Bloom Electric Heating Plumbing and Air Conditioning Inc.

Review: My town had a flood on Thursday June 27 which lead to water in my basement and the utility company's shutting of power and natural gas. The gas company required that our gas lines be pressure tested for leaks before they would turn the service back on. I contacted blooms Thursday night to contract them to do said work. A worker for blooms showed up on the evening of Friday 28. I meet with him and he informed me that he did not have the proper equipment(air compressor) to preform the job. He looked in my basement at my gas lines and told me that another crew would be over the next day and left. He was at my residence for approximately five minutes. The next morning Saturday 29 two employees of bloom came to my house and preformed the line test and installed a water heater that I provided. They were there for approximately one hour and left. I received a bill from Blooms with a labor charge of $199.25. This seemed high to me so I contacted Blooms about the bill and was informed that there was a $60 service charge for the employee who came to my house the evening of Friday 28 for five minutes without the proper equipment. I ask why it was fair to be charged this and the guy on the phone was very unsympathetic and said "its just how it is". He later said in the phone call the best he could do was take $30 off the charge.Desired Settlement: I want to $60 dollar service charge taken off my bill

Business

Response:

See attached File

In reference to the evening service call on June '28, 2013 our firm charges port to port while on

site for "5 minutes" we would have incurred travel time to get to the site which is covered in

the service call. National Plumbing & Heating Standard as well as our company policy is to. bill a

"service call" whether we are there for 5 minutes or 59 minutes. Our technician would also

have observed and gathered information such as the tank needing replaced. after viewing the

site's scope of work which facilitates and allows for the next call to be performed more

efficiently, . . .

Considering we were in a state of emergency calls due to the flood, that the customer had

previously mentioned, we were mainly triaging calls that evening as there was a tremendous

call volume and is evidenced by our technicians working until 9:00PM that day. It is unknown

whether of not if an air test would have held would it have been performed that day and how

long we would have been there to repair. Also, it is unlikely that National Fuel would have

returned to unlock the gas meter as they were in a crisis situation, as well.

I made a good faith offer to the customer to reduce our charge by 14% which equates to

$30.00 to resolve this dispute. I am standing by this concession.

Sincerely,

Vice President

Consumer

Response:

When I contacted Blooms I told them exactly what I needed to have done. They sent a employee without the proper equipment. If the employee have had the right equipment with him they would not of had to come out twice and charge me a second charge. By their logic, they could be contracted to replace a part in a furnace, send a employee out without screw drivers which makes completing the job impossible then come back another time and charge them for two service charges. And also they advertise free estimates so if the first employee was there to "observe and gather information" as they say, why would that not fall under an estimate. This is just shady business practice.

Regards