Complaint Review: ABS Heating & Air Conditioning - Campbell California

I chose ABS Heating and Air Conditioning in Campbell, California to do my new A/C installation after reading their reviews online and after receiving a couple other quotes. But I learned quickly that this is not the company you want to work with for a new A/C installation. Here is the recent truth about ABS since most of their positive reviews are from last year.

Bob came to my home and did an estimate for my new A/C installation and he appeared to be knowledgeable and thorough in his analysis. He said he has over 30 years experience so I felt like he knew what he was doing. He provided a written estimate the following day, which I liked, so I quickly got together all the paperwork to get an expedited HOA request approved in my townhome community in order to schedule this job for early June. I received HOA approval within a couple weeks and I scheduled the job with ABS for 3 weeks out, on June 6th, 2017. After Bob did his initial analysis, he turned me over to work with their admin, Trish, and that's where everything went downhill.

Trish and I emailed early in the process, a couple times, as I was trying to make sure they were ordering the right capacity unit and I was confirming if they had everything they needed to do the job. Trish assured me they were all set for June 6th. On Monday, June 5th in the afternoon, the day before installation, Trish calls me and says they just pulled the City Permit on Friday, June 2nd, one business day ago, and they found out that the AC unit they quoted and ordered for me does not meet the city guidelines for the decibel rating in my area so they cannot install the AC unit as planned. Are you serious?! What a huge error on their part, the wrong unit, and to learn about this the day before the install, instead of 3 weeks ago when they were estimating the job! Wow, so now I submitted the wrong specs to the HOA, we got the wrong unit approved, this was really sad.

I asked Trish why they didn't check this 3 weeks ago when they were estimating my job? She said there are only 2 of them and they are too busy to pull permits until a couple days before a job. Too busy to make a phone call to check city guidelines to make sure they are ordering the right unit?? Instead of a few minute phone call, now hours are wasted having to deal with this issue the day before install! Trish also said the city specs change every year and they don't know the changes until they pull the permits. So, if ABS knows they change every year, ya think they would have called the City to find out if they are quoting the right unit for the job?!

Trish then started discussing a cover that may decrease some noise, but she didn't know if there are any in stock. I asked more about the cover and if it affected performance and cooling capacity of the unit. She said she was not an engineer but she didn't think so per the specs. She also mentioned a slimline unit that would cost $1000 more but it was still over the decibel rating and she still had no idea if the cover would be a suitable option. At that point, she stated she is putting my job on hold, which was so upsetting after the weeks of effort and preparation to make this install happen. I then said "please have Bob call me before you put my job on hold" and she said Bob won't be able to do anything more than she is. I said again to please have Bob call me before they put my job on hold, and she gave me every excuse not to have Bob call me, so I ended up emailing him later that afternoon.

In follow up emails from Trish, she stated they did not make any mistake here, that this kind of thing happens with townhomes...wow, but IT ONLY HAPPENS WHEN A COMPANY FAILS TO DO THEIR DILIGENCE before quoting a job! No one makes that kind of mistake because companies would lose lots of money over errors like this. Soon afterwards, I got an email from Trish, saying she is canceling my job and she blamed it on my level of frustration. So instead of this company owning up to their major errors and trying to make it right with the customer, they just outright canceled my job after all this. I was truly stunned...now I literally need to start all over again, which is so very discouraging.

So many errors by ABS before they even started the actual job, from quoting the wrong unit, not knowing the city guidelines, not taking the time to check the guidelines before ordering the wrong unit, waiting until 2 days before the job to even check with the City, notifying me the day before install of this huge problem, and when I voiced serious frustration to all this, they outright cancel everything instead of making it right. Such a negative experience with ABS...everyone out there should think twice before hiring this company as they proved their lack of knowledge, their lack of customer service, their lack of quality in their processes, and they definitely do not stand behind their mistakes.