They conspired with crooked contractor to try to scam me out of 600 dollars instead of fixing my 25 year old busted water heater-under warranty no less!! They put me off 5 days hoping i would go ahead and fix it myself--when that didnt work they conspired to scam me!! They are crooks--thieves--they put my 5 year old sons life at stake--I hope american home shield thievery burns in hell!

Don't buy the warranty. I have an oven that needs repair for nine months and the customer service rep just sends people out to repair the oven. It works for a day, then dies. I have refused to pay anymore "service fees" (what a ripoff). Instead of simply replacing the oven, they just send someone else out to work on the oven then it still doesn't work. You would think that these brainless people would figure out that the money they have spent on repair people, they could have bought a new stove/oven and saved money.

After I logged on here and saw 150 complaints about American home shield, oh and I thought I was the only one. We woke up this morning to find our water heater had blown up I called AHS oh no problem we will send a plumber out to look at it, and it is covered under your policy, 4 hours later the plumber shows up and we had removed the water heater because it was leaking water all over our hardwood floors, oh big problem once we removed the water heater it was no longer covered, because we removed it the plumber couldn't diagnose the problem, well I am no plumber and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the water heater had blown. So I call them to argue the fact that we didn't want anymore water damage to our floors was why we removed it. Oh too bad, I asked them why they did not tell me that this morning when I called they said they would never tell a customer not to remove anything, and I said of course you wouldn't, because then you would have had to replace it. This piece of company gets away with another rip-off just the hundred and fifty before me. Well it's off to Home Depot oh and this will be covered, under my American Express.

I had signed up for the home shield insurance, hoping to get honest and reliable service for my condo. However, both times when I asked for plumbing service via American Home Shield (AHS), the experiences were terrible. First time, the company Rescue Rooter came after the time window they promised, and being late to my work, I could not wait any longer. The company charged me a service call fee. AHS instead of helping me, forced me to pay their service call although I did not even see the service person. In the second time, when I asked for another plumbing service, AHS set me up with a company called Roman Sharf. I had never heard of this company so I asked for the review. AHS said there is no review, and this is the one and only one company they could send my service request to. I asked to speak to a supervisor, and the supervisor Heist said, “It is the AHS, not the customer, has the right to select the company for the service request the customer orders”. What kind of service is that? <br />
In addition, they say “We are here for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, should you have a breakdown of your covered system or appliance.” Be ware, if you need service on a weekend for your home, they will tell you they can only guarantee the service company (which they select exclusively) to call you and set up an appointment on Monday.

American home shield is a bunch of cheats and liars. Last year, my heat pump broke and AHS charged me $300 to fix it. They did a poor job and the unit broke less than a week later. They came out again and charged me another $575 and the unit broke again a few months after that. When I called the last time, I was able to get the to replace the rest of the unit at no cost to me and I finally have a completely new unit (which they were told to do the first time). Here are some suggestions on how to deal with them if you are forced to do so in the future:

1. Don't deal with them at all. If you can avoid their warranties, do so. If you have one, cancel it in the first 30 days and get a full refund. Also, be aware that they have several DBA names including Prestige Home Warranty and Service Home Guard (check the Better Business Bureau website for full information).

2. If you must call their system to request service, don't waste time entering information about your contract number or phone number or telling it what's wrong as it will NOT speed anything up. Tell the system to "get me a f***ing person". This will bypass much of their automated system and get you to a CS rep. WHile I don't like using abusive language with anyone, it seems to work well on their system.

3. When you do get a representative, they will ask for your name and contract number, etc... Before your give them any information, ask for THEIR last name as well and make a note of who you talked to and when you called. AHS employees are NOT required to provide their last names, but if you ask them, some of them will. If they respond, "We don't give out last names", accuse them of lying to you. Although they are not required to provide you with their last name, it is a lie to say that they do not give them out (it is more correct to state that they do not wish to provide their last name". If they still insist that they do not provide last names, then ask why some of their other employees have given out names. Furthermore, if they still refuse to provide a last name, tell them you refuse to identify to them if they will not give you their name and ask for their supervisor.

4. If you get a supervisor, again, ask for their last name. If they refuse, continue asking for supervisors until they say that there is no one else that they can transfer you to. Even if you can't get a last name, at this point, you have to go ahead and schedule a service request. If the request is a repeat request for something that they fixed before, request that they waive the trade service fee. If you have a supervisor on the line, they generally will waive the fee if you ask them to.

5. When scheduling the request, do not hesitate to be rude to them and use abusive language. Again, while I do not like to be rude to anyone or use bad language, it seems that this will get things done. When I was nice and polite to them, they dragged out a repair that should have taken 1-2 weeks to 6 weeks. When I started being rude to them, they acted much faster and had the unit repaired within a week.

6. If they tell you it may be a few days, call them back multiple times (preferable in the same day if possible) and complain that their conduct is unacceptable. Again, do not hesitate to be rude or to swear at them. They will ask you to "please refrain from using that language". Just apologize and say that you are sorry, but when you were nice, they dragged things out and when you started getting rude, things got done.

7. When the repair is completed, go to the Better Business Bureau and file a complaint asking for your trade service fee back (if it was not waived) and they will usually refund it as they "guarantee" your satisfaction and they will work with you until you are satisfied or they will refund the trade service fee. Do NOT use abusive language in your BBB complaint as the BBB reserves the right not to process complaints containing abusive language. If you had "non-covered" charges in your repair, ask for those to be refunded as well when you file your complaint with the BBB. Very often, AHS will refund them to you since it gets them off the hook with lawsuits. (If you accept a payment from them for this, you give up your right to sue them in the future and paying you for non-covered charges is often cheaper than dealing with lawsuits). AHS will ALWAYS respond to BBB complaints as they wish to keep their A+ rating. (They have a good rating with the BBB because they always respond to complaints, not because they are a good company). As long as you ask for a refund in your desired resolution with the BBB, the BBB will act as a mediator between you and AHS. Lastly, regardless of whether or not AHS refunds you money based on your BBB complaint, DO NOT RESOLVE THE COMPLAINT. The BBB will state that AHS has made "reasonable efforts" to address your complaint and will close it administratively, but it will not show up as resolved. If enough complaints start showing up as unresolved, people may realize that AHS is not a decent company and they may take their business elsewhere.

8. Lastly, if possible avoid doing business with other ServiceMaster (AHS's parent) companies as this may tell them that they need to improve. Other ServiceMaster companies include Amerispec (which will give your information to other companies if you use them), MerryMaids, Furniture Medic, Terminix, and Tru-Green.

Hopefully, this information that I have provided here will be of use to people. If you have questions about what I have written, please email me at [email protected] (I can't promise a response, but I will try to respond to everyone that emails me.)