Curtis Total Service Gave them a second chance and they blew it! Allentown Pennsylvania

On September 7, 2007 we called Curtis Total Service to look at a leak in our laundry room. Two plumbing technicians were sent to our house. After some research, both technicians determined that the leak was coming from the Master Bathroom shower.

I would like to note that we decided to give Curtis another chance. We were not at all happy with them because of the major plumbing blunder they made with our sump pumps several months ago. We still felt that everyone deserves a second chance so we gave them that second chance.

The plumbing technician filled out a job order form, listing a description along with the prices to do the job. It would cost us $144.50 to "find the leak in ceiling" (104-050); $407.63 to "replace 2" brass shower drain" (422-150); and $800.00 to "repair ceiling". We felt that the charge of $800.00 to "repair ceiling" was too high, so we did not give Curtis the job at that time. Then the tech called the office and he was told to take-off $100.00 and offer to do the ceiling repair job for $700.00. We still felt that $700.00 was too high. About 10 minutes later, the tech called again and told us that they can do the ceiling repair for $450.00.

A week or so later, we decided to give the job to Curtis and made an appointment with them to come on September 24, 2007. We also wanted the job order form to reflect the new price of $450.00 for the ceiling repair. We received the new form, by fax, on September 18th. We checked all the price amounts and signed the form.

On Monday September 24th, the original plumbing technicians did not come, however a different plumber was sent. I had to go over everything all over again with the new plumber. He cut 2 holes in the ceiling of our laundry room, but he said that he could not find any leaks. After a while he told us there was nothing more he could do. We were charged $144.50 even though no leak was found.

A few weeks later, we were receiving phone calls and a letter from Curtis stating that they wanted to return to repair the laundry room ceiling. We were not ready to do that because no leak was found yet. I was going to bring that fact to their attention, however when I looked at the work order again, someone at Curtis had changed the wording on the work order form from "find the leak" to "investigate leak in ceiling". There is a big, big difference between finding something and investigating something. To find means to locate or discover and investigate means to examine or look into. Unfortunately, we did not catch that on the 2nd work order form because we were only checking that the price amounts were correct. We felt that it was very underhanded of them to change the wording on the second work order form. They were trying to protect themselves as to whether they found the leak or not. Yet, we still had to pay them even though they did not find the leak.

On November 17, 2007 there was leaking from the laundry room ceiling again. We called Curtis Total Service to make an appointment to send over a plumber. We made an appointment for 10:00 AM on Tuesday November 20, 2007. By 12:30 PM the plumber from Curtis had not arrived and had not called either. I had an afternoon appointment, so I had to leave at 12:45 PM. A call from Curtis was placed at 1:30 PM stating that they were at our house, however no one was home. We told Curtis that they were 3 hours late for their appointment, they did not call us earlier and not to bother coming back. We have found someone else to do the job. We will not ever use Curtis again in the future. We gave them a second chance and again they blew it!

PA_Girl
Nazareth, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.