American Home Shield Reviews

The sink started dripping again and it is still dripping. And when they came the second time, I told the plumber when I would catch water up in the sink, and it had not been doing that. The water would slowly drip out. I wouldn't move the stopper, but it would still drip out. It is still doing that, too. Plus, after the fourth visit, when I turned my sink on, water caught up behind the faucet and that had not been doing that at all. So, they've been trying. What we told the representatives that we've spoken to, each time a plumber has come out, was they have tried fixing this faucet, and at one point, water was coming from the pipe under the faucet. Something needed to be tightened. So, the last plumber that came out did stop that. We had to put a little bucket under it at one point to catch the dripping from the underside.

Now, what is happening is that the dripping that we had initially, at one point, became more of a stream, but right now, it's back to dripping, and it's dripping faster than it ever was before we called them out in the first place. What we've been told is that they would need to get a final report from the vendor so that they could take it to authorization. Several people have told us the same thing, including the person that I spoke with yesterday. She said they were waiting for a report from the vendor so that they could make a decision for authorization for the faucet to be replaced.

This request began in October, and here we are now in the middle of November and it has still not been resolved. We're really kind of floored about this because we've been with American Home Shield for a number of years and we have never had this kind of difficulty over a service call. We don't call all the time. In this case, I'm waiting for a disposition on it. In fact, someone from the plumbing company told my husband on the phone that they've been out four times and they're not coming back, and that they've been out working on the faucet, so the project is completed. My husband said to the lady on the phone, "No, it is not completed because, see, the faucet is still leaking." So, what we need to know is the company's disposition on this.

I spoke with someone at AHS yesterday. She told me the same thing that we had already been told, that they need to get a report from the vendor so that they can pursue authorization. She didn't say exactly what they would do once they got authorization. I even suggested, "Since this vendor has tried and they can't seem to fix it, although they've tried, can you send a different vendor?" I was not given a straight answer to that question. We're kinda left in limbo and it's not a good feeling. Up until now, in all these years, we have been extremely satisfied with AHS. We've maybe once or twice had to do a recall but most of the time, they fixed the problem.

As far as the vendors, they sent a lady and a man on the first visit, sent another guy the second, another guy the third, and then the one that came the third time also came the fourth time. They have been friendly. They have gotten down here. One of them replaced the shower. So, they were trying. We're not questioning the plumbers who came out but the last one saw with his own eyes that after he had done what they did down there, it still was dripping. This one sink was dripping while he was standing there with my husband looking at it after he had done what he did. He contacted his office, and the lady on the phone spoke with my husband and told him, "Well, this is the fourth time they've been there and the service has been completed or the repairs." Also, she said to him, "As long as water is coming out of the sink, as long as you can turn the faucet off and on, it's fixed."

For one, we don't understand. We're talking about possibly replacing a faucet. Now, we understand that it may take several trips to get something like this fixed. In the past, I've taken the whole 12 months to pay off because I did monthly installments. This time, I chose to just pay the whole thing off until January. This contract ends on January 24th. So, the contract has already been paid, but it's beginning to look like we're gonna be out of luck.

The problem is I'm sure it's a call center and if I had a specific problem that I was working on, if it was a claim, there would be a claim number, but they don't make great notes. So, I would have to explain my situation multiple times to every person that I would get transferred to. If this person couldn't help me in this department and they transferred me over, I gotta go through the entire thing again. Just be, "I've had this policy and now I'm running into this problem. And this person told me this." Because I would also have varying answers to questions sometimes.

It is frustrating to spend 50 minutes on the phone and be transferred from person to person. And in the end, that person would say, "We have to speak to this department, and we'll get back to you," but no one would because there are no direct phone numbers, extensions or anything that I could call. So, if that person doesn't call me back, I would be left in the lurch and have to figure it out again.

AHS needs to have a dashboard. I called last week because I tried to get a copy of my billing statement and I couldn't get a copy of it online. It's 2023. I should be able to get everything. So, I looked at accounting purposes. Because I tried to do the chat first, the chat people told me they couldn't do anything and I had to call in.

