Mercury Home Services (duct cleaning)

I needed my ducts cleaned for my elderly parents with their various health issues annually for the last 4 years.
Sam and his team came on time, were quick and courteous.
The last time, I had to leave for an appointment and watched them in my hidden nanny cam. They continued to work as if I was there. They even locked the door when they left.

July 22, 2022 I recommend this company. They did very good job cleaning my house air duct. It cost money, but Im happy :) with the service!

I was charged 500$ for a duct cleaning that took 30 minutes and it was a bad job, they did not clean all the vents in my house and still charged me for each vent, the cleaning was overpriced and so was the antibacterial flush, i do not recommend you use this company.

Initially, they tried to get me to pay a fee just to get a quote, which is already an unusual practice. But what really bothered me, was that I was not told about the actual cost until they had already arrived and done all the surveiling, then they told me just for them to look, it would be over $200 (a lot for a charge whose ammount they didn't even specify over the phone).

When they finally got back to me, they quoted over four times as much as the plumber we eventually went with, and wanted to perform a totally unecessary reroute or an existing exhaust duct, rather than insert the new one just a few feet further, a decision that they made which allegedly would double the price of the plumbing operation.

Everything about them was extraneous and pushy, I felt uncomfortable with how they always presented greatly inflated prices, only after conversations of sweet talking, and very superficial customer service promises. I am not surprised that many other people have complained about extra costs and half arsed jobs, as their income seems to come from victims, not clients.

I have elderly parents and work during the day. Sam came onsite to clean the ducts and look at my furnace. I left him with the lockbox code. He was efficient and kind, especially to my parents. I didn't feel anything but safe and looked after.

They go door to door preying on elderly customers? They charged my neighbour upwards of $1800 for a duct cleaning and humidifier replacement? High pressure sales tactics used on the most vulnerable.

What is that? Duct cleaning costs range around $400 and a humidifier replacement would be similar. How they came up with an additional $1000 in charges is beyond anyone’s guess.

Extreme caution advised when dealing with them. I am appalled that businesses like this continue operate without any moral compass in this day and age.

The folks from the duct cleaning company Mecury Home (Sam) are not there to provide an honest service. See similar complaints on bbb site
https://www.bbb.org/ca/on/north-york/profile/heating-and-air-conditioning/mercury-home-services-0107-1317498/customer-reviews

When they called and offered to clean house's air ducts the work was advertised as thorough, taking 1.5h (which is still short). Actually "all" took half that time. Simply put, from ringing the bell to driving away (including unloading/loading large hoses and other equipment, hooking/unhooking to our furnace, moving between the 3 house levels and cleaning 20 ducts) all took 45 min "In & Out". The quality of this work was infact subpar, the duct covers (which is the easiest thing) were left very dirty and the area around them had nasty stuff on the groud, black residue was also left on the driveway. Altogether there were no signs duct cleaning professionals were on the ground. Wondering about any "before & after" phone pictures- don't bother. What you get is the old quick in-quick out money grabbing attitude (apparently they came quite early from their previous job too). Seems they thought they did an amazing quick job so our cost suspiciously ballooned 2 times when in reality we should be getting 1/2 the advertised price (we had this done few times already and I've seen what it takes to clean the ducts thoroughly).

We trusted Mecury will come and do a honest service and at the end will charge us what was agreed. We left a payment card with my son, however the Mecury's rep used the opportunity to make extra money and (surprise?) conveniently "forgot" we were called and given a firm price so he charged us 2 times the agreed upon cost. When I confronted them the next day the guy on the phone replied sorry it should not be a young person handling the payment! Unbelievable, now it's our fault!
Bottom line is that Mecury (Sam) knowingly dropped the ball on all 3 counts e.g. time, work quality and cost.