Jac V

My refrigerator was no longer cooling, so I searched the internet under appliance repair and came across The A Team Appliance Repair. I called this so called repair company to schedule a service call; I was told I would be charged $80 for the service call to diagnose the problem, which was fine; however this is where the misleading begins. During the diagnostic, which took him 10 min, he proceeded to tell me I would need to pay $280 to further investigate & fix the problem. After 35 min of tinkering behind the fridge, which by the way is not where the issues was, it was in the freezer, he then said I needed a new Control Board and that part would be $720.32 + tax, but he would not be able to get the part for 2 weeks. I declined to proceed as I was very suspicious at this point, and unfortunately I had already signed off on the agreement to pay the $280 + tax for a total of $316.40, even though he essentially did nothing for that amount, and did not seem to know what he was doing (or did he?). He then said that if I changed my mind, he could get that part in a week at the latest, yet not 5 min before said it would be 2 weeks. I assume since I had declined to order the part to be installed he was attempting to change my mind, hence the time frame change. I then proceeded to get a second opinion which yielded a much different result for significantly less The part that I did require was a "Thermostat Defrost", for $67.70 (inc tax) which was avail same day. Out of curiosity, I inquired as to the cost of a Control Board, which the legit company quoted $218.00; that tells you right there how much The A Team Appliance Repair company mark up their parts to their customers. Of course I was extremely frustrated by the fact that I just paid $316.00 for literally NOTHING. He was not even diagnosing in the right area. He did not even open the control board to see if it was malfunctioning, he was simply making it up as he want along. I wish I would have thought to check the 'BBB site', and or 'Homestars' to see if there were any reviews; what I went through seems to be a consistent theme as I read through the other complaints. I was shocked. Unfortunately, many were mislead out of much more money than I was, simply because they trusted that their technician would fix their problem, but did not, and sadly they spent a lot of money on parts that they did not require given the appliance they supposedly fixed still did not work. When you call their customer service, it is evident that they have no interest in helping you, and when you ask to speak to the owner of the company, he of course is always in a meeting; and when they say you will get a call back from a supervisor, the call does not come. They will only accept cash or debit, which makes it much harder to recoup any kind of refund, which I suspect is the reason why they don't accept credit cards. I must say, I did think it was odd when they did not accept credit cards. It is my belief that this company "The A Team Appliance Repair" knowingly mislead their customers into paying for nonsensical diagnostics, and unnecessary parts that are significantly marked up, all without really addressing the actual issue, which leaves you with the malfunction you started with, and paying for another company to actually repair your appliance. Their business practices are egregious to the customer and they should be investigated and have their license to do business revoked. I have absolutely no problem paying for a service, but what I do have a problem with is a company that is knowingly committing fraud.