American Home Shield

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Home Warranties • American Home Shield • Buyers Home Warranty • Choice Home Warranty • First American Home Warranty • Home Warranty of America • National Home Protection • Nationwide Home Warranty • Old Republic --- • Home Warranties Not Always What They Seem • Old Republic Responds • Think Twice Before Buying an Extended Warranty --- • Home Warranties Not Always What They Seem

It seems like a good idea -- prepaid home maintenance, basically a service contract or extended warranty on your house.

The AHS booklet states, "Commitment to your total satisfaction"� "That's why we back every job we do with the unique money-back guarantee shown on the back of your home warranty" ... "AHS guarantees that all approved covered service repairs will be completed to your satisfaction. If for any reason you are not satisfied with that service received, we will work with you until you are satisfied or we will refund the trade service fee."

Unfortunately, consumers tell us it often doesn't work out that way, as David Wood reports in his report, . The complaints to the right break it all down into neat little categories ... whereas those below sort of sum it up.

donna of Jacksonville, FL July 24, 2009

WE caled to have our dishwasher fixed. All Brands appliance left a message. it took us over 1 week to get to them back to them, then never returned our calls. WHen they came they said we were using too much soap. We tried what they said, but the dishes were still dirty. WE called them back. They said They had no idea what the problem was. They never sent a report back to AMS. AHS said they had to come 3 times before we could have someone else come.

The 3rd time he said we should use CRL and maybe the filter was clogged, but never checked it. AHS said since they don't have the 2nd report they can't have anyone else come. We had to pay for their visit and all the long distance calls to AHS. My last call with American Home shile said they would try to gt a report so they could have someone else come. If they can, the new repair peron would call. We have still not heard anything. It's been over a month, time hanging around for the repair man and I finally figured out it was our water softner that hasn't been working. We are not renuing with America Home Shiled.

Laura of Apex, NC July 24, 2009

We put in a service request for out AC on July 9th. The contracted Holly Springs Heating and Air to come out. They came and said nothing was wrong yet our AC ran all day set at 78 degrees and the temp never got below 81 degrees. And let me add that I have a 4 month old infant in the house. So I call the owner of Holly Springs Heating and Air, Gary, who never called me back. Finally, a week later, I get Gary to come out to the house again. He says he will be there between 12-4 and shows up at 7:30pm. He finds all these problems with the inside unit and says he will schedule an appt to have the tech come out and clean the unit.

AHS doesn't cover that since it's preventative maintenance, fine, no problem, but it's been another week and I still can't get this company to make an appt to fix our AC. We have called AHS to complain about the company that they have contracted to take care of our AC and they tell us there is nothing they can do because the diagnosis isn't covered. They tell us we have 2 choices, either keep trying to get an appt scheduled or find another company on our own...which would charge us another service charge fee plus the fee to do the cleaning. Are you kidding me??

So now we're stuck having already paid our 60 service charge and our AC hasn't been fixed and the joke of a company that AHS sent out to us never returns our calls on a daily basis. So we are back at square one. We pay several hundreds of dollars for the home warranty and this is the kind of service we get. Needless to say I put in a request to cancel our contract with AHS and get a refund.

Tracie of Coalinga, CA June 22, 2009

American Home Shield warranties are bogus unless your home is brand new and you live close to a large city. I recently purchased a foreclosure in a small town and insisted the seller purchase a home warranty through AHS, only to find that they do not cover any issue that is pre-existing regardless of what the policy states. I have electrical outlets/switches that don't work and the electrician had to come 80 miles”all he did was complain about the drive then recommend that the work was out of the scope of the warranty because I was re-modeling and wires were exposed(I was painting a bedroom and had removed the outlet covers. My policy covers electrical.

I also had a plumbing issue; I had the seller purchase a new hot water heater and move the unit from inside the kitchen to outside the bathroom area prior to closing. A licensed plumber did the work but he did not sheetrock over the old plumbing and you could see the capped-off pipes. The plumber--same distance as the electrician--refused to even look at my plumbing problem because of the exposed pipe, yet tried to charge me 65.

When I called AHS to complain, the rep was very rude and told me that for both the electrical and the plumbing I would have known there were issues "if I was smart or had hired a man to look at it" (I am female). When I asked to speak to his supervisor, he refused, telling me "this ain't a supervisor issue." I explained that as a customer, I had the right to speak to a supervisor. He laughed and told me I did not have that right unless he said I did. I asked his name; he refused to give it and hung up on me. I called back and asked for a supervisor. I was told there were none available.

