Anthony O'Donnell Services LLC

I have been a loyal customer of Anthony O’Donnell for over 10 years, turning to him regularly for the annual maintenance and periodic repairs on my oil boiler. Today he reached a level of unprofessionalism that I have rarely experienced with any type of contractor. He is the last person you want working in your home. He always complains about the proximity of my boiler to the wall (which makes it harder for him to work). I have ignored his grumpy nature over the years because the most important thing to me is integrity and quality. If a contractor has those qualities, there are many things that can be overlooked. I called Anthony yesterday because one of the 3 heating zones in my house was not working. I stressed that this was not an emergency situation because I did have heat in other areas of my house. I realize the winter is a busy time for heating specialists and I wanted him to schedule my work in line with his other priorities. I requested that he schedule the work at the same time as my annual tune up and I was willing to wait until he was available to do both at the same time. He showed up at my house today without any advance warning and called me on the phone to let me know that he had arrived. At one point, he had to leave to meet with someone else – he let himself in and out so I do not know how long he was gone. Since I was working upstairs and quarantining myself in preparation for a family visit, he called me on the phone when he was ready to test the system. The phone calls gave absolute proof when he started and basically stopped working. At no point did he give me any indication what was wrong and how much it would cost to fix, so I was surprised when he told me my bill was $578. I foolishly threw a check down the stairs and he left the invoice on the floor. It wasn’t until he left the house that I looked at the invoice and noticed two things. The phone calls indicated that he was at my house for 2 hours – and that included the time interval when he left my house and wasn’t working on my boiler. The invoice included a charge for 2.5 hours and specified a start time and end time that was earlier and later, and provided no allowance for the time interval he was not working at my house. He included a charge of $278 for a Honeywell Universal Switching Relay which is the only thing he replaced to get the heat working. I looked up the exact model on the internet and found that I could have purchased this part myself for $58.99! I realize that contractors often include a markup on parts but it is piracy to charge that much extra for a part! I did not want to bother him while he was working so I waited until the end of the day to call and ask about the invoice. I was polite on the phone, but as soon as I said “I have a question about the hours on the invoice”, he said that he didn’t want to hear it and I should never call him for service again. Before he could hang up on me, I asked him about the price discrepancy on the part. He then told me that he bought the part 5 years ago when it was more expensive and he has to charge me an inventory carrying cost because he had it so long! Who believes that one? Even if it were true, I wouldn’t want a 5 year old part! He never did perform the tuneup because he had to rush off to another customer. In short – he was rude, he was dishonest; he took advantage of me and performed an incomplete and incredibly overpriced job.