Cinch Home Services Reviews

Having an upfront option of speaking with a live person or doing everything online would be good. You book your service appointment and pay online, so you never even talk to nobody. They walk you through all the prompts. The only reason I talked to somebody was because when I made a service appointment, it was a week out when I needed it done sooner than that. You have to go through a lot of prompts to get a live person and the hold times are extremely long. But they were able to get me somebody the next day. Cinch finds the right providers, and my issue has been fixed whenever I needed them on the same day. Also, you know upfront what your monthly payment is and what the deposit would be, so it's never a surprise when it's time to book for the service.

The claim was for an oven that was not starting and the tech looked at it. The issue was with the main control board. Also, the LED light where you can tell the time was really dim. He said he would have to come back another day. He didn't have the right parts and needed to order them. They came back another day and they repaired it. Cinch covered it without asking me multiple questions. I Googled the prices of the items and found out that the control board itself was at least $300 to $400. If I tried to do it myself or if I hired a not-approved person, it would have cost them $300 for the part and then $200 for the labor. I would have been out at least $500.

When a second company was calling me to come out and do an estimate, I said I already had Company One come out and I don't know why they were calling me. At first, I thought it was spam so I called Cinch and asked. But overall, the service was great. The second company came and was able to fix the issue within two hours. Cinch covered everything and I appreciated that they had a second person come out because the first guy’s estimate was extremely high. So, I can see why they did it. I just wish I was notified. It was a bit high so I got a second opinion.

Original Review: Nov. 16, 2023

The service was great until this year. This will be the last year I'll be using Cinch. In fact, I'm going through a problem with them right now. The main heater in my home failed, and it's been out for almost three weeks now. I live in Arkansas, and we're experiencing temperatures down to 23 degrees. The technician told Cinch right off the bat that because the age of the heater, it needed to be replaced. They didn't wanna do that, and they started ordering parts. The parts came, but the parts were wrong. They expected the guy that has been doing the work to drive around for absolutely no money whatsoever and pick up parts. I listened to the guy on the phone, he said, "I can't do this for nothing. I have to be paid for my time." They argued and argued.

Finally, they decided, "Well, we're gonna replace the furnace." They called me up after I had already paid my $150 deductible that I needed to pay another $100 to get the new furnace ordered, then yesterday, they called me up and said now I have to pay the company that's doing the work an additional $500. All in all, it's been a horrid experience and I'm never going to recommend Cinch to anybody. It's a rip-off company. They're screwing people over left and right, and they're trying to do stuff on the cheap. I'm exceptionally unhappy, and I recommend people not to bother with them.

They would not replace the hot water heater. They would only replace what we had exactly but they could not find it. The one that they ended up sending to us was not measured correctly and did not fit under our house. We had to wait a couple extra days before we could even figure out any type of resolution at that point. We ended up having to get a check sent so that we could get a new hot water heater. We had to hire an electrician to rewire so that we can move the hot water heater into our garage instead of under our house. At this point, we're not gonna be using Cinch going forward. We ended up spending 1,500 out of pocket on top of what was sent to us for our claim. We were not very pleased with Cinch.

This is the first time I've requested service and if this is how it's gonna go, I will cancel the contract. I can't even find a phone number on the Cinch website for customer service. When you call for service, you're calling because you need it. But to have to wait three days and still haven't heard from anybody, and they took my $200 in a timely manner, that's a little much.

But it got to the point where doing maintenance on the heater would only last a week or two and I had to start all over again. I explained to a different tech what was wrong and he said that because the heater is not showing a code, he's not gonna touch it even though I knew what was wrong. He told me to call him back when the heater has a code. A code came up a few weeks later and I called them. I said, "Can I send you the code so you'll know." But I never heard from the rep. I placed a couple of calls and there was nothing. Cinch should make sure I don't get that company again. I just kept doing my thing every couple of weeks. Finally, it got to where it was going out every day so I called and told them what was going on. Cinch said, "Oh, okay, we'll send you somebody good."

