Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. 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.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/03/2024

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Hello, We are absolutely will not pay River City Environmental for locating and recovering the septic tank and distribution box, because this work was done by another contractor, *************************, during the same time period. Your technicians flat out lied that they did this work. We will not pay the $150 charge or any additional fees or interest. We are not pleased about having a past balance on our record and we are further requesting that this negative information be removed from our credit report. I did call and explained our position to the receptionist, she attempted to connect me with billing. Apparently the billing department refused to take the call. We will be reporting this grievance to the Better Business Bureau. Please remove the past due balance from our account. Sincerely, *************************** *********************** Sent from my iPhone On May 2, 2024, at 8:13 AM, ******************************* wrote:

  

  Business Response

  Date: 05/14/2024

  Hello,

  I had sent you an email back on 5/3/2024 with the picture I attached to this response. As indicated in my email, I realize there may have been some confusion associated to what the technician had to dig out. While the line item on the invoice indicates "Locate, Dig and Recover Septic Tank", that's a standard billing line associated to any digging our technicians need to do. In your case the work performed was to locate and dig out the incoming pipe associate to your septic tank so our Drain Technician could open it up and jet that line. You are correct, the Septic lid as well as the distribution box was not exposed by our technician.

  I understand your frustration, and possible confusion between what you had already had handled by others vs what we needed to do while on site.
  
  The information we have, job completion summary from two of our technicians and the photos indicate that this portion of the invoice is valid. We are willing to work with you however will not be adjusting off the full amount owed for this work performed.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 05/14/2024

   
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***************************

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/02/2024

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I hired River City Environmental Services to replace a valve in my shower/bath. After getting a quote I agreed and we scheduled the work. The estimate mentions replacing the tub spout/faucet but no model or other information. I was told that it would be like-for-like with the current/old spout. During the job, a new faucet was installed that was not like-for-like and was missing functions (ability to adjust pressure) compared to the previous spout. I noticed this after completion of the job, asked about it and was told this is the standard, that spout kits that adjust pressure are no longer sold and finding one would be almost impossible. ******* said they would look around but no promises and would have to charge for the work.I reached out to River City Environmental four times over the next two weeks, both over the phone and in person. Eventually after speaking with a friendly manager I did get a single call back from the plumber, telling me I'd need another entirely new valve to achieve what I had before and acquiring this plus the new faucet kit would be both difficult and expensive. He promised to call me back the next day when he'd looked into this, never did (as of the time of writing, about two weeks after that call).River City Environmental did not wish to resolve this whatsoever. During the calls and talks with both the original plumber and management at River City I offered to pay them to return and make the adjustment if they would discount the additional (re)work. I offered to hire them at full price to replace a sink to make the trip worthwhile. No effort was made to resolve this.After getting the run around for so long, I reached out to another local plumbing company to resolve this. That company took a look, said the installed valve would work just fine and that I could order a pressure-adjusting faucet kit on Amazon easily and cheaply. I did, it arrived the next day and that new plumbing company did the work very quickly and affordably.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 05/03/2024

  Hello *******,

  I was originally involved when your concerns first surfaced. I sincerely apologize for the frustrating experience and truly disheartened that the team I escalated the situation to did not take the time to properly address and rectify the situation. While you didn't see it during this interaction, River City Environmental prides itself in ensuring the customer experience is a good one. I can ensure you that we will reach out to all parties involved and remind them of our core mission and values, ensuring moving forward that customer situations like this one are handled quickly and properly. I'm sorry about all you had to go through for what should have been a simple and pleasant service. I have directed my team to adjust off all remaining balances associated to your service, in calculating things it appears to be a total of $535.61. I hope this helps smooth over the situation a bit and some time down the road you elect to give us another shot at earning your business.

  Thank you,

  *************************** - Operations Manager

  ************ 

  Customer Answer

  Date: 05/03/2024

   
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *************************

• Initial Complaint

  Date:10/13/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  On 9/23, I called River City to deal with a clogged toilet. I was told the driver would call when he was leaving his last job and heading to my site. He called at 4:04 to say he was on his way. He arrived at 4:37 (see PDF attached with screen shots of timing). He was supposed to call and let me now how much the job would entail. He never called and then the tenant texted me just after 5pm to say that he was already gone and that it was a very quick job that was done with a snake. Since he never called back, I assumed i would pay the emergency call out fee ($250) plus an hour of time since they round up ($250). I was charged for two hours instead of one. I sent an email to the company and asked them to confirm with the driver that it was 2 hours. They responded that he ws there two hours. Then, I send over the screen grabs of his calls and the tenants confirmation that he was already gone (all time stamped) and I haven't been able to get a further response.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 10/24/2023

  Thanks for bringing your concern to our attention.
  The service was called in as a same day, weekend emergency service. The rates quoted for this service were as follows
  $250 emergency call out fee
  $250 per hour rate, rate is charged Port to Port
  
  In our response to your email, it was confirmed that the 2hr rate was correct. Again, billable rate is associated to Port-to-Port times.Port to Port includes drive time to the location, time on site, and drive time back to our dispatch area.
  
