Why do you have to pay people who come to your house but can't fix

your problem?

My AC went out two nights ago. I waited till the morning to call someone because I didn't want to pay extra for a night call.

So this is what I have paid:

The first AC guy - $75.00 and he told me I needed to replace my entire system in the attic for $3,000....
The second AC guy - $89.00 to tell me he couldn't fix it and I needed to call an electrician.
The electrician - $150 to fix the problem last night
The electrician - $200 to finish fixing the problem today.
The electrician - $75 to put a "surge protector" to make sure the problem doesn't happen again.

$589.00 to fix what was a blown out wire! I don't know if I have the money in the bank, I just know I had the checks to give them. Now I have to scramble to get the money in there so they won't bounce. And of course I am going to get the money from my mother since she lived in an era when the father worked and they put money away for rainy days. Little did they know that they would have to pay for their kids rainy days also!

I suppose I could have paid with a credit card but damn! It was one wire that blew out. Thank God I had enough sense to pay for a second AC guy to get another opinion or I would have a $3,000 PLUS the extra money they would have charged to fix the original problem. And I would probably still be sitting here in the heat while they were ripping up my attic.

Oh and I had the second AC guy was here in MARCH who sold me a $500 service plan which I canceled the next day. (That is why I did not call them first.)

They really get you when you are sweating and miserable. I swear they take advantage of that. And I wonder what other people do who don't have the credit or the money in the bank! Do they just sit their while their house temperature climbs up past 80%? If they have asthma like me does any organization make sure they can get their AC working?

Damn!

EDIT: grammer

and yeah, they should have to 'eat" at least part, if not all of the cost of going to someone's house and not helping them or giving them wrong, unhelpful advice.

If you had the new AC put in then you would have had to pay the first guy, but you could have just told him you would get back to him. The second guy didn't get the bid either, so he was SOL too. That's what I would have done, anyway.

have the problem diagnosed, and upon further agreement, to fix the problem.

Then, it is what you say it is. But, you'll likely still have to pay the "service call" fee, which is in effect a charge for the estimate.

If you tell the contractor that you won't pay the service call fee, before anything gets signed, he'll probably just get back into his truck and never come out to your place again.

The AC guy and the electrician can call it a "service call" if they want, but I choose to call it a bid. Not just at home but for vendors at work as well. The burden is on him to try to convince me to pay for a "service call" when he is first contacted. If he did that, he would be told, by me, that I just want a bid on getting the repairs. At that point, he can either bid on it or not get in his truck in the first place. The fact that he thinks I just assume it's a "service call" is an invalid presumptuous assumption on his part. If he makes that mistake, I wouldn't pay him. That is the way I do business with repairmen. I don't have any problems like getting a bill from some broke dick who didn't get my problem fixed. I'm not an employer who pays show up time. And he's not an employee who gets paid show up time. Works for me!

Otherwise, you have to pay for their time. Best to agree to an upper-limit on diagnosis cost and a get them to agree to no additional cost if they can't fix the problem. Do that before they start working

Before the technician starts work, always agree to an upper limit to how much time they need to diagnose the problem. Three hours is a good ballpark.

It doesn't sound like anyone ripped you off, but the AC guy may have tried or simply didn't know anything about wiring.

But, if once they get there, they tell you there's a serious problem that requires an unusual amount of time to diagnose, then it's time begin negotiating. Or, call another contractor who will agree to provide a no-cost estimate.

Most service companies charge for their time and travel expenses--not their success. Next time ASK about their policy before you request a house call.

That $500 service plan I got and canceled learned me a lesson I suppose.

They waste your time
They're wastin' mine
California's got the most of them
Boy, they got a host of them
Swear t'God they got the most
At every business on the coast
Swear t'God they got the most
At every business on the coast
They got the Flakes

Flakes! Flakes!