The tech called me from the company and asked, "Is this a gas water heater or electric?" I said it's gas and he said, "Oh, we only service electric." In their system, it showed that they had already done the work. The work order was closed out and there was nothing I could do. So I called back in and I happened to get the right rep. She said, "Oh, that's not satisfactory at all." She was able to go in the system and show the job not being completed. She then assigned me another business to do the work. The techs came and they were awesome. They resolved the issue but it took me two years.

I really feel like I got cheated because on the system, it looked like the contractor has done the work but the tech didn't do anything. I filed a dispute and someone called me saying, "Sorry, we can't help you on that." I had all the documentation and emails I sent to them. Once you file the order for a repair and the contractor responds, it shows on Cinch's system that the work was done when sometimes it's not. That's a little glitch. What was really frustrating was the person I talked to. A couple of times, I asked him where I could hardly understand. I could tell he was just reading a scripted response to me.

Plus, my warranty said that they were going to fix repairs that I had in my home, but when my air condition went out in the summer, they never repaired it. It took several weeks to get back with me while I was at a holding point, then someone told me that it wasn’t eligible for a replacement after several weeks of them not responding. Then summer was over and they finally got back with me in September. There was no good outcome and I'm not happy with them at all. The process altogether as a whole was frustrating and time-consuming. Aside from that, the cost was $215 and they charged me for a deductible but I didn't even get my product. It was awful. I would rather not have a home warranty than go through all this. They should at least give me my $300 back. I sent them an email about that, too but I haven't heard anything from anybody.

I've only had one person that I was concerned about. Other than that, it's good. The contractors give me information on what to do to maintain my appliances. If they have to come back, they’ll say, “I have to order a part.” They'd tell me how long before they get the part and that they'd be back for the fix. Then I get a call back and they ask me, “How was everything? How was the contractor? How did things go?” They close out the ticket and also tell me I have three months when I file a claim that if anything should go wrong, I can always call back. There's one plumber that I like. I even request him when I need plumbing done. I have requested him a second time, but I wasn't able to get him because I don't think they had him anymore.

All of my appliances are on the policy including my HVAC. That may be why mine is so expensive. The price keeps going up, which I expect. Initially, I could file three claims and pay one copay. But now, if I file three claims, I have to pay three copays. I still have to pay monthly too. I could pay on a yearly basis and don't have to worry about it. However, I still have to pay the same amount. But I have suggested Cinch to a couple of my friends who own homes because I haven't had any problems with Cinch. My girlfriend couldn't get them because of where she lives though.

Cinch said they mailed the check out but it didn't get here. It was three weeks later. So they said they were gonna cancel the check and mail it again. They said what they were doing there was mailing it to the wrong address. For the second check, I gave them the address because when we first got our warranty, our address said 340 but it was supposed to be 304. So the first day I got it, I called them and said, "You got the wrong address on here." Supposedly they fixed it. But they kept mailing the check out to 340. So they canceled it again and I said, "I want it in two days." Then the check was here in two days. But they asked us to change our review once they mailed us our final check. They don't want any negative on their site. We didn't even wait for the check because we couldn't use the dishwasher we had.

We have a $200 deductible and for some repairs, we've had to pay $200 that maybe we could have gotten for less. But for the most part, we can't have a service guy out here for much less than that anyway. And if you have a major problem, it's nice that we only have to pay a deductible. So, it's a peace of mind. And in the long haul, it'd probably save us money. Some people are handier than others but we don't happen to be so we're gonna have to call a service guy out one way or the other when something breaks. We had our air conditioning go out as well as our HVAC system at the other house. So, we've had some major expenses and we've only had to pay the deductible.

One thing I don’t like is when they’re making decisions about repair. There comes a point at which it needs to be replaced. I haven't had to yet, but I don't wanna keep paying $200 to have the same appliance go out because Cinch hasn't made a decision that it needs to be replaced. We got a home inspection at our new house and there were some things that were getting toward the end of their useful life. They haven't gone out but in the event they do, I’m wondering how many times Cinch is gonna send the repair guy out before they say this calls for a replacement. And probably, if that happens, that could be a big dissatisfier. When some appliance gets to be 20-plus years old, there's not a lot of sense in putting a lot of repair into it.

