JOSPEH T BERRENA MECH INC

This information is written as honestly and accurately as I can remember. All opinions are mine. The story is true, the names of the innocent have been replaced. On Monday, February 4th, 2013, I called Joseph T Berrena Mechanicals, Inc. to work on a very specialized machine. It is a MultiMatic Mercury 45 Dry Cleaning Unit with a Keal-Rite Chiller attached. We own and operate a laundry and dry cleaning business in Huntingdon, PA. The problem we were having was that the machine would not complete a cycle due to low R-22 Freon levels. Berrena sent a technician to work on the system, he arrived promptly. I asked if he had any experience with dry cleaning machinery. He said that he had been working on a machine in State College, but had never seen our type of machine. I explained the problem we were having and told the tech that we only wanted a shot of Freon, a pound or two would correct the issue. I went further to explain that everyone that works on the machine tries to adjust to what they believe to be the correct settings. I told him directly, do not play with the adjustments, just add Freon. I walked away to take care of another issue. While I was gone, the owner, my father, spoke to the tech telling him the same thing, ?All we need is a shot of Freon, but no adjustments.? Upon my return, I noted the tech was making adjustments and tapping/banging on several valves on the unit. I told him to stop and asked him why he was hitting the machine. He stated the valves must be stuck or something, to make it fail the way it was failing. I told him to just put in the Freon and it would work. It had been working for three years; it did not need to be adjusted. I asked him point blank, if your car ran out of gas would you replace the engine? He jokingly stated, ?No, I would replace the spark plugs and then the transmission.? The tech proceeded to get the Freon. He then added Freon to the unit. I told him several times that we only needed one to two pounds. He added five pounds. So, now the unit failed for another reason. It was overcharged. I walked away for a couple minutes and when I got back to the room, you could not see anything. The tech had released Freon. He had released enough Freon to cause you not to be able to see the one side of the machine. I asked him why he had done a release and he said it wasn?t a big deal. I asked him if he was going to give us a refund and asked how much Freon cost. He laughed and said about $35.00 per pound. At this point, he decided that the machine was over charged and decided to remove some Freon. He only removed one pound, billed us for four pounds, charged us for 1.5 hours of labor at $69.00 per hour and a $20.00 truck charge, plus tax. On his Service Order, under Service Performed section, he wrote, ?got unit working properly!? and left. I had to call the company back within the half hour to report that it was still failing. The next day, February 5th, the same tech returned with another Guru tech, Guru is what Tech1 called him. I told him the machine was still failing and was overcharged with Freon. I complained that Tech1 removed one pound of Freon, but did not give us credit for the pound. We lost another $35.00 for the removed pound plus the Freon he bleed off the previous day. The first thing, the very first thing, the Guru Tech did was to start adjusting the chilled water flow through unit. I asked him why he was adjusting the flow valve, something all of the techs did first thing when they look at this unit; he stated that the heat transfer unit had to be clogged. I told him that we used a closed loop cooling system and the probability of a clog was very, very low. I reminded the Guru tech that we use an expensive coolant mixture to keep the unit cool during the drying cycle and that it was at the correct levels. I had to leave for a minute and returned. When I walked around the corner of the machine, the Guru tech was adding water to our ?Closed Loop? cooling system. I told him to stop and asked him why he was adding water to the system?s mixture of coolant. He shrugged his shoulders and turned away. Oh, he is very proud of his daughter. She is a rocket scientist and he loves to talk about her while he was watching Tech1 and charging $69.00 an hour for his time. So, while Tech1 and Guru Tech were surveying the unit. They kept banging on valves saying that it must be this that or the other that was causing the problem. Needless to say, they did not fix the problem, we still were overcharged with Freon, and the unit was still failing. However, the pen being mightier than the sword, we were billed for 4.5 hours of labor, a truck charge, and no refund for the extracted Freon. After the techs left, I had to test the glycol to verify the concentration. The concentration was no longer correct. I had to add more glycol to the extra water Guru Tech had added to correct the concentration. I would have no idea why he added the water, but the glycol is not cheap and this just added more cost to this costly endeavor. We received a bill in the mail the very next day, so I was on the phone with