I am assisting my 88 year old widow aunt with financial management. In reviewing her checkbook, I learned that she paid Mitch Wright Plumbing almost $12,000 over the past three years for plumbing and HVAC services in her modest, 1,625 square foot house. I'll let you be the judge of whether or not these charges were excessive. They included $2,144 for installing a Koehler white cast iron double bowl kitchen sink, ¾ hp garbage disposal and single handle faucet with pull out sprayer, $258 to replace a programmable thermostat (not wi-fi), $1,502 to replace a 50 gallon electric hot water heater, and $492 to replace a single flush valve in one toilet. We contacted Mr. Wright for an explanation of the charges, but he did not give us much insight and was not responsive to our concerns. Please help your seniors watch their money.

He initially said it was just a small valve. He said that it wouldn't cost that much. He then contacted his boss. He came back and said that the whole assembly had to be replaced and it would cost a lot more. I confronted him about him about the change in price. He said he would fix it the best he can. He fixed it and it is still working.

 Upon arrival to our house, I showed the rep (aka: salesman) where the leak was in the yard. He explained to me that there were 2 approaches that could be taken to fix our broken pipe.  Now, keep in mind, he had not even seen what the issue with the pipe was because he didn't dig down a little to investigate.  He told me that they could either 1) replace just the portion of the pipe that was leaking or 2) could replace the entire pipe from the water meter all the way to the house.  Our house is about an acre away from the water meter/source.  He used scare tactics by telling me that if we just replaced the portion of the pipe that was busted that inevitably a leak would spring up elsewhere eventually and that their work would only be warranted for 2 years. He then told me about this "revolutionary" new process that only Mitch Wright has, called "trenchless something or other".  I told him that I would not be making the decisions regarding our plumbing and asked that he quote the job both ways and my husband would decide which way we go.  He continued to talk to me about the differences using the usual salesman pressure tactics. I finally had to walk away because I was busy and he went to his truck to write up the quote. About 10 minutes later, the guy knocks on my door and starts talking AGAIN about the two options. I asked for the quote.  Option 1 was quoted at $2,033.  Option 2 was quoted at $7,276.  Yes, the commas are in the right place!!  Again, he began pressuring me for a decision and again, I told him that I would scan the quote to my husband at work and he would call him back.  The salesman asked if we could call him together, right then. I explained that my husband was most likely at lunch and that he would call him when he is available.  I had to take the paper quote from the rep and proceeded to go inside.  As I was walking away, the rep told me that he would have to charge me a service charge if we did not use his company. I kept walking.

About 15 minutes later and before I had a chance to scan the quote to my husband, my husband calls me to tell me that the salesman had called him....after I had told him that we would review the quote and call him back! The rep was very pushy with my husband who knew the job should only be a few hundred dollars!  My husband basically told him to get lost.

The short of this story is this:  We ended up calling another plumber (Shout out to Olive Branch Plumbing!!!) who came to our house within about 30 minutes and found that we needed about 12" of pipe replaced.  They went to Home Depot and got the supplies they needed and had the job finished up in less than 2 hours and invoiced us for $297.13!!!

Dear Angie's List Members....DO NOT USE MITCH WRIGHT FOR ANYTHING!  What they are trying to do is disgraceful and dishonest. They are trying to take advantage of people by quoting jobs much too high and using scare tactics to get the job!