For this year, about a month ago, I called Cinch and told them I needed someone out here. The air conditioning was not running. It was still a little warm about four weeks ago. The rep gave me the name of the company and the person, and they said the person can’t come out until October. I told them to get somebody else that's on their list. And they did. A nice lady from a local firm came out. The company they recommended gave me top-notch service. The lady was there for about an hour, fixed the air conditioning and had to replace the part. If anything happens to the air conditioning, I'll call Cinch first, but I'll say it is the company I wanna use and that they still work with them.

Cinch is a good company. It's just they didn't explain it or highlight it in their plan that I must call them first to schedule. This is my second year with them. It was $61 and it went up to 84.66. The policy has the things I told the lady about when I first signed up. I got a refrigerator freezer and two mini freezers in the garage, separate units, little storage freezers and the refrigerator in the kitchen. I wanna make sure that the water pump is in the plan. I get some Dominion Power all the time and if they had to replace my wires, my homeowner's insurance does not cover it. I got it for $5 through Cinch and something else to replace any sewage pipes or water. I told them they better be careful because I got a new ground water system. So, they better know how to dig around it. If they damage that, they're gonna pay for it. Cinch was good because I can wear a person out sometimes in a polite way. But they finally got me the right thing for the second go-around.

I had to spend several hours speaking with them on the phone, across multiple days to get it straightened out. When I did get it straightened out, they said, "Well, you have to submit your claim via the phone," and it is extremely difficult to get a hold of them. If both of our units have a problem, we have to call them. Even when we did that, they still filed the claim wrong. When we finally did get a technician, he said, "I have one service request for one unit, even though both of your units are broken and you paid to have both looked at."

What happened was we submitted our request for our unit because it was broken. This wasn't Cinch's fault, but the gentleman went to the wrong address. So, he didn't service our home, and they couldn't get us back on the schedule for like a week or two. I took off work so I could be there, and no one showed up. I was angry. I called them and said, "Hey, I don't know what happened. Nobody showed up." "Okay. Well, we don't have an appointment for you in our system even though you spoke with someone that scheduled it."

I've called out of four days of work to get someone to come out to our home and check our unit, and they kept telling me I have an appointment scheduled for this day, at this time, with this company and the person didn't show up. I received a call at 5 o'clock from Cinch saying, "Okay. We have your appointment scheduled for Thursday at 5 o'clock." I said, "Well, ma'am, it's Wednesday at 5 o'clock and you told me it was today. I can't keep taking off days of work for you." I missed a total of a week and a half of work for appointments that they kept telling me existed and didn't. So, I missed out on that much of my pay, which is really hard on my bills.

When they finally got a gentleman to our home, the gentleman tried really hard to fix our unit. He was very kind. The problem was that our unit didn't have the serial number stamped into the metal. So the gentleman said, "I'm so sorry. The unit you have, I can't fix it. We can't just put random amounts of coolant in here and hope it works because it could blow up." I was like, "Okay, that makes sense." My pipes had burst on my unit, and he couldn't replace them. So I said, "Okay, that's fine." He said, "We'll contact Cinch. They should be with you tomorrow. They'll contact you in 24 hours."

A week went by, and I didn't hear anything from Cinch. I didn't hear anything from anybody. I had to call Cinch. I kept having to leave them messages. No one could help me. I had to sit on the phone with them for over two hours. I had to get raised up four supervisor levels to speak to somebody who finally knew how to help me, and what they told me was, "Well, we have to have another person come out and verify that they don't know what your unit is or what is wrong with it." I said, "Fine. If that's what it is, then that's what it is." We're in the hottest heat wave that we've had in years, and I have a heart condition that makes me pass out in the heat. I can't live in my own home at this point. It's making it hard. I've told them I can't go up my stairs, which is where part of my things are in my home because I'll pass out, fall down the stairs, and could break my neck.

They got a gentleman to come out the third time and he confirmed, "Yes, we don't know what's wrong with it." They were able to get my smaller unit, which is upstairs, fixed. So, we have some cool air but my bedroom and stuff are downstairs. So, all of my living stuff is downstairs and it's not a good thing for me to go up and downstairs again in the heat. They said, "There's nothing we can do. We can't call it an emergency. You have at least one unit working."