When I called in, they were supposed to mail me a statement but I still haven't received it. That was a week ago. Everything that has to do with my policy should be available on the website for me to freely print if I needed it. It's a waste of resources. It's a waste for me to have to call someone and ask them to print something and mail it to me in 2023. I said I urgently needed because we were filing our taxes. Also, I shouldn't have to take up AHS' customer service resources by needing a piece of paper. That should be something that's easily accessible because they could have that customer service person that I spent 15 minutes on the phone with help another person with their broken washing machine.

We've done everything from air conditioning, furnace, hot water heater, to stovetop and microwave. It's easy when it's a small appliance or when it's just a quick and easy fix. But when we need to replace something, it's complicated. I've had our oven fixed three times over 15 years. It's usually just some standard small part that needs to be ordered and they come in, troubleshoot, figure out what it is, order the part, come back and fix it, and it's done. And we have replaced our furnace, hot water heater, and air conditioning condenser. And for those things, it feels every time there were additional fees that didn't make any sense.

For instance, when we redid our hot water heater, they tried to make us get a permit from the town for the hot water heater and they wanted us to do all these different regulatory things that weren't necessary when we spoke to a licensed plumber we knew. So, they couldn't cover the full amount. To buy and install the hot water heater was $1,500. "We can give you $850, and you can have someone else install it yourself, or you can pay our person who we send the $1600." It happened recently. Our air conditioning condenser was replaced in 2017. And last summer, it didn't work and it had a warranty on it. So, we dealt half with AHS and half with the company that we purchased it from. It was something that had a 20-year warranty and they weren't willing to work with the manufacturer of the item. They paid me out $800 and it cost 2,000 to fix it. It's always like that with the bigger items. And some of it makes sense.

It leaked Freon and the company that AHS enlisted to do this job for me refused to take the Freon because there's a way for you to reuse it. Some companies would siphon it out, put it aside, make the repair for what was leaking, and put back whatever was still in the tank that they pulled out. This company refused to do that. They said that I had to pay and AHS covers two pounds of Freon and this required 15. So, it was $42 a pound. I had to decide.

We got an HVAC person that we knew who would pull out the Freon and put it on the side, fix the leak, put the Freon and top it off. I still had to pay him 500 extra dollars aside from what AHS gave me. They wanted $3,600 to do the job completely. And that's why I had to work the system. I would have to take whatever their payout is and pay the difference, which is okay. But I am paying $900 a year for this policy. It has gone up significantly in the past couple of years. When we first started, it was $55 a month. I know inflation over 15 years is a lot. But now, we had to figure it out for our accountant for taxes and it's $900 for the year. So, with certain things, I could benefit more from not having the policy, taking that $80 a month and putting it in my bank account. And if something broke, using that $800 that I have.

These companies don't love to do the repairs through the warranty companies because they get paid less than they would if they did it on their own, which also makes it difficult to get an appointment with someone if something is broken. In my townhouse, the washer was broken. It leaked out the bottom and it's on the second floor. So, my sister-in-law who lives there was worried that it would go into the ceiling and downstairs. We called and filed a claim. When AHS called back, they wanted to schedule an appointment for October 14th and this was mid-September. So, she would have been without a washer for almost a month. This is what we've always done. We would just let them say, okay whatever, and I would call back in a couple of days and say, "These people can't get to me till October 14th. So, I'm gonna need you to assign someone else to do it."

But from what I understand, the companies who are contracted by AHS leave a certain number of appointments in their books for the warranty company appointments and they take their own appointments that regularly come into them as a priority because they get paid more money because they're still fulfilling their end of the contract. And for some things, if it was the microwave, we would be like, "We'll wait."