They can't fix yer brakes
You ask 'em, "Where's my motor?"
"Well it was eaten by snakes . . ."
You can stab 'n' shoot 'n' spit
But they won't be fixin' it
They're lyin' an' lazy
They can be drivin' you crazy
Swear t'God they got the most
At every business on the coast
Swear t'God they got the most
At every business on the coast


I asked as nice as I could
If my job would
Somehow be finished by Friday
Well, the whole damn weekend
Came 'n' went, Frankie

'N'they didn't do nothin'
But they charged me double for Sunday
You know, no matter what you do
They gonna cheat 'n' rob you
Then they'll send you a bill
That'll get your senses reelin'
And if you do not pay
They got computer collectors
That'll get you so crazy
Til your head'll go through th' ceilin'
Yes it will!

I'm a moron 'n' this is my wife
She's frosting a cake
With a paper knife
All what we got here's
American made
It's a little bit cheesey,
But it's nicely displayed
Well we don't get excited when it
Crumbles 'n' breaks
We just get on the phone
And call up some Flakes
They rush on over
'N' wreck it some more
'N' we are so dumb
They're linin' up at our door
Well, the toilet went crazy
Yesterday afternoon
The plumber he says
"Never flush a lampoon!"
This great information
Cost me half a week's pay
And the toilet blew up
Later on the next day ay-eee-ay
Blew up the next day WOO-OOO

We are millions 'n' millions
We're coming to get you
We're protected by unions
So don't let it upset you
Can't escape the conclusion
It's probably God's Will
That civilization
Will grind to a standstill
And we are the people
Who will make it all happen
While yer children is sleepin',
Yer puppy is crappin'
You might call us Flakes
Or something else you might coin us
But we know you're so greedy
That you'll probably join us
We're comin' to get you, we're comin' to get you
We're comin' to get you, we're comin' to get you
We're comin' to get you, we're comin' to get you
We're comin' to get you, we're comin' to get you

tell people that something is wrong when it isn't just to make a buck. And I've seen the same thing with AC people. I also remember reading several years ago that car mechanics had the biggest increase in income in that year. It is great that they make more money but not if it is because they are lying to their customers.

The first guy does sound like a jerk.

The second guy, though... You called him for an airconditioning problem but you had an electrical problem. Was he supposed to diagnose that for free?

And then you complain that you don't have money put away for a rainy day. Is that the tech's fault?

can't. I guess my point is that this would cause a severe hardship on most people in this country who live from paycheck to paycheck.

me to not be able to work much. I have often said that were it not for my parents I would be living in a nice fancy cardboard box somewhere. So there are people who have legitimate reasons for not have money for a rainy day.

Does that mean a wire over-heated? If so, why? Wires don't fail on their own; it's usually due to an overload or poor connection.

This is one place where I think you should always pay with a credit card. That way you have to option to refuse payment if the job is screwed up.

I recently had a problem with a $2500 plumbing job that not only didn't fix the problem, but they also never put the walls and cabinets back together as was agreed. I called the credit card company, provided some documentation, and I didn't have to pay it.

They tend to launch new computer lines without proper testing. A large proportion of their computers have glitches that are well known to the community but are officially ignored by Apple. You bring your new computer there, they run some batch testing on it, and if it comes out clean, basically a few days later they tell you that the computer is fine, give us $85, the problem is with the OS, not hardware (which they make, of course). You get your computer back, same glitches and crashes, nothing on it was done. You lost 2 half days to go to the store and wait. You also lost $85.

I would be on the phone reporting the first guy to the BBB, for trying to hustle you for a new unit. Good grief should not have taken more than five minutes to find there was no power, maybe anther ten to determine the cause.:mad:

is a joke.

There is virtually no protection for homeowners, no consumer laws, no agencies that really do anything, nothing. The home repair and construction industries are completely corrupt. And they take full advantage of the fact that people can't know everything about home repair. If you try to get any help, people act like you should have "known" that the contractors weren't giving a reasonable estimate, or doing a good job. It's like saying the patient should "know" the technicalities of their heart surgery before they get operated on.

