AUTHORIZED APPLIANCE REPAIR

My elderly mother had her AC go out a month ago. She called Authorized Appliance repair and they sold her a plain Jane furnace and AC package (ie, not high efficiency) and hot water heater and charged her $14,000. Unfortunately, my mom signed a contract or else this "review" would be under the "scam" category. I looked up prices and also got two other independent quotes from one well known local company, as well as a smaller HVAC contractor. The BOTH told me they would sell & install exact the same equipment for $7000. I called Chris and spoke to him. As expected he was defensive and told me they did not take advantage of an elderly person. I calmly asked him to look at his billing records again to see IF they had made a mistake. i called him back in 2 days and he reiterated that there was no mistake. So I can say one thing for sure about this company. Either (1) they DID take advantage of an elderly woman or (2) their costs are 2X higher than you can get by looking elsewhere. I STRONGLY discourage you from doing business with this company.

Everything went well.  They fixed it.  They were just sort of high priced.

see above.

Terrible.  My opinion is that what they did is called "hidden charges" and may be illegal.

They responded fairly quickly, and they seemed curtious enough. I thought the man said 1$29, but it ended up being $429. I may have miss heard him, or something may have been left out, but I paid it. I looked online, and the part they replaced could be purchased online for $50. So, I think $300 just for their time and effort may have been a little too much. He also he me the coupon for the yellow pages could not be used for this repair. It was only $35.

I called this company because I saw a coupon in the yellow pages (dumb, dumb, dumb).  My dryer was taking longer and longer to dry.  The techinician who came to fix it, Chris, was actually scary.  When he wasn't yelling at me (because the the area behind the dryer was dusty and made him sneeze and quarters were cramped), he was yelling at people on the phone.  He asked me what my husband did before writing up the bill (none of his business! what if I didn't have a husband?) which I think was a way to figure out how much to charge.  When he left, the dryer was still not in working order because he did not have a collar on his truck to reattach it to the vent.  (According to him, this is not part of expected service for appliance repair!)  He left the dryer pulled out in the middle of the room and I had to go buy a vent and install it myself before the dryer worked.
I subsequently (after much research) found out the name of business owner and wrote a letter. I told him I did not expact a refund, but I did want him to know the guy did a lousy job, was rude and scary, and left me with a dryer that didn't yet work.  I then got a cell phone call (while driving) in which he reamed me out for being married to a doctor and not having a job myself.  He said Chris is his best repairman and also a cop.
The whole episode was weird an unsettling (not to mention expensive and useless).  I am not a demanding customer.  Really!  But I don't expect my husband (who at that time was going to work everyday on a walker) to have to come home and finish the work they didn't.  He couldn't really.  I didn't expect, when all was said and done, to have to go to Lowes and pay more money to get things working.  I didn't expect to have to bust my gut pushing the dryer back into place: these are the reasons I called a repair company rather than doing it myself. I didn't think it was appropriate for him to fish into our personal business (he actually asked what my husband made!).   I didn't appreciate the veiled threats (the whole "he's a cop" thing), the hounding on my cell, the scolding I got about about lint, or the rant about how much his cardiologist charged him.   What was THAT about? 
I am 54 years old.  I've owned a home for 30 years, and have dealt with dozens of service calls in my life.  This was the absolute worst.  It was the worst service experience I've ever had anywhere.  Run away from Authroized Appliance Repair.
P.S.  They are THE reason I joined Angie's List.  Better late than never!

The quality was excellent! The communication was really good. They told me what they were doing and why. They gave me different options to consider. They seemed very honest to me. They fixed it and it has worked perfectly ever since.

He diagnosed that it needed a new clutch. I questioned him on this and he stated that he was going to the truck to get a part. I didn't see him put any new part on the washer. I think he re-wired it and never put a new clutch on it.

Our oven went out on a Saturday, so I called this "authorized" repair from the yellow pages (they had logos of every major brand of appliance in their ad). I was told the computer had to be replaced and someone would call in a few days with an estimate (which they did) for $347. A "computer" sounded serious, and they came out a few days later. The technician was great, very friendly and helpful. He showed me the old part and told me it could have burned my house down, so I mentioned I would call GE and he agreed that would be a good idea, but if I wanted to keep the burned part, that would be an extra $15 because it goes back to be refurbished (I didn't pay to keep it). I called GE and they told me this firm was not an "authorized" GE repair company and could not help me and had I used an authorized repair firm, they would have taken care of it without a hassle, even though my oven is 7 years old. ,After talking to a supervisor, and because of the potential fire hazard, GE agreed to reimburse me for the defective part (Lesson 1: Always call your manufacturer before calling any repair company to find out their authorized repair services, regardless of the warranty or age of appliance). GE requested an invoice with the part detail, not just a bill with the "total" on it, which was all I was given. Upon calling Authorized Appliance for a seemingly simple request, I was firmly and rudely told by one of the owners they didn't break out parts from labor and outright refused to give me a detailed invoice, even though the GE reimbursement would have no impact on them. Wondering why they wouldn't detail the invoice, I looked on the internet and found the RETAIL price of my "computer" to cost between $95 and $135, making the hour or so of labor cost in excess of $300. I never did receive a detailed invoice, and therefore, never got reimbursed from GE for the part. I wish the nice technician luck in his job...do your homework if you decide to use this company. Unfortunately, I did not check with Angie's List before calling them...(Lesson 2: Always look at Angie's List first).

THe serviceman was one hour later than the estimate of 4 - 6 PM (arrived at 7 PM). Diagnosed the problem very quickly and quoted a price of approximately $260 but said that with discounts the price would be about $200 "plus tax." Took him about 45 minutes to do the repair. Final charge was $224. The problem was fixed but the price seemed a bit high. I should have checked the list before we contacted them.

The main reason we had them come out was because it needed to be right away, and it was on a weekend. They ended up looking at the back of our refrigerator, said he saw what the issue was and said it would be $400, which seemed a little high. When we asked what part was needed to be replaced, he got a puzzled look, went to his truck, and pulled in a little part, which I looked up on line was $20! I felt that the gentleman would not be upfront on exactly how much the part cost, and he was saying it was because of weekend work and that he stands by his work. He was there for maybe 45 minutes, if even that. He also said that because it was damaged by a power surge due to high winds, you can use your insurance. From the professionalism standpoint, he was not honest or up front on what needed to be done. We had asked him several questions on what he was doing, he wouldn't give us an answer. He didn't really show us the part that was being replaced. He didn't give us any kind of itemized cost on the part that was being replaced or an itemized bill on what his hourly rate was, it was just a flat charge. It ended up quoting us as $437, we complained because it was very high, he then said that he could knock it down to $375. Once again, he was here for less than an hour. The quality of the work, was, I guess, performed fine. Other than getting the part out of his truck and pulling the fridge out of the wall, I really didn't see him do much. He did come out on a weekend, he said he would be here between 1 and 3 and he was. I wouldn't use them again in the future.

The worker who came out was very polite, he arrived on time and did the job well. He also gave me some suggestions as to keep the appliance online.