Waldron Electric Cooling and Heating Company

Regarding: Waldron Electric Cooling and Heating Company

3567 Mountainview Drive, #333

West Mifflin, PA 15122

I am writing to tell you about a very negative experience I had with Waldron Electric Heating and Cooling Company so that you are aware of their business practices and can avoid having a similar experience.

On a cold Saturday in February, we woke up to find our gas furnace inoperable. We chose Waldron out of the Yellow Pages because their two-page advertisement promised service within the hour, every day.

When we called, they explained there would be an $89.00 trip fee. We agreed to this and they promised a technician would come within the hour.

As promised, a technician named Ralph arrived at our door. In the meantime we had looked at the furnace and we were 99% sure that the problem was with our igniter. We had problems with this part before and the symptoms were similar. In fact, in December of 2005 we had the same part replaced for $155 by a different company.

When Ralph arrived, he first took an imprint of our credit card. He promised that no charges would be listed on the slip until we agreed to them. He then prepared an invoice that listed the $89.00 trip fee and had us initial next to the fee.

Next, he took a cursory look at our furnace, and stated that he needed to do more diagnostics to determine the problem. He took out a “Waldron Fee Book’ and showed us that on Saturdays, the ‘normal first diagnostic fee’ was $600, but that he would ‘cut us a break’ and only charge us $279.00, which he then listed on the invoice. We protested, saying that we believed the problem was the igniter, and that the part, which plugs in, should only be about $55.00. He then promised to waive the ‘first diagnostic fee’ if the problem turned out to be the igniter. We initialed the charge, operating under the assumption that this person was acting in good faith.

He went out to his truck to retrieve some tools and returned to the furnace. A few minutes later he came upstairs holding the igniter which, as we suspected, was burned out.

Taking out his book again, he stated that to replace the igniter with the ‘lower grade’ part was $939.00 and to replace it with a ‘higher grade’ part was $1,439.00!!! We protested the fee, and he told us to call his home office.

When we called Waldron’s home office to complain about the excessive fees being quoted, the individual started talking about the cost of his kid’s college education, and eventually hung up on us.

We told Ralph to leave our home and he did, taking the invoice and credit slip with him.

Next, we called Stahl Plumbing, and they quoted a total price of $165.00 to replace the igniter. We then called Waldron back, in the interest of fairness, and offered to have them do the work for the same price. The individual we spoke with started yelling at us about ‘making a living’ and again hung up on us, after refusing to do the work for the same price.

Stahl Plumbing came the same day and replaced the igniter for the price they quoted- $165.00.

Later we found that Waldron had put through a charge on our credit card of $368.00. We have contested the charge with our credit card company, and lodged a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. WE then found similar complaints on this website.

We highly advise consumers not to do any business with Waldron Electric Heating and Cooling LLC.

Thank you,

Joanne Scheier and Eric Susoeff

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