I had what is known as a Gold Plan with Mr. Furnace i.e. I pay $26.75 per month and this supposedly guaranteed me appointments in 24 hours, a safety and efficiency check, free repairs... no exclusions* and a $19.95 diagnostic service. This is probably a rip-off but it is not my complaint.
I personally purchased a Wait 6000 humidifier (approx $180.00) from Lowes after Mr Furnace quoted me a price of approx. $600.00 (this should have been my first warning). I asked Mr Furnace to install the humidifier for me as I am a senior citizen and my eyes are not the best. They quoted me $95.00 per hour, which frankly is what I pay my auto mechanic, so I thought this to be reasonable since only my furnace is covered under the Gold Plan. Installation ended up costing me approx $220.00
My first service this heating year was Jan 15 2010. The yearly service was performed no charge. I aked the service man to check the humidifier as the moiture in the house was very low. He did a check, said the humidistat was not working and he would need to replace the part. The service man advised he would check the cost of the part and get back to us. Later in the day he called to say the part was $220.00 plus installation. We told him to forget it and called the office to complain about this price gouging and told them because we were senior citizens we were not stupid. We were advised this was the price they would charge anyone for the same work. We told them they were crooks and to cancel our contract. The lady said I was being too hasty and she would have someone call me.
I called the Wait Service line who advised the part was less than $25.00. The gentleman there was very helpful. After some routine questions including what is the problem he told me to unscrew the feed line from the valve to the humidifier pad and clean out a little hole that was in a brass fitting in that line. With the help of my wife's eyes we were able to complete this simple task. The humidity in the house almost immediately started to rise and has maintained a constant 40% since this operation was performed.
The lady in the Mr Furnace service department called us back to say they would now do the job for us at a price of $135.00 because they wanted to keep a good customer (they wanted our $26.75 per month). I told them I had fixed the humidifier myself after a call to the Wait 6000 service line.and to cancel my contract. I further told them I was reporting them to the BBB.
This morning Jan 20th. We were advised by the Mr. Furnace service department that we were being billed for the Jan 15th. service call. My wife took the call and informed them we were not paying any bill from Mr Furnace and that we had cancelled our pre payment for their service at the bank.
This afternoon (Jan 20th.) I got a call from the general Manager, a Mr. Randy Norton, who said he was following up my complaint and he wanted to assure me that they were a reputable company and what could they do in this instance to help us out. I told him he could cancel our contract and not bother to call me again. He tried vainly to condone Mr Furnace's pricing policy and to advise me that they were in business over 30 years and he was a law abiding citizen and he would do nothing to shame his family. Of course I asked him if he thought that selling parts at ten times their market price was ethical and customer oriented and if he thought telling senior citizens to purchase unecessary parts at this exhorbitant price was ethical and if he thought his family would not be ashamed at these practices. His reply was he would check into it. I told him of the call this morning advising us we would receive a bill for the service call which was supposed to have been taken care off in our contract. He told us to forget it we would not be billed. He wished me luck in finding a new furnace service company.
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