. The BBB is a huge issue here, you pushed the wrong button and you need to un push it, and do what ever it takes to get that 1 complaint of yours back down to zero. And it's not going to be easy, so be ready to put more effort into it than you would a finals exam on statistics, so to speak. You might even have to spend a couple hundred bucks on an attorney to call for you."

Yeah right. I am not going to let A Anderson Air Conditioning coerce me into retracting my BBB complaint. They made their bed, now it's time to lie in it.