the account manager complaining about the charges. After speaking with her, she had no authority to change anything, I placed another service call. The unit still was not operating properly. She told me that Paul the office manager would call me that day and speak with me about the bill. Paul never called. We limped along with a failing dry cleaning unit until February 11th when a third tech came to work on the system. This Tech3 had been at our business in the past. He had put two pounds of Freon in the unit about three years prior to this service call. I went through the whole story with him, telling him all of the problems the other two techs had had. I showed him the valves they were hitting and the areas they felt were problematic. Now don?t get me wrong. Tech1 was very personable and seemed to very knowledgeable. He was just not familiar with our unit. He tried very hard to fix our problems. He just didn?t have the knowledge for the MultiMatic, hence we should not have been charged for his training. At least not all eight hours that Berrena charged us. After all, he didn?t fix the problem. So, Tech3 went to work. The first half an hour he was there he had to adjust and recalibrate the system back to where it was before Tech1 and Guru Tech worked on it. Tech3 decided the heat transfer had to be blocked. So, he decided to take it apart to check it. He was about to loosen a pipe fitting with pliers. I asked him to use pipe wrenches to avoid scoring the pipes. I got him two wrenches, which he adjusted and started to loosen the fittings. While attempting to loosen the fittings he slipped and hit a small copper tube used to show the pressure of the Freon. Needless to say, a stream of Freon leaked out filling the room, once again, with Freon. He quickly shut the valves and turned off the leak. He got equipment to repair the broken tube and he repaired it. After the repair, Tech3 took the heat transfer unit apart and found there was no blockage and it was fairly clean for its age. He put the transfer back together and looked for other problems. He found a Filter Dryer to be clogged and the unit was overcharged. He replaced the filter and removed Freon from the unit. I asked if we would get a credit for the removed Freon. He said, ?I didn?t think to weight it, so I have no way of knowing how much I removed.? We got no credit. We did get billed for 1.5 hours at $69.00 per hour, a filter for $70.00, and a truck charge, again, for $20.00. What was interesting to me, was that Tech3 charged us for the half hour it took him to fix something he broke. The Berrena?s did train him. The unit started to function semi-normal. We got another bill the very next day. I was unhappy with the charges and called Berrena, again. I spoke with the accountmanager. I told her I had not heard from Paul and I felt the charges were excessive. I told her I did not feel we should have to pay for training Berrena technicians, if they did not know how to work on a system they should do as I do, call the company?s tech support for help. She said she would have Paul call me. I did finally receive a call from Paul, the office manager. We actually had several calls. During the numerous calls, we discussed why we were charged for services that did not fix the unit, why we were charged for Freon that was removed and leaked, and why truck charges over and over. He said he would look into it and speak with the techs and with Joseph and Matt. After a week and no return calls, I called to speak with Paul, again. He said he was just too busy to call his customer. I said that I wasn?t busy and didn?t mind having to call over and over. He caught the sarcasm and apologized for his unprofessional behavior. It was during this conversation that Paul ?Threw the Front Girls under the Bus?! He told me that I had made a comment to them, that our technicians were incompetent. I said that they were not incompetent in their field, but they did not know our equipment. He said that I did not call them incompetent, but saying that they did not know how to work on our equipment was about the same thing. I told him it was impossible for someone to know all makes and models of all equipment out there, especially one as specialized as ours. He agreed with my statement. I found it very sad that he would even bring the ?Front Girls? into the conversation. If he was offended, he should have just said he was offended. So, that conversation offended me. He told me he would look at the bill and see what he could do for us. He would also have Matt Berrena call me to discuss the bill and services. Matt was a customer of ours. He never called and has not used our services since all of this started, very sad. The unit started to fail, again. So, I called for the fourth or fifth service call on March 4th. Tech3 returned to work on the system. This time he decided the problem had to be with the chiller unit. He checked the flow sensor and by passed it. He determined that the sensor seemed to be working properly, so it had to be the pump or pump motor. He attempted to take it apart to check the pump blades and