But at my own house, I also have a warranty and we had our dryer break and I have three kids who are actively playing sports. I said, "I can't have no dryer. We need it every day, need to be wash uniforms around here." I hung up and called back two days later and was "Come to think of it, I cannot wait that long." And they can usually find me someone who has a closer availability. But the wait time is a bit much. They should prioritize things. Like if it's my washer and dryer, it should be more important than a dishwasher or a microwave or even a refrigerator.

We've had the furnace break when it was February, middle of winter, 22 degrees. So, we had to intervene because we couldn't get someone to come fast enough and it was so cold outside that we had to buy a bunch of heaters and put them on so that the pipes didn't burst. So, there should be an alert level of certain things that should be prioritized over other things. If you have a guy who fixes washers and dryers and microwaves, the microwave people can wait and the washer and dryer can't. And it has to be practical thinking because, in this day and age, some people might think, if you don't have a stove, then that's problematic if your stove is broken because you need to feed your family or yourself. But if the dishwasher is broken, you still have a sink and you can still wash dishes. It's still functional.

When I called in a repair on the washer, I told them what the issue was. And they said, “Okay. We'll have this technician of such and such a company call you.” That person called me, and I had to reiterate what my problem was. Maybe that's them wanting to make sure that they understand. But that was bothersome. At another time, the guy and I did a video, so he said, “Hold your phone, hold the camera so I can see this. Let me see that.” And he said, “This is something that I can't do.” I said, “You weren't doing anything. I was the one doing it.” So he said, “I'm gonna have to have a tech come there.” I said, “Very good. I think that's an excellent idea.” If it was my mother or somebody, she doesn't have a cellphone so she couldn't have done a camera review with them. That would put a lot of people off. That would be challenging for an older person. Those things are not tools that they should assume everyone has access to.

I had my air conditioning unit checked in the spring for summer, and it was determined that I was out of refrigerant and my coil needed replacing. I waited until I could place a call to say that I wanted to get that taken care of. AHS said okay and connected me with a service provider. They contacted me, and they sent another tech out, which was foolish. I thought he came to do the work, but he again just checked the unit and said, “Yes, you're out of refrigerant and you need a new coil.” The service provider called and said I would need to contact AHS and tell them that I was ready for the work to be done. I did that, and they said, “We'll schedule the appointment and have them call you and schedule an appointment,” which they did. From the service provider, there was a conglomerate of all kinds of things, because I told them, “Okay, it was time to come.” But they didn't come and they sent me an email, and I was preparing to go on vacation. I still told them to come. But they said they weren't able to because they had to get the refrigerant. So, nothing occurred while I was on vacation.

They called me and said, “We got everything set. We can come.” I said, “No, I'm not home. You can't come.” So they said, “Okay. Enjoy your vacation and we'll call you when you get back.” When I got back, I called because by the time, it was June 25th and it was hot. I had difficulty getting them to schedule because they said I was entitled to a discount. I didn't understand why.

I had to pay out of pocket. Initially, the provider told me how much it would cost, which they said would be 1,480. I went back to AHS and told them. They said, “That's for the refrigerant, because that's the price.” I said, “Yeah, I know, by the pound, depending on what the current status is.” I called the provider, “I'm ready for that.” And they said, “We can get you this discount.”

I read on the service provider and there were some bad reviews on them. He said, “No, you're entitled to a discount. And if you want, I'll send you paperwork.” So he sent the paperwork and I read over it, and it seemed sketchy to me. So, I called them back and said, “No, I wanna go with what you originally told me.” And they said, “Fine. If you wanna pay more money, we will let you. But I'm trying to say you can get this for less.” What they said was instead of just doing the items that were needed to be replaced, the coil and the refrigerant, they would upgrade my system to bring it to code. And I would have to pay for that because now the code has changed.

But when I called this lady to book all of this, I said, “You sure I'm gonna only have to pay now $800.” And she said, “Yes.” “Because I'm not gonna pay up any more if you say yes.” And she said “Yes. And if the charge goes up, they have to call you to get an approval to charge you more.” “All right, let's go ahead.” I finally got that resolved, which took two weeks. I sent them the $800. And the guy came. He did the work in no time. I signed the paper. He gave me a copy of it, and he said, “Thank you very much, ma'am.” It has been great since.

