Royal Flush Plumbing

Mrs.,
During the service call in question on May 10, we completed a service call for the management company used by your HOA to replace the main water pipe leading into your home. While operating the valve which isolates your water supply from the community, it failed due to its age, and caused a flow of water to pour into our excavation and into your home through the hole which the water piping enters. Our technician worked quickly to stop the flow of water and replace the valve that failed. Once completed, we were in constant contact with our customer, the management company, about the next steps that should be taken regarding the damage to your home, during which time you called our office and we informed you of this, and asked that you submit your request for our insurance information in writing, which is standard practice by the laws of our state. Your insurance agent then repeatedly called and harassed our office employees and attempted to get them to admit fault for the issue, and he was repeatedly told to submit the request in writing (all agents operating in our state should know this law), which he ignored and proceeded to post negative reviews about us on several websites (which we have asked him to remove and he has not done so as of today). After not receiving any written requests from you or your agent, we spoke to the management company and gave them approval to pass our insurance information to you in spite of the fact that the cause of the flood was not a fault of our technician. Given this, you have already received our insurance information and filed a claim, which should suffice as a fully satisfactory resolution.

Our response to your complaint was completely honest, and we are disheartened that you do not believe so. We will elaborate upon our previous statement in hopes of clearing up any confusion. You say that we should have provided you with insurance information without a problem, however our staff had no record of you being the homeowner, as that information was not provided by our customer, and there were still questions being answered as to liability, as the valve that broke did not do so as a result of any negligence or fault on the part of our employee. We were in contact with our customer, the management company who contracted us to perform the work, as well as our legal counsel, to work through these questions and get you taken care of as quickly as possible. If this was not properly expressed to you by the HOA or the management company, we recommend you speak with them about the situation. Our office staff were giving you and your agent our standard policy, which is that our customers may request insurance information by phone, and all others must do so in writing. This helps prevent people from trying to obtain our insurance information to file false claims. Your agent should have informed you of the proper steps to request the information, or taken the steps himself on your behalf, but he obviously did not do so. Saying he called to notify us of our required duty is false, unless he is admitting to not knowing the laws of requesting insurance information from a business. I have statements from the office personnel he spoke with stating that he was disrespectful, confrontational, and was asking leading questions in an attempt to get a confession of guilt and liability from our staff, but his inclusion in this situation is tangential, and not a subject we wish to expatiate on any further. Our goal is to satisfy the needs of our clients, and their clients as well. We apologize for the delays which occurred in getting a resolution to your situation, but yours was a unique case we had not encountered before and we wanted to verify that all of the proper steps were being taken to ensure you had no issues with your claim.

Consumers stated desired resolution was "Provide me with details of your insurance provider so I can take the appropriate course of action." Consumer has already been provided with this requested information through our customer and filed a claim. As such, this case should be closed with satisfactory resolution to consumer.

Dear Customer,

We were truly saddened to learn that you were unhappy with the situation regarding your plumbing leaks. We have opened a thorough investigation into this matter, and our findings are below.

Unfortunately, you have polybutelene pipes under the slab in your home, and these pipes were nationally recalled for being defective. The reason for this recall is that they tend to leak, and once the first leak occurs, numerous additional leaks tend to develop rapidly.

As to your allegation that we "charged for repairs that were not needed, and never fixed the problem": You initially called us out because you had a high water bill, and we diagnosed this being caused by a leak under your home. We used leak detection equipment to determine the location of the leak, quoted you a price to make the repair, and after your approval of this quote, we broke up the slab in your home, dug down, and made the repair. Weeks later, you called us back out because you had water leaking again. We located another leak, this time in your laundry room. Since you had already had one leak, and since the type of pipes in your home were known to be defective, we recommended to you that you replace all the pipes with new pipes, and we gave you an estimate to do this. Instead of doing this work, you chose to have us simply repair the pipes again, presumably to save money. (We have the transcripts of these communications on file if you would like to see them.) Upon breaking through your slab to repair this new leak, we found that there were actually 3 leaks in this area, so we repaired them all for you, and at a deeply discounted rate. Later, you called us again because yet another leak had developed. This time, you wanted us to fix this leak for free, which we could not do.

