Complaint Review: First American Home Buyers Protection Corporation - Van Nuys California

My wife and I purchased our house and the First American Home buyer's protection was purchased with the deal. We started having problems with the air conditioner freezing up, called the agency, and filed a claim. I was at work when the technician came out to the house, but my wife said he was very sleazy and she did not feel comfortable with him in the house alone.

I was upset but thought maybe she was overreacting and did not think much of it. The technician report said that they replaced the caps and charged the AC and we received a $55 service fee. Two months later the AC started freezing up again. I guessed it might be because the heat is so intense; however, the house would not even cool below 80 degrees and the AC was running non-stop. I checked the caps he said he replaced and they were barely screwed on. I was able to finger tighten them at least a whole turn. I called First American Home Buyers and they told me there would be another service charge to send someone out.

After explaining the situation they claimed it was too late to waive my second service charge since two months had passed regardless of my explanation of their patch-up job. I was still calm at this point and took off work to meet with the technician personally. He ran some tests and said the compressor is bad and that I would have to pay the $55 dollar service fee plus a $150 dollar "disposal fee" for the compressor and gas. I explained to him and I have proof that I work for a construction company that has hazardous material and waste disposal and got it approved to have it disposed of there.

He said, "I will check with the warranty company for you on that and they will be giving me a call that same day to let me know about when the compressor will be ordered". First American Home Buyers called me that day and said that the compressor would take 5-7 business days to order. It being 100 degrees I called six different AC companies in the phone book for a second opinion. Every single one of them said they could be out at my house that same day to change out the compressor. I had estimates ranging from 900-1200 dollars for the parts and labor. All of the companies said the "disposal fee" is a scam to get more money.

First American had no record of my offer to dispose of the materials myself, but said a supervisor would be contacting me that same day. I called back after waiting and the representative had no idea who the person was I was talking to (I told them their name) and there was no record of our conversation.

This was my first real clue this company is a scam after this happened several times. I then dropped the subject because we really wanted our AC fixed and asked when the expected date of arrival of the compressor is. They had no record of one even being submitted for order four days after the technician wrote the report!

First American said I need to contact the AC Company for information and when I did that, they said I need to contact First American. After I got the runaround several times as I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt and work things out, I explained the runaround and each company said there is nothing they can do I have to contact the other one!

Then I called and told them about all of the companies I had called saying they could have it fixed today and asked them to reimburse me for them. They said, "First American Home Buyers Protection is one of the largest whole salers and the equipment they order is at about half price so we cannot pay you for having another contractor do the work, but you can opt to select the cash out option". I told them I would like to get information about how much that would be.

I had gone over a week now with no AC and when I contacted them, they said it would take 3-5 business days for the supervisor to come up with cash out value and they put a suspension on the order of the compressor, which they never did do after 5 days! I finally contacted one of the AC companies I received the second opinion from and told them I want them to go ahead and fix the compressor after getting nowhere from First American.

The bill came to 1000 dollars, but my AC worked that day. Finally, after two weeks First American contacted me and told me that $500 dollars is what they were going to reimburse me for parts and labor. I tried to dispute that I had six different estimates that stated 500 dollars is the typical charge for just the labor and around another 500 for parts. They gave me the whole spiel about how they get parts and labor a lot cheaper, but they sure are willing to leave you hanging for weeks without fixing the problem! A representative to renew my policy contacted me. I even listened for 20 minutes what she had to say out of curiosity. All I could think about is why would I pay 400-500 dollars a year and service call fees when I could actually put it towards getting the problem fixed!

Consumer

Raeford, North Carolina

U.S.A.

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