At one point, I thought my dishwasher wasn't working. The guy said, “You need such and such a part. I'll have to order that and come back once we get it.” Got the part in. He came back. He put the part in. It still wasn't working. So, I asked, “What is happening?” He got a stepladder and stood up on it so he could see the back of the washer. He said, “I'm sorry, ma'am. The plug is not in. It's not completely pushed in. That's why.” So, he pushed it in, turned it on, it started working. I said, “You've already put the new part in. It should last a little longer. Thank you.”

The first time the techs came, they were super nice, very quick, efficient, and helpful. The second time they came out, I had an issue, and it was twofold. The lead plumber was old school and set in his ways. So when he looked, he didn't like that I pointed out that indeed I had a second leak even though he thought I didn't. So when he looked at the second leak, he was standoffish. He also was when I said, “This is still leaking where you made the connection. It's leaking. It's been leaking all weekend.” And he asked, “Oh, are you sure?” I said, “I know when my floor is wet, that it’s continuing to leak.” They know what I'm talking about, but I know when water is leaking from the ceiling.

They went to fix the original leak and tightened it, but when he tightened it, he did it so tight that he crimped the pipe. I'm fearful to have the ceiling put back on because it may leak. I am now caught in the position where I don't want them back out here to try to fix it. But I had to close up my ceiling, so I let AHS know, and they said, “Take pictures so that if you have another issue, you at least have the pictures that you can submit with the claim."

When the tech looked at the second leak, the valves were in between two studs, because they were in the ceiling but also under the floor. The tech said, “I can't do that. All this has to be cut out. Your wall is gonna have to come out.” My ceiling was already gone, so I said, “Okay. That's fine.” He said, “I don't do that so you have to have someone come in here and do that, and then I can come back.” “All right. How do I coordinate this and how are they gonna cut precisely where the pipes are that you need?”

He went out to his truck, called AHS, was on the phone with them for a while, came back and said, “I'm old school. I'll use a blow torch and I can't use the blowtorch that close to your studs because it will burn your house down. You're gonna have to cut all this out. Or you can have a second opinion, which I would recommend you do, because maybe there is another plumber out there that can do it. I already talked to AHS. You just have to call. Right here, I wrote that they denied access. They're not gonna cover the access made to make the repair. So you're gonna have to cover that on your own and call them and ask for a second opinion. If you have another company come out and they say the same thing, they can choose to have us come back out. We'll fix it, but you have to open up the wall.” I signed it.

When I called AHS, right after he left, the rep advised me, “No. He should have denied the work. If he can't perform the work, he should have said he couldn't do it. And that would have triggered a second company automatically being reassigned to you. We don't do second opinions just because, so this is going to have to be escalated, that and the third.” I said, “Fine. Let's escalate it. Because this is what he told me. I'm doing what he told me. I'm following it on good faith that he’s telling me what he just got off the phone with you guys and discussed. And now I'm finding out that that's not true.”

She said, "Absolutely. We can escalate it. It's gonna take 24-48 hours.” I waited the 48 hours. I called back. I needed to find out if the escalation was accepted and I could have a second opinion done. I ended up having to call three times to find out. It took a week for me from the time the plumber came to the following week of when I could get someone assigned. And each time, I had to re-explain the whole story to someone and found out something different.

The third time I called, they said, “Okay. That's not actually what was supposed to be done. We're going to actually close that other one out. We're gonna open up a new one. We're gonna waive the fee that you normally have to pay, because you did identify two leaks. And that's the only way we're gonna be able to get you a second plumber out there.” They did and they had someone come out, because I told them, “I don't even trust the Murrays Plumbing and Heating anymore. He told me a bill of goods, as far as I'm concerned.” And come to find out, he damaged the pipe that he was supposed to fix. So, T Mayes came out.