As to your claim that we did not obtain a permit for the work we performed:
Stockbridge City Code 8.08.011 (A)(4)(d)(1) states, in summary, that permits shall not be required for repairs made to an existing pipe in order to stop a leak, which is precisely the scope of work we performed for you in regards to the 4 separate leaks that we repaired. If you had chosen to have us replace all the pipes, as we recommended, we would have pulled a permit for that work.

Again, we feel terrible that you have defective pipes in your home. We are willing to help you in any way that we can, but we are not able to do this work for free, or to give you a refund, as we have followed all the proper procedures, codes, and moral standards. To help you out, we are willing to give you an additional 25% discount on the estimate we gave you to replace the pipes in your home, if you would like to have that work done. Please let us know if you are interested in this.

Sincerely,
Dave ***
General Manager and Master Plumber
Royal Flush Plumbing

From: ***
Sent: Tuesday, March 19, XXXX X:XX PM
To: ***
Subject: Revdex.com Case# XXXXXXXX

Response to customer complaint:

Dear Customer,

This complaint made it up all the way up the chain, and we are going to be refunding your money under our 100% customer satisfaction policy. We apologize for any inconvenience this situation may have caused you. Please contact our VP of operations, Tim *** for arrangements on your refund. XXX-XXX-XXXX.

Warm Regards,

Michele P,
Founding Director

Dear Customer,

We were saddened to learn that you were unhappy with the service we provided. We opened an investigation into the matter, reviewed the corresponding documents, and thoroughly interviewed the plumber involved.

As to your claim that our plumber did the work without telling you the price, then handed you a bill: It is our policy that our customers never incur any charges without being made aware of them, and approving them, up front. In this case, the plumber claims that he did quote you the price up front, which is supported by the "authorization to perform work" section of our invoice, which you signed and dated.

As to your claim that he charged your card $182 for "doing nothing": With all due respect, you previously described him plunging your sink to get it unclogged, therefore your claim of "doing nothing" seems to be contradictory to that initial claim. By your own admission, the plumber did get your sink unclogged, which is what you called us out to do.

Furthermore, you signed and dated the "completion of work" section of our invoice, wherein was stated that the work was complete, and done to your satisfaction.

We certainly appreciate you for calling us out to help with your clogged sink, however our review of the situation shows that our policy was followed, and that you received the service we quoted, and the warranty attached with it.

The good news is that you chose a company that cares about its customers, and its community, and who has a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Because you were not satisfied, we will issue you a refund of the charges incurred, and we will make a $500 donation to the 501c3 charity of your choosing. Please respond with your choice of charity, and we will send you a receipt of the donation that was made in your name.

We wish you well with all your future endeavors.

-Tim W

Contact Name and Title: Michele P
Contact Phone: XXXXXXXXXX
Contact Email: ***@royalflushplumbing.com
Dear Customer,

We were sorry to hear that you were less than satisfied with the service we provided. We strive to be a company that makes the world a better, happier place, and it would seem that in this situation we did not accomplish that.

As is our policy, we opened a full investigation into this situation. Our findings were that our plumber followed protocol, and accurately informed you and our office of his findings. We understand that you are upset, and that you are questioning his findings, however a lot of what you have commented is speculation, unfounded, and quite honestly, unfair. And your comment about "females be careful" is libelous, and very offensive to our company, especially given the fact that we are ran and managed by women. Furthermore, the fact that your neighbor (who had, and withheld, insider knowledge of where your plumbing system ran) got himself involved and was asking our plumber questions in some kind of an attempt to covertly "test" him, speaks more to the character of your neighbor than anything else. The way we were raised to understand, if you have information that can help someone, you provide it, not callowly use it to try and scrutinize someone's ability.

We make a genuine effort to help all of our customers by giving them our honest opinion on our findings. In this case, the plumber was doing just that. He informed you that he didn't believe there was a problem in your line, and that he felt it was probably in the county's line. In a world where a lot of dishonest plumbers would try to sell you something you don't need, it would seem unwise to vilify one who was doing the opposite of that.

With all that said, we have a 100% satisfaction guarantee for all our customers. As you were not satisfied, we are going to give you a full refund of the money you spent by sending you back the checks you gave us, and reimbursing you for any documented stop payment fees related to this. In addition to that, we will make a $500 donation to the charity of your choosing. Please let us know your preference of charity (501c3), and we will forward you the receipt of the donation.

Thank you for your time, and for providing your opinion.

- Michele P