Rodenhiser Plumbing ARodenhiser Plumbing & Heating Inc. water heater ingniter overhead cost Holliston Massachusetts

My gas water heater broke and I found this company over the internet in the local directories of my town. I wish I had read the rip-off reports first! I was looking for a service guy from the neighborhood, but somehow I got to this company that appears to be a serious player in this business in Massachusetts.

They told me that it would cost $69 to come and see what the problem was. I agreed and a guy showed up two hours later and in a few minutes figured out that the igniter was not working. Then he told me that they might need to order it, which terrified me, but after making a few calls with my phone, he came up with some grand scheme in which one driver will be sent to another town to get this part, he will meet him halfway and in the end I'd be able to take a shower the same day by noon. Then he told me that they had a flat rate, which in my case resulted into $543 for a part that costs $42 (I found that from internet) and about 1 hour of labor and maybe 1 hour of driving. And you would think that automechanics were expensive! He was prepared with a slide about the overhead costs - drivers, trucks, phone babes, parts stocking (yeah, right), 401k, management, training, etc.

So what could I do since I hadn't taken a shower for 2 days and I was risking to not have it fixed the same day if I called another guy and I'd lose those $69 anyway. So I bit the bullet and did it. Then I found that there were such reports on this company already and I wrote to the general manager, who said he would look into that, but he didn't come back to me hence the report.
I understand economics enough to easily swallow $350 for this service, but $550 - that's a rip-off.

John
Foxboro, Massachusetts
U.S.A.