ComplaintsforVarsity Plumbing & Heating, Inc.

• Initial Complaint

  07/02/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Order Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Work was sold to an unathorized person. My mother was on site to show the technicain the product to be quoted for servce. They proceeded to pressure and scare her into spending $5400. She signed a document from them. This documents explicetly states " i represent that i am either the owner of the property or the owners agenet, and have authority to oder said work". My mother is not the owner of my house, she is not on the deed and i did not authorize her as an agent. the apointment for an estimate was made by me, and i was contacted by this company to confirm as shown in my document attached. when they arrived i was at work, and they changed the account to be under my mothers name

  Business response

  07/08/2024

  After investigating this complaint, we have concluded that the company acted reasonably and fairly in this situation. Multiple facts stated in the complaint are inaccurate. In the complaint, ********************* claims to have made the appointment personally and claims that the account was changed to be under his mothers name (*********************) after the technician arrived at the home. This is false. Our phone call recording history identified that the appointment was made by ********************* directly on June 24th, 2024. During this phone call, she represented that she just moved into a new place and would like to have her hot water heater looked at. Our Customer ********************** Agent pulled up the address in our system and noted that we have previous contact information under the name of ********************* from an unrelated appointment for a completely different system. ***** noted ***** is her son and requested that her own contact information be put on the account because the equipment for which she was making the appointment was her own water heater system. As standard practice, our Customer ********************** Agent left ****** contact information on the account and also added ****** per her request. This disputes ****** complaint claim that the account was changed later. It is common to have multiple points of contact on any customer account, and it is standard practice to contact everyone on file for appointment notifications. Thus both ***** and ***** would receive communications since they were both on the account. For this particular appointment, ***** made it clear that she was responsible for the work relating to the water heater both on the phone and on-site. ***** chose the appointment date and time per her own schedule availability. When our technician arrived at the home, ***** greeted the technician and welcomed him to conduct a diagnosis and then present recommendations. ***** considered the recommendations, told the technician verbally she was authorized to approve the work she had decided on, and signed paperwork that states she is authorized to approve that work. She also paid for the services with her own credit card. Under these very normal circumstances of a customer signing documents representing authorization and paying for the services personally, the company has done reasonable due diligence and would not be expected to go to extreme measures, such as pulling the deed of a home to determine if all occupants are listed as homeowners. 

  Customer response

  07/08/2024

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID# ********, and have determined that my complaint has NOT been resolved because:

  All of their statements from varsity are false. Again my mother did not make this apointment, the account was under my name,  and she has no legal standing in this property. I have phone records and emails that proove i was the point of contact. Varsity should be responsible for ensuring they are dealing with the home owner and not any person that opens the door. As a business they should not be engaging in commerce with any person that does not have legal standing in the property they are servicing. Again my Mother lives in my house and she has no right to make any purchases in this home. Additionally this company has multiple compaints of a similar nature and has consistenly participated in price gouging. Please review their Yelp reviews for a true synopsis of their conduct. I have documentation from my home inspection and qualified witnesses I can provide that will attest to my statement that this heater had no issues and was not in need of any of the repairs sold. This company provided false claims and fear to convince my mother to purchase repairs under false pretenses and should be stripped of their BBB status. Other consumers should not be lead to believe they are dealing with an honest and respecatble BBB orginaization. I have also filed compaints with the ** Attorney General and Suffolk ***************** of ****** The company has made it clear they will not refund my mothers money, so i want to atleast make sure no other senior citizens fall victim to their predatory business practices.

  Additionally 

   

   

   

   

  In order for the BBB to appropriately process your response, you MUST answer the question above.

  
  Sincerely,
  
  *********************
  
  
  
  
   
  

• Initial Complaint

  05/20/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  In speaking with a company representative on the phone, they said they charged a flat rate for a job and do not charge by the hour. The representative also said that they assess a service fee to diagnosis the problem. The plumber arrived to my residence without the proper equipment to diagnosis the problem, and still charged me a service fee. In other wards, they charged me a service fee and service was not rendered. This is unethical and a situation of fraud. The plumber also said that the rate changes (and is not a flat rate) if the job is longer than 2 hours.

  Business response

  08/09/2022

  After investigating the complaint, we have come to the conclusion that this was unfortunately a miscommunication between ourselves and our customer. As a family owned and operated business, we do not charge by the hour and do provide up front pricing as our Customer ********************** Representative stated. To be able to continue to provide service this way, we do have a service fee that is waived should the customer move forward with the repair. In this case, the customer originally was going to move forward with the work but decided to go in a different direction so the deposit that was left was used as a service fee to cover the time and expertise of the technician in the customer's home at their original appointment. As a courtesy to the customer, ********************** is going to return this service fee as a sign of good faith as we do not want the customer to believe that we were attempting to wrongfully charge them. Our Customer ********************** Supervisor **** tried to reach the customer on the phone number they had listed on their account but unfortunately had to leave a voicemail. The customer can anticipate their refund within the next week. Should they require any further assistance, they can reach us at anytime as we are a 24/7 service company. 

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