ComplaintsforDenny's Plumbing Holding Company LLC

• Initial Complaint

  01/31/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  1/27, 1/28 2022 Plumber installed wax ring, but, when he replaced tank he deliberately did not tighten bolts between tank and toilet with argument that customer installed them. By putting tank back with that issue intentionally unresolved, after he left, the bolts leaked. He returned the next day to allegedly repair his ********* work but did not remove the tank to fix what he should have fixed the first time, if he was professional about the matter. In fact, when we called him and told him about the leak he didn't want to come out again so he said to us to tighten the bolts - we stated that he should fix it On second trip, he tightened the bolts under the toilet not under the tank. Then he said, if you want it fixed, I will have to charge you to remove tank and replace the bolts. The word here is deliberate negligence - he wanted us to pay a second time for the fix when he knew the first time what the problem was and played 'dumb' about the matter. This firm is unprofessional and simply interested in padding their fees for partially-completed work. We investigated the repair and noted immediately after removing the tank that the nuts on the tank were extremely loose so we infer that the plumber left them that way and is negligent in the repair. Also, he installed a 'used' flange that had wax on it - in the concrete, and never itemized the cost of parts on the bill. When I sent an email to the company, I received an obstreperous, angry reply by phone from the 'manager?' that plumber does not work for free and of course he would not refund 50 dollars as I requested. His 'yelling' over the phone was a psychological defense - he knew that his plumber, if he came out to rectify a leak should tighten the tank bolts regardless of whether we put them on or not that is just due diligence for a professional technician - he used an excuse that since we put the bolts on, he was not responsible for the leak Did not receive a fully itemized invoice.