spin. However, the pump would not come apart. He said he would check on a price for a new pump motor and call me with the price. For this service call, Tech3 charged us for 3.5 hours at $69.00 per hour and another $20.00 truck fee. After he left, I call the technical support for the chiller company and he walked me through diagnosing the problem. After a couple phone calls and a couple pictures emailed, He helped me bypass the flow switch altogether. This fixed the problem all together and the units are working perfectly. If Tech3had taken the time to call the tech support, he would have learn something and fixed the problem. Tech3 never called regarding the cost of the pump motor, which we didn?t need. And after another week and no calls, I called to speak with Paul, again. He apologized for Matt not calling, stating they were very busy. I said that I still wasn?t busy. He said nothing. He did say that he had spoken to the techs and was going to give us a discount for some of the labor. I have all of the bills and if you can determine where the reduction is, you will win a gold star. I told Paul that we had received a couple more bills and we were being charged a late service fee. I told him the service fees should not have been charged since we were in negotiations over the billing. Paul said, ?You are right, they should not have charged you any fees. I will take care of them and remove them from the bill?. He didn?t remove or resend the bill. We did receive a new bill for the last service call by Tech3. Paul told me that he would speak with Joseph and see what he would do about the charges and call me in a week. After about eight days I called Paul, since he didn?t call me. He said he hadn?t spoken to Joseph due to Joseph being on vacation. Now this is May 5th, 2013. Berrena hadn?t made any attempt to call, correct, or anything regarding the bill. My mother, in fear of further service fees, paid the $883.52 bill. I told Paul she had paid it. He said he would have Joseph call the next day. Today is July 2nd, 2013. We have had no contact from anyone at Berrena. We did not get any refund for anything. Basically, they have no customer service, they like to get your money, and they don?t care if your equipment is fixed or not. Would I recommend Joseph T. Berrena Mechanicals, Inc. to work on your equipment? I would have to say NO! Not because of their technicians, but because of their poor upper management and poor customer service from their upper management. Just as when you raise children, the parent?s attitudes and morals get handed down from the parents to the children. In business you can see how owners and managers act by dealing with the employees of a company. Joseph, Matt, and Paul have no time for anyone, they apparently don?t communicate with their employees, and it shows throughout the company. I am very sorry to have to write this letter. I wish it had a happier ending. But, if you don?t stand up for yourself, people like the Berrena?s will walk over you and say, ?We are very busy, buthere is your bill?. Here is a summation of this tragedy: 1. We were greatly overbilled for the hours, Freon, truck charges, and late fees. 2. Their billing is very unclear. They do not show if there were any credits, nor the breakdown of the entire bill. It appears they gave us credit for two pounds of Freon and 3.5 man hours. That brings our total down from $1,198.15 to $883.52, which we paid. However, we were still charged late fees and four $20 truck charges. Unbelievable and I am the one that finally fixed the main problem. Tech3 did find the Filter Dryer, that Tech1 and Guru Tech missed, and he did point me in the right direction to correct the Chiller. 3. Tech3 was the only one that understood the system overall. He had worked on the unit prior to this fiasco and is very knowledgeable. 4. I feel Tech1 and Tech3 were professional and tried to fix the problem with the unit. However, neither one would take the time to call the manufacturer for any type of technical help. 5. I do not feel we should have to pay for shot in the dark repairs. Had they called the manufacturer and spent good time collaborating with a tech support technician to resolve our problem that would have been money well spent. 6. It is my opinion that Joseph, Paul, Matt, and Guru Tech are not professional. Telling a customer that they are so busy they cannot call you or never calling at all. Then to quit using our services while still taking extravagant payments. 7. It is fairly clear that this company does not communicate from department to department. Otherwise, we would not have been bill for late fees during the billing discussion. Paul said, ?They should not have charged you late fees.? However, Paul did not remove nor refund the charges. 8. I was offended that Paul would say about the front girls being offended, when it is clear they were unaware of the overall situation. 9. I find it very un-businesslike to keep charging for truck charges and hours when it is clear that you did not fix the problem. What a game that is, don?t fix it and just keep charging. That really racks-up the bill.