I have submitted an offer on a house that has a furnace, air cleaner, and central air rental agrrement with Reliance Home Comfort. Before firming up the offer I called Reliance to find out what the monthly rental amount would be and if I could buy out the contract. I was told by the CSR that they could not tell me becasuse of privacy reasons. Take possession of the house then call us. What a ridiculous suggestion. Privacy reasons? how idiotic. How could quoting me a price on what I am going to pay is invading or disturbing someone's privacy. As a result I told the owners of the house to have it all disconnected and sitting out in the driveway the day of closing. I don't want any part of the Reliance scam. No wonder people are changing their water heater company by the hundreds.

Two weeks before I put an offer on a house, I called Reliance to inquire about their furnace rentals since the house I was looking at had a rental already installed. I was told that they couldn't discuss the furnace nor options (removal/buyout/monthly rate) but I was to call once I was in the house for arrangements. I stupidly believed the guy and put in the offer. After the offer was accepted, I get an email from my realitor to contact Reliance. I called them and found out that I now either pay a monthly rate for the remainder of the contract or buy out the furnace and receive no warranty (I was told they were in the rental business and not the warranty one). They refused to remove the furnace. I called back repeatedly and asked to talk to a supervisor and was refused. I finally had a person call me back but they told me to contact my lawyer since it was "out of their hands". I did and the cost to litigate is more than the cost for the furnace.

Do not rental from these people. A seven year term with no ability to have it removed or canceled is a bad idea, especially if you are selling your house or going to purchase one with a rental unit. I have also had problems with their service with my water heater in the current house which makes me furious I have to pay this company any money for their predatory practices.

I am based out of Windsor, Ontario and I am sending this message to escalate an issue that I encountered with Reliance's Service department on Friday June 18, 2010.

In late May, I signed up for the Comfort Protection Plan via telephone and scheduled a service visit for June 18 between 1pm and 5pm. The operator I spoke with assured me that he would be in contact the week of my appointment for confirmation purposes.

On June 17 I had not heard anything from the Reliance operator, nor from any other Reliance service personnel. Correspondingly I called your 1-866-Reliance hotline in order to attempt to confirm my service appointment for June 18. The operator I spoke with DID in fact confirm my appointment, and correspondingly I scheduled the June 18th afternoon off of work to be home for the technician.

On June 18 I was running about 30mins late coming home from work. Therefore on my way home at about 11:30am I called the 1-866-Reliance hotline to inquire as to where I was in the sequence of service calls (i.e. near the front of the line or back of the line). I was informed that my service appointment for that afternoon (which I had confirmed less than 24hrs previously) was in fact cancelled. I was informed that Reliance called my home at noon (approx. one hour prior to when I was scheduled to be home from work for the technician) and left a voice message to cancel the appointment. I spoke with a supervisor named Josh from the Service department and I was informed that my appointment was cancelled because of a "temperature spike" and that "there was nothing we (Reliance) could do". Subsequently he did offer me 4 months off of my Comfort Protection Plan fees which equates to approximately $75 (to my recollection). Unfortunately given the fact that my current pay-scale puts me at approximately $240/day ($120 per half day) and that I took 1/2 a day off for this (now cancelled) service appointment I am still losing approximately $45 on this deal. I feel a fair compromise would have been to at least waive the protection plan fees in the amount equivalent to the lost wages and reschedule the appointment at a later date.

In summary I cannot convey in text how disappointed and angry I am with the Reliance customer service that has been provided to me in this particular situation. I feel that Reliance has had multiple opportunities to mitigate this situation and at each and every pass they have chosen the most inconvenient, costly and time consuming option for me (the customer). Furthermore when supervision/management was presented with this issue I was provided a half hearted apology and the waiving of fees worth less than that of the wages I was losing due to Reliance's incompetence with respect to customer service.

I look forward to someone with more latitude with respect to customer service getting back to me as soon as possible to address this issue.

Thank you,

Matt ML

Regarding my complaint of 26 May 10.

I noticed that most of the complainants never post results of their complaints.

I would like to say thank you to Kim at Reliance Customer Service. Kim called me and reviewed the situation. Once misunderstandings were cleared up, the situation was resolved to my satisfaction. The techs did arrive mid afternoon Friday 28 May and the problem was fixed within 15 minutes.

Hopefully everything will continue to go smoothly.

Thanks again Kim.

MikeKD

Comfort Protection Plan is a SCAM. Reliance sales person sold me the "Comfort Protection Plan". Feb. 2006.

The sales pitch was a pack of lies. She basically said the Furnace and Air Conditioner were completely covered for all repairs @ 15.99 a month. They will send out a repair man and fix any problems. I thought it too good to be true so I asked several questions.

November 2009 (after almost 4 years of payments) the Furnace wouldn't turn on. So I called Reliance, by the time the repair man arrived it was working. But he was quite happy to rip apart our Furnace and tell us it had a cracked heat exchanger and to fix that it was $900.00 so he might as well sell me a new furnace. So, I said when can you fix it, as it was all covered under the Comfort Protection Plan, right?

Wrong! I was now being educated about what it didn't cover, which is basically everything that usually breaks down. I suddenly felt I was in the middle of a SCAM, not only had I been paying 15.99 a month for nothing. But this allowed Reliance to enter you home and further rip me off.

He said he by policy (whose self serving policy) he would have to disable my furnace. Leaving a family of five without heat! Remember it was working before he arrived.

I don't believe he was honest about the cracked heat exchanger because the furnace is still working.

Reliance - first SCAMMED me out of 15.99 a month for four years, and then used scare tactics to try and SCAM me at my home.

Of course when I called Reliance to complain and ask for a refund of my $15.99 a month for four years. They read from a script deflecting away from the lying salesperson to blaming us for not reading the fine print in the pamphlet they never sent me.

BEWARE OF RELIANCE - they are SCAMMERS.