I called them and I was like, "Okay. So what are my options? Because you had somebody confirm that you don't know what our unit is and you have to replace it." I finally spoke to a woman and she said, "Well, you have two options. You can have the buyout option, or you can have the replacement option. Which would you like?" I said, "I don't understand. Could you explain my options a little more?" She said, "You have a buyout option and you have a replacement option. Which would you like?" I said, "Ma'am, could I get a little bit more details? Can I know what's the price range for the buyout?" She said, "I can't get you that information." I said, "Okay. Well, can you just read my contract to me? Can I just have you send me a copy of my contract?" "I don't have that." "What do you mean you don't have a copy of my contract in your computer system, ma'am?"

The lady told me she didn't have a copy of my contract in their computer system. It's horrible. I haven't reported them to the BBB, but I very much want to. This woman then kept telling me, "Well, I'm gonna send you the paperwork for the buyout." I said, "Ma'am, I just wanna confirm with you, I'm not choosing that option. I just wanna know more about it before I pick one." She said, "Okay. So I'm gonna send you all the paperwork to fill out for the buyout option." I said, "No, ma'am. I just want a copy of my contract. I wanna know the details for what my options are. Can you just send that to me?" She said, "Well, it's gonna take me 3 to 5 business days to send it to you via email." They never sent it. I never got a copy of my contract from them. It was insane. I finally had to hang up on her because she kept trying to get me to choose the buyout option and couldn't tell me anything about it.

I went a total of four months without air conditioning in the heat. I didn't have air conditioning the entire summer because of this. My health condition made this very hard. I was falling and getting bruises and hitting my shoulders and my hips. My hips have bruises on them from where I was falling because I was passing out. I had to place my animals elsewhere because it was so hot in my home. It was bad. I kept telling them this, and finally, I made some progress with someone. I had to yell at some poor lady over the phone and she was like, "Well, we're gonna try to replace your unit." I was like, "Okay, that sounds great. Please replace our unit.”

They sent us the bill and they were like, "Oh, it's $1200." I said, "Ma'am, we paid extra for certain things that are on this bill so that we didn't have to pay for it." We paid extra on our plan for removal service and we had to pay the removal fee. We had to pay for the concrete pad. We had to pay another $1200. It was $700 for our policy and $400 for them to come out for one service call, even though it's supposed to be 200. They took the other 200 and put it somewhere. I kept asking for a refund. I never got it. Apparently, they had reallocated that money to a downpayment for the guy to come out and start to remove it. but that is not the fee for removing it.

The $1200 does not get any deduction from the 300 for the gentleman to come out. That's just an initial deductible. Then I pay the full $1200 past that. So that was insane. They never told me that they put the other $200 towards that and just kept telling me, "Well, we'll send you a refund. We'll send you a refund." They never sent us a refund and never explained that to me. Someone else at the very end after everything had to explain it to me.

It was one of the most horrible experiences I've ever had in my life. The gentleman they had replacing our AC unit helped me the most. I cannot speak more highly of that man. He was calling me from the hospital while his wife was getting surgery for cancer to explain to me how Cinch Home Services works because Cinch couldn't do it. Cinch helped us one time before and it was very easy. We sent in a request, and a gentleman came out and fixed our AC. Life was good and that was why when we called them the second time, we were like, "Oh sure, this will be easy. They'll come out get it fixed. Life will be good." Four months later, we went through hell.

It happened before with my dishwasher. I waited for a part over a month also. And at some point, we have to stop using COVID as an excuse. I'm in the workforce too and I know that you just can't go through that, and every time use COVID. Staffing is back at capacity now. It's not like it's a big problem and we can get different parts now at ample time. Not like it was before. So that excuse has played out. I'm not happy with Cinch. They take my money when it’s time to renew and I pay them on time. If I have a problem, I gotta pay upfront first. They should do a better job and people will stick with them. Nowadays, people have other choices they can make. They don't have to just stick with somebody who's not giving them the services that they're paying for. Don't take my money and not give me the services that I'm entitled to.