Complaint Review: Main Street Mechanicals - Maryland Heights Missouri

Main Street Mechanicals was called because my air conditioning was not cooling properly.

The man that came to check on the problem said that the refrigerant was low and put some into the system and indicated that the evaporator coil may be leaking. He checked and said that it was, indeed, leaking due to the temperature inside the coil housing.

The next day, a different man came and gave me a price for all repairs but seem to be very dishonest in what he was saying about EPA requirements and threw in a lot of miscellaneous charges that just did not make sense. Because this was a Home Warranty situation, he complained that he would "not be making any money on this job." He also did not want to check the evaporator coil and said he would have to charge me for it if there was nothing wrong with it. Otherwise, the Home Warranty company would cover the charge.

I waited a day or so to digest what he said and then called to insist that the original worker checked and said that it was a leaking evaporator coil.

The second, older guy that seemed a bit dishonest, showed me a piece of paper with a "date" and a "code" he said was a new EPA law that was passed this year indicating that he could not leave the evaporator coil for me to dispose of myself and wanted to charge some large dollar amount to remove it as well as extra fees for removing any debri from the premises.

This guy just kept telling one lie after another assuming that I, the consumer, would just accept any gargage that he wanted to dish out and that I was not intelligent enough [ I have a doctorate and a master's degree ] to know when I was hearing bollocks or not.

I then contacted the EPA, Region 5, and spoke to a environmental scientist who was well informed of the issues, and the laws regarding this equipment and refrigerant, as well as what this company could and could not do. She was extremely helpful and indicated that what was being said to me by this company was untrue and suggested that I ask them for something more than what was written by hand on a scrap piece of paper that the older technician possessed.

She also wrote to me an email indicating what she had said to me over the phone so I could show it to the technician the next time he came over to my home. I did showed it to him and he realized that he was caught blantantly lying just to jack up his fees to recover what he was losing by being a contractor for the Home Warranty company. Even two Authorization Agents lied about the "new law" that the EPA environmental scientist disputed.

Basic axiom? Do not trust Main Street Mechanicals by what they say. They will lie to you to your face to make as much money on a job as possible. Home Warranties are a scam and not worth the money because they try to rip off the HVAC company they use and the HVAC company [ in this case, Main Street Mechanicals / http://www.mainstreetmechanicals.com ] will blantantly lie to the consumer to regain money they lose on a job by working for the Home Warranty company.

I was very glad that I checked directly with the EPA, rather than to take this technician's word, becaues it saved me a lot of money that they would have otherwised ripped me off for in this repair job. This company has no shame in lying to customers assuming that we are all uneducated and stupid enough to just accept their word as "gospel".

Lesson learned: Do not trust this company without checking to get a second opinion [ which I did from an AC friend who said that Main Street Mechanicals' technician was full of "crap" {his word was much harsher}] AND check with EPA if they quote some "law that was passed recently" because they will prevaricate you into the poor house if you allow them to do so.

Intelligent Consumer

Metro-Indianapolis Area

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