  Business response

  02/18/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2022/02/08) */ First I'd like to say that Christian is a very thorough service tech that has been with us going on 10 years, and he has a HUGE customer following and just one reason for that is the fact that he has a VERY low call back percentage. When this customer called originally, he scheduled a toilet reset, so as the service mgr. and scheduler, I figured an hour like all toilet resets. This call happened to be the last call of the day and is between 30 & 45 minutes away from our shop. When Christian arrived he found that it wasn't just a simple toilet reset! This customer had already removed the toilet and tried to do it himself, which is fine, but he had also completely taken the tank off the bowl (which was absolutely unnecessary), AND the flange that holds down the toilet was nowhere to be found! When he scheduled this call we were told none of this, or I would have allotted more time. Christian called me immediately told me that not only was there more work than I scheduled time for, but the customer had installed his own parts inside his tank which didn't need to be completely removed from the bowl to install them. Many times when we don't get the whole story or find more work than we scheduled time for we have to reschedule. Even though, Christian had plans after work he volunteered to stay and get this customer taken care of so we wouldn't have to go all the way back again. Per our policy, Christian informed the customer that we cannot warranty parts that are not purchased from us, even if we install them. I know of no company that will warranty your parts! He STILL wanted Christian to proceed and leave his new parts that he installed in his toilet tank. One part the customer didn't purchase was the tank to bowl gasket. Christian showed the customer what bad shape it was in and finally after asking his wife, the customer finally allowed Christian to install a new gasket! Then as he was installing our supply tube for the water which we only use the stainless steel braided type, this customer made him remove it and reuse his old and yellowed rubber hose type! These rubber hose type supplies are famous for bursting and flooding out homes, usually in the middle of the night or when no one is home! By this time Christian was tired of debating with him and getting every little part approved! We are WAY to busy for this as we are usually about a week behind. We've been in business since 1988 so we must be doing something right! We realize you can't satisfy every person, but as you know we get very few complaints. Christian would NEVER intentionally leave tank bolts loose in someone's home. For the customer to say it was intentional he is just plain wrong. Before Christian left he actually noted on this customers invoice that NONE of his parts are warrantied. What people don't realize is that IF you tighten those bolts just a little too much it's very easy for the china tank to crack now or later. The next day when the customer called to say the toilet was leaking, Christian AGAIN told him if it was the customers parts that is leaking, there will be no warranty! This customer told Christian that he understood, so Christian drove all the way back up there to find the tanks bolts leaking. He also noticed that these bolts were not in the same position he left them in so it appeared someone had tampered with them. When Christian AGAIN reiterated that he would have to charge him for our time, he refused. This customer thought that if he told us that he understood about the warranty and we drove back that he could get us to fix it for free! NO WAY, this was strictly a matter of principal. We could not have been more plain in explaining how the warranty works. All he had to do was let us use our $20-$30 dollars worth of parts and it would be fully covered. I would also like to address his comment that we installed a used toilet flange! This is impossible because PVC flanges cannot be reused because they are glued on permanently. Sometimes they DO get a little dirty from riding around on a service vehicle sometimes, but NONE of our parts are EVER reused! This customer is not dumb, he gets it 100%! He's just really cheap and now he resorts to this to try to get a mere $50 out of us! Christian went out of his way to help this person, but this customer cared much more about a few bucks! Consumer Response /* (3000, 7, 2022/02/09) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) Christian was called when we noticed the leak; he informed me over the phone that I should attempt to tighten the bolts. I refused to do so, and I stated I would wait until he came back to do the repair. We never touched the bolts on the tank in question. The owner of the plumbing service is simply covering his **** pursuant to the shoddy work of his technician. The tank leaked because Christian was negligent in his repair. It has nothing to do with parts guaranteed or not; it has to do with a slipshod job by a plumber, who from experience knew loose bolts would leak whether they come from the plumbing firm or owner. In fact, the bolts and washers were brand new. We do not concur with the 'reading' of this matter by a third party calling us cheap. As it is, the parts used by the technician were not itemized on the invoice, which is an administrative oversight as far as we can see. The owner uses ad hominem arguments to defend his 'man' and the reputation of his firm which are logical fallacies or specious reasoning so we do not accept his argument nor the faulty grammar in his rebuttal to my assertions that as far as I can see indicate negligence on his technician's part. Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2022/02/11) */ We are didn't expect this customer to accept the response from us. This is the reason he was told from the beginning that we can't warranty his parts. He didn't like that at the time, and we believe he said to himself right then "we'll see about that". Because we were so upfront from the very beginning about our warranty policy is why we are unwilling to submit to his bullying. We know Christians work habits from his average of almost 600 service calls per year for going on 10 years. Whether there is a warranty or not, he would NEVER want to drive 90 minutes in heavy traffic just to tighten a couple of bolts. This customers claim that Christian did this on purpose when we have so much work that we stay up to a week behind just makes no sense. He also stated that when Scott called he raised his voice at him! While this customer DID keep trying to tell Scott that he was raising his voice, this was absolutely not true! Myself and three other tech's listened to the entire conversation on speaker. Scott does have a very deep voice, but he doesn't raise his voice to anyone, but he will stand up for what's right! We have thousands of good customers who have known Scott for many years who know that raising his voice doesn't fit his character. This customer is grasping at straws trying to see that we do in fact warranty his parts after he was told from the beginning we don't. 99.9% of our customers understand our policy and want use our parts so they are covered, but from the beginning, he didn't like that! So he lies about Christian, he lies about Scott, he accuses us of selling him used parts that can't be reused. He doesn't like that every little part isn't itemized, yet he definitely wouldn't want to pay us the extra time it would take us to transfer every part from our records to the front of his invoice. Our program just doesn't work that way as many jobs have a large list of parts. We CAN supply a parts list at any time from our records, but most people only care about the total. Lastly, this customer even took a shot at my grammar! As a service plumber whose been in this trade locally since 1980, I never claimed to be an English major or even a doctor, I'm just a plumber! I admit I took a shot at him calling him cheap, but I'm sorry, it's been quite obvious to me that from 5 minutes after Christian arrived at this persons home that "the shoe fits" as much or more that any customer I have dealt with in 42 years! For the record, that is over 6,000 customers a year for the 20 years I was doing service in a service vehicle, and another 20,000 a year I've dealt with in the 22 years I've been a service manager. In closing, I have already wasted too much time on the person who it did no good to warn from the beginning but see's himself as "entitled" and goes to this extreme of lying to the BBB when he doesn't get his way. We have no interest in any further relationship or responding to this customer. It's not fair to our thousands of loyal customers for me to spend anymore time dealing with the type of customer we don't need. We're just way too busy for that!

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