It's a mess.

there are still some good people out there. I have a regular plumber, HVAC guy, and general contractor that I trust to do good work for a fair price.

I spent 20 years in the auto repair biz. You get to a point after so much being called a thief, getting set up by tv reporters looking for scams, and hauled into court, that you are tempted to steal since in the customers' mind you've already been accused, tried and convicted.

for being opportunistic in an unregulated marketplace. You have to have strong protections against the natural tendency of individuals to grab for oneself. People ALWAYS think they deserve to make excess profits at other's expense--always. This is true whether a small biz or big biz operator. It's human nature.

I'm sure you'll agree, as most builders/contractors I have talked to on this subject do--that the homeowner is completely unprotected. They will at least agree to that much. The industry is as corrupt as it could possibly be now. No, not every single person in it is a criminal, but the bad guys outweigh the good guys and reinforce each other. I have an uncle who is a builder--he agrees absolutely.

You can type in symptoms of the problems you're having and get some basic ideas about what the problem is and how much it would cost to fix it.

That way, when you call the technician (in our case because we neither have the time nor the tools to fix problems ourselves - plus I NEVER mess with electrical problems out of safety principles), you'll have a pretty good idea what the problem is.

This Old House's website is a fantastic place to start: http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh

you can always do your "homework" -- and it helps somewhat. You don't get burned quite as badly maybe but you can still get very burned, especially if something needs urgent repair. Research helps...only to a point. If you have any major remodeling done, you know you really can't research and inspect things well enough yourself. I'm better than the average person at understanding it all, but the unaware person is really screwed. My point is that it is not the homeowner's fault. We can't all be savvy about the repair business. There need to be protections. But people are so competitive that they see someone getting bad work as "bad luck."

American homeowners had NO idea how unprotected they are if something goes wrong in their expectations of any kind of home service or contractor. And contractors are taking full advantage.

You get exhausted fighting all the time. Just recently I paid full price for a new washer/dryer. The delivery people brought the dryer in a box. The washer however, looked like it had been around the block, and was not in a box. They wanted to install it but I told them to take it back. THEN they told me that they were angry at the distributor for insisting they deliver this washer, which they indicated was indeed some kind of returned item being resold at full price. They were mad at having their time wasted, since they knew the homeowner might say no. You just get tired of fighting, fighting, fighting.

I'm onto most of the tricks now...yes you can "learn." But meanwhile they're on to the next "customer." It's racketeering.

That's one thing I really liked about Ralph Nader. He got that part right--when you have consumers
being exploited right and left, it's not a healthy society.

If you have a skill you can trade, and not so much money in the bank, you might think about investing some time surfing bartering sites, and see if you can find a local electrical engineer who is willing to diagnose problems for you in the future, in return for whatever you can offer, without having to exchange money.

The other thing is that if you have a problem like that, it's worth posting up a description of the problem and photo of the system if you have a digital camera, because online, people can probably guide you through some of the simpler diagnosis. DU rules keep us from diagnosing your medical problems, but they never said anything about air conditioning problems. :)

much more likely that you're paying a corporation. That's how they do business.

You might be able to find a neighborhood handyperson that cares more about return business and cultivating a long-term relationship with you and your repair needs, that wouldn't charge if they couldn't fix it. Even if a specialist needed to be called in, such as an electrician, they possibly could have steered you toward the electrical problem instead of the AC unit problem, saving you those non-productive costs.

I could write a book

took advantage of you because of the heat. He probably charged the same hourly rates regardless of the season.

which tradespeople they've had the best experiences with, and keep that list handy for emergecies. Not all plumbers/electricians etc. are equally competent and able to get the job done, so knowing which have come through for others is important and can potentially save lots of $$.

Great show on Discovery Home Channel made in Canada about a contractor, Mike Holmes, who rescues people who have been ripped off by contractors and builders. He shows what mistakes were made, how to do the job right, what to look out for, and the ending--when he gives a family their house back--will make you cry.