Carrie
Yermo,#2Author of original report
Fri, August 13, 2004
After AHS denied our claim, I contacted our agent, and threatened to take not only AHS to court, but her and the previous owner to court because we had only lived in our house for two months. Our agent agreed with us, and said she was going to call the senior sales rep for our area. (This is the person that gets the fat commission check for all the sales of the contracts our agent sells.) When he got word about our situation, and our agent threatened to stop selling contracts. Then things started happening. Everyone from senior executives, to the legal department got involved. I was assigned a personal rep for the company, and AHS started contacting the two contractors. They drove the contractors CRAZY for nearly 2 weeks, trying to trick them into saying something that would get AHS off the hook. The contractors finally told them, "Look, we are professional's, we have given you our opinion. If you don't stop bothering us, we are going to start charging you by the hour for all the time we have spent going over this ****ing case!" AHS got the message, because I was called and told the two pieces of ductwork that were in the worst shape would be replaced. "Only two?" I asked? That seems kind of redunant. The contractor agreed. He said, this isn't going to solve the problem. It's like putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. The ductwork needed replacing, but he took the contract anyway. For 2 1/2 hours of work, the contractor charged AHS $750.00. We turned on the A/C, it went from 78 to 76 degrees, then started climbing again. After running for nearly 6 hours, the temp in the house was fluctuating between 79 and 80 degrees. The unit didn't turn off the entire time. We turned it off again, plugged in the portable A/C we bought because of this situation, and called my AHS rep. She asked if we were sure the contractor was done. I was sure, she said she had to wait to talk to the contractor. I'm calling again today to get an update, but her words were, "Oh no, you're right back where we started huh"? I said "Yup, I think we are". Also, be VERY careful about accepting ANY "compensation" for being inconvenienced. After we paid $650 for the portable A/C, I told them I wanted to be reimbursed for it. I was told to wait to see what the outcome of the situation would be, but for now, they would send me $100 for the time and how much we were inconvenienced. I said that would be fine for now. I did receive the check, but because things were still unresolved, I decided to just put the check in my "AHS Binder" and wait. I never opened the envelope. While going through my ever-growing binder, I opened the check because I wanted to see when it would void out, 90 or 120 days. It was 120 days. No problem. I turned the check over, and there was a stamp just below where you would endorse the check. It states: ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF RELEASE & SATISFACTION. BY ENDORSING THIS CHECK THE PAYEE HEREBY ACKNOWLEDGES PAYMENT AND SATISFACTION IN FULL OF PAYEE'S CLAIM FOR REPAIR OR REPLACEMENT AGAINST AMERICAN HOME SHIELD CORP. ("AHSC") AND ITS SUBSIDIARIES AND PAYEE HEREBY RELEASES AHSC AND ITS SUBSIDIARIES FROM ANY LIABILITY FOR CONTRACT BENEFITS WITH RESPECT TO SAID CLAIM. This was supposed to be COMPENSATION for BEING INCONVENIENCED! Some compensation! Makes me wonder how many people have been "compensated" in this manner. I'll update more when they decide what they are going to do now...