  Based on your overview of how you thought billing would occur, there *** have been some confusion related to the communicated rate at the time services were ordered. We apologize for any confusion that *** have occurred when you called in for services.
  
  We want to ensure our customers are properly taken care of and in that light, we will be making an adjustment to the invoice associated to this service. The adjustment will be for one hour of time at a rate of $250.00. The remaining balance on the invoice will be $500.00 which covers the $250.00 call out fee as well as one hour of billable time at the rate of $250.00. Total invoice will be adjusted down from $750.00 to $500.00. Our records indicated the invoice has been paid so we will be providing a refund of $250.00 back to the card the payment was made from.
  
  In addition to this adjustment, we will work internally with our teams to ensure clear and specific information is provided in associated to our chargeable rates.
  
  Thank you again for allowing us to work through this situation and apologize it required as many steps as it did to get resolved.
  
  ***************************
  Operations Manager | River City Environmental, Inc.
  P: ************ | C: ************
  Working Together for a Clean Environment | www.rivercityusa.com
  

  Customer Answer

  Date: 10/24/2023

   
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.  I appreciate RiverCity Environmental's response as well.  Thanks so much for your help with this.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *********************

• Initial Complaint

  Date:03/26/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Our ****** is 9 miles from River City Environmental. However, we were charged $100 fuel surcharge. The on-site employees did leave our site to pick up materials from ******** Plumbing which is 4 miles from our ******. The two employees working on our site left for approximately 2 hours to pick up materials. We were charged $160 an hour for 1 employee and $98 for the second for the time they were getting materials. We were also charged a second surchage of $98.61, however, I have been unable to get an answer from River City as to what this charge was for. They purchased twice as much piping as was necessary and charged us for the materials that were not needed. This was a very straight forward job - 16 feet of pipe along a dock needed replacement. They charge us for 2, twenty foot pieces. Each 20 ft piece is $158. When I spoke to the manager, ****, he told me I could pick up the remaining pipe, however, when I reached out to him via phone and text, he did not answer. Once the River City employee, returned from picking up the supplies, I timed how long it took them to replace the piece of pipe. As it is an exterior pipe that runs along a dock, 16 feet, the job was quick and took less than 30 minutes. I was charged for 2 hours of work for 2 employees. The cost of this small repair was grossly inflated.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 04/04/2023

  Complaint Rebuttal: 
  River City Environmental (RCE) quoted standard time and material for plumber rates, labor rates port to port, and materials needed for the job to-be-determined rates and materials to the customer.  The pipe needed for the repair is sold in 20-foot lengths. the replacement section was 23 in lengths requiring two sections of pipe to be purchased along with fittings and glue.  Originally the customer had said we used scrap pieces of pipe for the repair and they shouldnt be charged at all. This was incorrect.  After providing the receipt we credited the material charges to cost which the customer agreed was fair.The customer thought that we should not markup material cost at all.  Also, the customer complained that we should not charge time or fuel to pick up material for their repair.
  Finally, this was a same day emergency service repair.  RCE did not charge emergency rates for this same day repair, giving the customer a hefty discount from the beginning. 
  We are issuing a credit to the customer even though we do not think this is the correct thing to do.  We will credit the amount the customer is asking for; $340.00.  RCE already issued a previous credit to the customer that was previously agreed upon.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 04/10/2023

  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and accept the credit of $340 that they have agreed to.  ***'s response to this dispute, however, has the following discrepancies.  I would also mention that, when trying to resolve this with ******** and explain that the charge was grossly inflated, he suggested the *** come to our site,remove the piping they fixed and return our payment. He also mentioned getting *** attorneys involved.  
  1.*** never credited any amount back to our account as stated by ***.  **** agreed to issue us a credit, however, when I did not receive the credit, he would not return my call.
  2.I never received a receipt from ***, as stated by ***.  I only have the receipt they provided to my ****************** when I disputed the charge (attached).  The numbers that *** provided do not add up to the $1136.61 total - $160 is unaccounted for. 
  3. The replacement section was approx. 16' in length, not 23' as stated by ***.  Therefore, there was no need to *** to purchase 2 20' pieces. I did not say *** used scrap pieces of pipe as stated by ***.  I asked if I could keep the unused pipe when I learned that so much excess had been purchased and I had paid for this excess. **** agreed to this over the phone but would not return my text when I wanted to pick up the pipe.
  4. This was not a same day emergency service repair, as stated by ***.  I called earlier (maybe one to two weeks) to ask for a bid on a larger project.  When I called the day of the small repair, I was told they had someone in the area and it wouldn't be a problem and they would also discuss the future work.  I never asked to not be charged at all for the work.  
  5. I never suggested they should not mark up their materials cost. I do think that $460 for the replacement of 20 feet of pipe and a few materials is excessive,considering that one 20 foot piece would cost approx. $160 (that is without a contractor discount).  I also believe that a $98 fuel charge is excessive,especially since they are 9 miles from the job site and **** said they had someone in my area when I called.