Complaint Review: American Home Shield AHS - Memphis Tennessee

I have had AHS-supplied "technicians" attempt to fix the same plumbing problem in my house several times. Before our most recent plumbing issue, I placed at least three other service requests for the same problem. The first two requests resulted in AHS dispatching plumbers that solved an immediate symptom of our plumbing problem, but made no attempt to solve the problem itself. Later service requests resulted in the AHS plumbers either not replying in the contract-specified emergency time frame or contacting me just to inform me that they were unable to service my problem in that time frame.

In my most recent service request (for the same problem) I called AHS on Monday, August 7 to report an emergency (water had backed up in my basement shower, and no water could be used at all in the house due to a third full main line stoppage). AHS initially told me that they would contact their contracters and try to send someone on the day of my request. About 15 minutes later, my husband recieved a phone call stating no contracter was availabe until the following day (regardless of the fact that we specified that the situation was an emergency). After speaking with the first AHS rep, who essentially told us we would be better off hiring someone to fix the problem ourselves, I requested to speak to a supervisor. After waiting over 15 minutes (this is the common wait time for an AHS supervisor, signaling to me that the company has more than its fair share of of complaints), I spoke with Calvin. He was extremely rude, proceeded to laugh at my problems, and basically told me that AHS was not willing or able to help me with this emergency. This was at about 7 PM Monday night. My husband wound up calling Roto-Router as I was speaking with Calvin and arranged for service that very night (less than 60 minutes after contacting them, in fact). After it became clear that Calvin was intent on being rude and unhelpful, I asked to speak to his supervisor. He claimed that they were all unavailable, which appears to be a convenient "out" for AHS customer service representatives. Calvin "guarenteed" me that one would call me back the next day, and told me I could not wait on hold for one to become available. I have been in the same situation at least once before with AHS, and received the same result - the supervisor never returned my phone call.

Besides the incompetent and discourteous customer service on AHS's part, their contracters are also very incompetant. The first two plumbers simply pushed a stick into our cleanout valve, and said the problem was solved since we did not have an immediate backup. We requested that they drill the line, or look inside, but they did not have the proper equipment and implied that under their AHS contract, they were unwilling to perform this job. Roto-Rooter was able to drill clumps of tree roots out of our lateral sewer line, and their technician was amazed we were able to use water at all. He was further amazed when we informed him that we first requested AHS contractors to analyze the problem more than four months ago. Had the first plumber fixed the problem, we would not have had water in our basement, time off from work, and been very inconvicend four more times. Had the AHS contractors even made an attempt to analyze our problem, it could have been fixed in one visit instead of three, a full four months before we finally hired another company directly to fix it.

Kelly

Baltimore, Maryland
U.S.A.