I had to pay almost 12,000.00 out of pocket for new plumbing. A pipe break in one of the bathrooms flooded the floor--I now have to tear up the entire thing and replace the subfloor, cabinets, and part of the wall (when I can afford it). My electrical issues are still unsolved since I cannot afford to address them at this time.

F. of Palmetto, FL July 20, 2009

After 4 1/2 years of having AHS bill me on my credit card, they just stopped. Then they sent me a past due notice, with a threat to send my account into a collection service. They are asking in writing for the entire year's cost of 496.58. In the 4 1/2 years I have had only 3 or 4 claims, and everyone was small. I have never been late on any bill in my life, including AHS, and customer service treated me without respect, and was also very curt. She, cus. svc. blamed me by saying, "didn't you see we were not billing you on your credit card"? I explained that after 4 1/2 years of billing I only checked them every 3 or 4 months. I'm not sure she understood what's it's like to have nearly 100 charges a month, and always paying it off before the statement was due. Absolutely the worst cus svc experience I have ever had with any company.

Eddie of Abbiville, LA July 14, 2009

My wife and I purchased a hose about a month ago and with the house came a warrenty package with AMERICAN HOME SHEILD. Well after using the dishwasher 1 time it stopped working, we call them up and a week later a tech shows up from Sears that had no idea what he was doing he ordered parts and then another week later another tech shows up still cant fix it. AMERICAN HOME SHEILD insisted on ordering new parts so they did 4 techs later and 810.00 in parts and laber they still cant fix it.

NOW AMERICAN HOME SHEIL is saying that they will not replace it or fix it due to me going online and looking up info on this unit and finding there is a recall on a part that could cause a fire (GREAT) so now I have to worry about that and there telling me that it is now my problem to deal with. Gilda who is supposed to be a superviser did nothing to help this issue any better and hung up on my wife when asked to speak to someone higher up then her..

AMERICAN HOME SHEILD is a joke.... They do not and will not take care of you the customer as they claim in there contract. THey dont care if you are out of heat or air for 2 months. This was a simple dishwasher. I learned alot about them from this and I would not trust them to warrenty my dogs house more less mine...

I have a handicapped mother here with me and a new born. ANd I feel very very upset about something so simple and they would not help or fix this issue.. NOw I have a dishwasher that the main panel is plinking with power to it that cant be turned of due to SEARS not knowing how to fix it and a dishwasher with a part on recall that could cause fire.. AND no one to help.. AMERICAN HOME SHEILD IS A HOAX!!! Save your money, and go with a company that has been around awile...

Jill of Plano, TX July 17, 2009

the AC went out July 3 it took 6 days to get someone to look at it. I am still waiting for the parts to be shipped to the AC vendor for repair. They can not give me a solid date for delivery. the cost to me will be almost 400.00 as the only warrenty some parts they replaced the same parts last year costing me 900.00

Craig of Arlington, TX July 15, 2009

Please do not use American Home Shield for anything. They want to tell you more about what they are not liable for, than saying what they will do for you. I am now dealing with my third experience of incompetence at AHS. The first two were resolved by the BBB and Board of Realtors, not due to AHS's willingness to resolve the issues. I think I'm out after this one is resolved.

James of Houston, TX July 15, 2009

We have paid for AHS for almost 15 years as with most insurances; you are paying for the possibilities of something going wrong and they are hoping that they do not... On 13, 09 my wife phoned me to say that our electrical service was tripping the breakers for the better part of the day and that when she would go out to reset them the service box was too hot to touch bare handed. When I arrived home at 8:30pm I went to inspect the box and found that the service panel was in fact extremely hot. We placed a call to AHS and they placed an "emergency" work order. A technician arrived at our house at 3:30pm the following day. His diagnosis: One main leg leading to the main breaker has oxidized and is causing the feed to over heat and causing the main to trip. Noalax was not applied to the aluminum wire which has allowed this to happen over time. One 50amp breaker for one a/c unit is over rated. only 100amp feeding home which has two a/c units and one elec. dryer and 12 other circuits. Suggest running copper mains and installing a new main and down grading the 50amp breaker.

The tech said that he would inform AHS and they would contact us within the hour; 4 hours later I called AHS to which they informed me that they are scheduling a second opinion based on the fact that within the past 8 years we have had "4 electrical calls" and that no one has observed this before and that based upon the techs diagnosis this claim was initially denied due to over loading of the system. This is a 20 year old home and the system is original, 20 years ago was this system overloaded and if the previous technicians did not go into the service box for anything other than to shut on/off the service how then would they have known there was or could have been a problem; a problem having more to do with oxidation due to age which then would have led to integrity of the system which then would lead to overload? Furthermore the technician that came out on 14 July 09 suggested that we turn the system off and go somewhere else because this a "very real fire hazard" that being said - to this point as of this writing (15 July) AHS placed an "emergency w/o" last evening @ 8:00pm, today another company phoned stating that a tech would be at my house between 12:00 and 6:00pm this day.

