justiceseeker mississauga south

Want to share my experience of renting water heater from Direct Energy in view of July 2013 flood. We have been renting the water heater for 3,5 years. In July like many others we got water in the basement from the sewer backup. After the flood my husband called Direct Energy and a service man arrived to remedy situation. He did his ‘magic’ by unplugging the water heater and wrote us a bill of $1047+HST to buy out the rental water heater – this translates to 3.5 years of rentals. Brand new water heaters of the same capacity are below $1000.We understand that the rental agreement has buy-out condition in case of flood damage. But the buy-out price does not have to be outrageous. One would think that depreciation and loss of warranty need to be factored in when determining the buy-out price. We cleaned off the dirt and plugged the water heater back in and it works since mid July till now. However, we are forced to buy it out because of the unspecified ”flood damage”. I cannot see any damage because the water heater works and I offered to continue paying monthly rental fees. Direct Energy sent another service man (don’t know why). He saw the water heater working but in his inspection report wrote that water heater was off and he left it that way. He explained to us that he cannot write the truth because he would lose his job. The fun part is that Direct Energy continues billing us for rental and buy-out price every month plus late fee. I paid all my monthly water heater rental fees on time and payments were accepted. I called Direct Energy numerous times asking to lower the buy-out price if they consider the unit damaged or continue to rent to me with no service obligations on their part or let me pay in installments and not charge me late fees. Agents promise to call back with decision when they get one from their supervisor but never do. On the latest bill I finally got credit for my 3 last monthly payments but they still charged us again for the current month. Called again today and, as always, they will call me back. Will they ever? Customer care – there is none, communication – there is none, effectiveness –non-existing. Is there anyone in this company who can make a decision? Another very troublesome thing is if employees are not objective on their inspection report not to lose their job what kind of company is this? Case references given to me by Direct Energy Customer Care agents #2486500 and #20290523. This may help Direct Energy to identify anonymous customers.

The most despicable service and attitude of staff one can ever imagine. We ordered Appalachian Prestige maple floors which their salesman claimed he can deliver. His calim was false, of course, like his story about being in business for 40 years and how superior their product is and how much he knows about floors. In short,a big fat BS. This store is not an authorized dealer for Appalachian products. The boxes delivered had a plain white label, the one you can print from any computer or a little label printer. Underneath that label were clearly visible traces of another label. The wood in the boxes was of an unspecified manufacturer and of inferior quality. Our request for deposit credit remains in limbo, even though company claimed it was processed a week ago. The salesman never called back to apologize or resolve the issue. His cowardly avoidance speaks for itself. His brother and another salesman are of the same caliber-people with sub-standard professional ethics and questionable moral hygiene, just like the product they endorse. No wonder BBB has the lowest rating of "F" for this company.

We had great misfortune to sign contract with sales rep Anton Levy from In Home Services who after collecting the 1500.00 of deposit "re-delegated" the job to J & M Home Services in August, 2008. Mark Z and Jacub C from J & M Home Services showed up at our door 2 weeks later demanding GST to be paid to them on top of the price of the contract and resigning the contract. We refused to give anything above discussed and agreed price with the sales rep in the initial contract and sign. J&M Home Services returned in 10 min telling that they cleared with the sales rep and no GST should be paid and they will do the job and we have to sigh once more. This where we got conned. Mark & Jacub excavated the property and started laying out interlocking stone on half of the walkway. 2 days later requested half of the pay, and we paid, as per contract terms. Guys never showed up for the next 2 weeks. Then showed up for driveway compacting which was done extremely poor. We called and pointed this out and were told they will do it again and someone will come to form landing and steps. No one ever came. 2 weeks later they appeared for 2 hours, put 2 boards in the driveway indicating end, which was quite shorter than driveway curbs. We phone contractor and expressed our extreme dissatisfaction with the progress and quality of their work and asked to please come and discuss it with us. Contractors came, picked up tools and left claiming they are loosing on this contract and measurements are wrong. This is after they collected $9000 from us and it is them who did measurements. We called them 3 times after, they hung up on us. Called sale rep and asked fro companies address since there was none on the contract. He gave me a bogus address in Brampton. This company does not advertise anywhere. They feed off unsuspected and inexperienced homeowners. It is remarkable that Mr.Nugent from In Home Services, company of our initial contact, gave us the same pitiful story he gave Rick in 2007 about how his rep took away contracts from him for side jobs and he fired him and Mark Zammit, his former employee, for unsatisfactory performance. Now we are left in complete mess: butchered driveway, retaining wall with caps coming off after 6 month(contractors warranty is 24 months), weeds growing through partially laid out walkway, old concrete walkway was removed by contractor and we have mud now instead. Do not trust companies who have no address on their contract: they plan to be not found and don’t give any money before project completion and request step by step description of the job to be done. I hope this will help someone not to repeat our mistakes.