Rapid Plumbing Overcharged, attempted to bait and switch, lied about previous work when asked to fulfill warranty. Anaheim California

On 11/24/07, I called Rapid Plumbing to come clean out a drain. I thought the clog might be under my house, but I was told that was not correct. Whitney, the technician, tried to sell me on a more expensive procedure and wanted to use a camera to track the problem.
I told him that I had a plumber who would be doing subsequent work, and I told him that a new sewer line was installed by the other company and was under warranty.

He made several attempts to degrade the work done by the other company and to sell other procedures.
He cleaned out the line, showing me a clump of roots and told me that he had called someone out to use a camera of the line for free. He continued to talk about work that his company could do. When he finally accepted that I was not going to have his company do the work, he asked to be relieved of the camera obligation, which was not a problem.

I was given an invoice with a 90 day warranty on labor. The cost was $194.50 for a snake through a clean out in my front yard over a period of less than 10 minutes. My usual plumber charges less than half of that for a simple clean out. I intended to call my regular plumber, but I assumed I had more time, and I had not had spare time to have any work done.

On 12/9/07, I was informed by a neighbor that my clean out was leaking, so I called Rapid Plumbing. The dispatcher was very pleasant and told me when a technician would be here.

The technician who arrived was Whitney again. He asked if the cleanout was leaking, and I told him "Yes." He said that, if that was the case, it was a different job, because he had cleaned out a clog under the house before. We argued briefly, and I showed him the invoice, in his handwriting, that said "snake mainline from outside clean out with 90 day warranty on labor." He was less than friendly, as he agreed to clean it out, but he said that, if I didn't allow his company to do the work, the 90 day warranty would not be honored after today. He had to ask me to plug in his electric cord, but he did so very tersely.

I am only letting him do this work today, because I want to use my plumbing today, and I will have my plumber come out tomorrow.
I would certainly call this company again, and I recommend that everyone else stay away as well.

Lafaye
Redlands, California
U.S.A.