Question: If my house catches fire who will be responsible - the original home builder, the inspector(for my home purchase), any one of the electricians that came to my house at anytime, American Home Shield for splitting hairs and not taking this or any situation like this any more seriously than they do, or Us, for assuming that most if not all the components in and around your home do for the most part operate the way in which they were designed or built and if in the event that they do not that is exactly why we make "Home Warranty" purchases.

Heather of West Hills, CA July 13, 2009

I filed a claim with AHS in Oct. 2008 for a spa heater that was worn out and finally broke. The first person they sent out said that the spa was not to code and AHS denied the claim. The spa was almost 20 yrs old. I called the manufacturer, who inspected the unit and they confirmed that the spa was properly built to code. They also provided a replacement cost for the unit.

I called AHS back and requested that they sent someone else out to inspect the spa heater. This person stated that the spa broke due to age and wear & tear. AHS denied the claim because they said the damage was caused by chemicals. There was no bases for this determination except that their policy does not cover damage caused by chemicals. I informed them that the spa cannot work without chemicals. How can they cover a system that requires chemicals to work properly and then deny the claim for using the chemicals. DUH!!! The heater gave out due to wear and tear (which is what they do cover). This was also the diagnosis from the manufacturer. AHS denied the claim again.

I did not contact the California Department of Insurance because they cannot make AHS pay anything, they only look for infractions in the claims handling and do not care about the consumer.

The cost to replace the system was approx. 3,000 and I sent them a demand to pay. They denied the demand. I then filed a claim in small claims court against AHS and they played the "name game". Just FYI, they are not actually "America Home Shield" each state is governed under a separate entity. I had to contact the president's office of AHS to determine the proper entity of AHS that my contract was written under. America Home Shield of Californial. I had to make the necessary corrections to the small claims court because America Home Shield is not a company in California without the "California" behind it.

All of this took time, which I don't have much of, but this was an injustice. Read the NUMEROUS complaints on the interest. I refused to be jerked around and am very aware of how to read a policy. I am a Claims Adjuster! My company would never think to act so irresponsibly. We try to cover claims, not look for excuses to deny.

I filed the complaint and was looking forward to taking my turn in the court. Four days prior to the court date, AHS of California, contacted me and wanted to settle the claim with a Policyholder's Release. They asked me how much I wanted. I included the cost for each time I was charged for their service call, my postage, copying costs, court costs, and provided them with the actual cost of the spa heater and labor to install it. I signed that Release and THEY PAID EVERY PENNY.

They also sent me a letter that they refused to cover the spa until the new one was replaced. I sent them a letter and said that I no longer needed coverage on the spa now and would like a refund of my premium. They refused and said I needed to pay for the coverage until the end of the policy period. I may still pursue that portion even though it is minimal.

Then last week, I received a letter from AHS that they are going to cancel my policy at the end of the policy period. Wow, what a surprise!!

I am writing this for all those individuals who just give up. Read the AHS policy. They hire contractors who do not like dealing with them because they know what they do to their policyholders. Sometimes, it is not the contractor who is at fault. The second contractor said that he recommended that they replace the spa heater. Then the claims adjuster said that he told them it was the chemicals. I got them both on a conference call and they both hemmed and hawed. Finally, the claims adjuster said that it had to be reviewed by a higher power. I then got a letter saying that the damage was caused by chemicals. So it is not always the contractor.

BTW, I recorded every conversation and transcribed everything they told me. The recording is not admissable in court, but what they told me, is. I no longer have AHS and am saving 50. per mo. I want you to know that if you want something covered by there policy, find your own contractor to assess the problem and fight them. TAKE THEM TO COURT. YOU CAN DO ALL THE PAPERWORK ONLINE!!!!! It is more cost effective for them to settle with you than to go to court and get ANOTHER judgement againt them. Don't just take no.......... Best of luck

chris of las vegas, NV July 11, 2009

ATTENTION EVERYONE!!!! I Had an earlier post on my pool heater and water heater being denied because of a bogus diagnosis. I went through the Better Business Bureau, got my own second opinions (free of course) and lo and behold, I received two checks from AHS for the full repair of the pool heater 2177.00 and a partial for the water heater (I waited one year to fight for that one so partial payment is good). Go online with BBB.com and file your complaints. It's quick, they respond very quickly and AHS has to satisfy the claim or they get the ding. It works I promise!!!!!!

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