Cross Country Home Services Total Rippoff Ft. Lauderdale Florida

I signed up for this companies warranty service because I thought it was offered through, or in partnership with my mortgage company (US Bank). The program sounded good in the marketing literature that was mailed to me. You pay a monthly premium and are entitled to a preventative maintenace service for your central heat and central air conditioning units. The preventative maintenance is included in the monthly premiums at no additional cost or deductible. If any thing ever goes wrong with either unit all you pay is a $95.00 deductible and the company will supposedly pay for repair or complete replacement of either your furnace or a/c up to $15,000.00. It also states "No inspection required, it doesn't matter the age of your furnce and air conditioning system or what make or model they happen to be, it's covered." Sounds great doesn't it? Since I have lived in this home (9 years) I have always contracted a local company to provide the same service (preventative maintenance only). Every spring I have the AC serviced and every fall I have the furnace serviced. For nine years this has been performed and I have never had any issues or complaints. After signing up for this warranty program I contacted them to have them perform my normal spring preventative maintanence service. The first problem arose with that first call. I was informed that the warranty service did not cover the preventative maintenance service. I had to make two separate calls to finally convice them that it was covered, as is stated in the "benefits" guide that was mailed to me. Here is the actual word for word description in the guide. "Every year you'll receive a complete 17-point preventative maintenance check to help keep your furnace burning at peak efficiency and your a/c system running at optimal levels - all while saving money on your energy bills." They finally sent one of their "pre-qualified service professionals" to perform the maintenance. I had never heard of this company before, and I live in a town of about 15,000 people, so it is not hard to know all the local contractors. The "pre-qualified service professional" performed the "17-point preventative maintenance check" on both my furnace and a/c in about half the time that my normal contractor takes to do one single unit. This along with the trouble I had initially scheduling the service, started to set of warning bells. Then at the end of this brief "17-point preventative maintenance check" the "pre-qualified service professional" informed me that the a/c was "shot" and needed to be replaced and the furnace needed about $1,000.00 worth of repair work. This kind of suprised me since both units seemed to be working fine, but then again, I am not a "pre-qualified service professional". So, I told him to contact the warranty company because they needed to authorize any repair work as stated in the benefits guide. The next day the company called and left a message on my answering machine that none of the repairs were covered items and I needed to contact their "pre-qualified service professional" to arrange for scheduling and paying for the reccomended repairs. I called their 800 number and informed them that according to their benefits guide, I was only responsible for the $95.00 deductible. I was then informed that all of the repairs were not covered due to "failure to properly maintain" my furnace and a/c. I then told them that I had the units serviced every year for nine years and had invoices and cancelled checks to prove it. I was then put on hold so that I coud be transfered to a "supervisor" and after about 20 minutes I hung up and called the "pre-qualified service professional." I asked him for details on the repair work and how it could be determined that my units had not been "properly maintained". He told me he didn't "have anything written up yet because he was waiting on the company to send him the "correct forms". So I called back to discuss this with the warranty company and was told I needed to talk to a supervisor in the "claims department". I told them I did not want to be put on hold and I was told they would have a "supervisor" call me within the hour. The next day, after not hearing back from them, I called back and repeated the same process as the day before. I was told the same thing, and called them back yet again the next day. When I started going through the same thing all over again, I told the person to just cancel the contract. I was then transfered to their "customer service" department because the person I was talking to could not "do that". I then had to explain all I have written here to the "customer service" representative. He started to get very unfriendly and told me that no decision had been made regarding my claim because they were waiting for the "prevantative maintanence report" to be sent to them. I told him yet again that 1) I had already been told more than once that the claim was denied 2) the service professional told me he was waiting on them to send him the correc form. He then proceeded to argue some more with me stating that the forms had been sent. After about 10 more minutes of this I was finally able to obtain a contract cancellation number from him. I hope this statement will prevent someone else from this horrible experience with this dis-honest, corrupt, criminal company.

Scott
Jackson, Missouri
U.S.A.