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Dschrader
July 13, 2011
Deceptive Pricing
My Plumber provided me with the most unsatisfactory in home service in my 30 years of home ownership. The problem is their deceptive pricing. The actual service only took 15 minutes. After all, it was only unclogging a blocked kitchen drain. The price tag? $387!!! Including travel time to my house it works out to over $700 per hour. They have developed 'unit prices' for many services that include parts and labor. On the surface this seems simple. They won't give these prices out over the phone however. They need to 'look at it'. Then you are faced with a guy standing in your kitchen telling you to pay $387 to snake the drain or $90 to leave having done nothing (trip charge that was never mentioned). They could have easily given this ridiculous price over the phone. It's unclogging a drain for gosh sakes. The equivalent of plumbing 101. That, of coarse would defeat the purpose of the scam.
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riptoff2
July 6, 2011
Price Gouging, Hidden Fees
I called them to have them fix our water heater which broke down yesterday. First off, they will try to charge a “dispatch fee” of $80 just for sending someone to your house. The CSR I spoke with told me that she would waive the fee because I was a new customer. I asked for a ballpark figure for how much it would cost for them to fix the problem and was told that only the field technicians had the “book of prices.”
I get a call from my wife that the man wrote up a bill for $150 JUST for looking at the water heater. The total to actually repair the heater would be $850 total, or $1500 to replace the whole system. They did not say that actually looking at the heater was going to cost anything, let alone $150. I had a second plumber come in after they left and fix the same problem. The total charge for diagnosis AND repair was $180.00.
Obviously, the man would not have left the house without being paid, so my wife had to pay him with our credit card. I was able to have my credit card company reverse the charge. We would not have been so lucky if we paid with cash or check!
These crooks are trying to take advantage of people by price gouging heating services in the winter time. They are THE first result for “plumber in northern Virginia” on Google and unlucky people WILL try them first!
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