The first time they came out, they didn't have all the supplies that they would need. So, I had to have a recall done. That was a pain. I understand, as far as the system is concerned, if they came out, they made their visit. But if they didn't complete the work, there's something that should automatically trigger them to come back out again as opposed to the customer having to call back and say, “I understand they came out, but they didn't have all the supplies, so I need them to come back out again” in order to have AHS re-trigger another recall visit. Other than that, T Mayes did the job. They didn't need a blow torch. They put the water back to full pressure. It was a half hour that they waited around to make sure there were no further leaks. I've had them come out before, because this summer, I had a hot water heater issue. They were a fantastic company to work with. A company that AHS should continue doing business with.

The warranty covers the ceiling fans, the garage door opener, the ice maker, all that good stuff. And you can't go wrong with it because my father-in-law said, "Why are you paying this for the insurance on the house?" I said, "Whenever you have your air conditioner break down, how much does it cost for you to replace it?" He said, "About $5,000." "I pay $100, they come and fix it no matter what it is." And he got quiet and he didn't say anything else. And I told him, "It's just like car insurance. You have to have car insurance because you never know when you're going to need it. When I need it, they're right there and they come out.

We have a carbon monoxide meter. It doesn't make any beeps, it just gives you a registration of digital. One morning, I woke up and I had this big headache. My wife was already at work. I called her up, asked, "Do you have a headache?" She said, "Yes, my head is killing me." And I just happened to look up at the CO meter and the heater was on, it was registering 10. So, I immediately turned it off and opened up all the windows, turned the fans on. It was cold, but I had to get the carbon monoxide out of there. So, I called AHS up and the contractor came out the next day and turned it on and checked it with their meter. They said, "Yep, the heat exchange, you just got a crack in it. I'm registering 10 too." I don't understand why didn't the CO meter didn't make a noise. And I had it right next to the vent right out to where it came out of the heater. But we got lucky.

The contractor replaced the heat exchange unit. And the strangest part was, that little bucket that sits up underneath the air conditioner sits on top of the heater, when they lifted it up, it had rotted out and had poked a hole in it. We didn't notice that until the summer came around and I turned the AC on. All of a sudden, I have this big puddle of water on the floor. The contractor said they would take care of it. And at the same time, they said they had to take the a-coil out because the air conditioner wasn't cooling right and that the a-coil needed to be cleaned. So, at the same time they replaced the bucket, they had to take the a-coil out and boil it out in the driveway. And we got several things going at once. It worked out well.

On one side of the house, the electricity went off and I couldn't figure out what it was. "What's going on? Why is this side of the house off?" The electrician came out here and he had a tool. It was so cool. He stood there pointing a mirror and went to one outlet and he said, "That outlet is dead. So, let me take that outlet apart and pull it out." He replaced the push tab with one that you have to wrap around the screw and tighten it up. As soon as he did that, the other side of the house came alive. And I paid them the money that they were called for and they came out. They called before they came, and introduced themselves.

The air conditioner quit working during the summer. AHS sent a guy out here, he looked at it and said, "I don't find anything wrong with it. Everything in here is hot. Let me leave and I'll come back and we'll let it cool down and we'll try it again." So, he came back and what it was was a capacitor was getting so hot, it would shut everything down. So, he replaced it and it fixed everything.

I have learned the hard way that if you call for a claim and if it's a leak, you have to specify if it's a leak, where, and what's wrong. Because tell them just one thing and there are a couple of other things that need to be taken care of. I say, "These other things they said was not on the list and I didn't know that." So, I have to call them up and tell them, "This is what's leaking. This is what's wrong." The contractor was out here last month and they had to replace the water outlet that goes to the toilet because it would just keep running. So, they replaced it, and the dish disposal was locked up and the tech unscrewed it. I said, "I've done that several times and it keeps locking up." He said, "Unfortunately, when it completely locks up, that's when we replace it." So, I paid $100.

He said, "You paid $100? Wait just a minute." Walked out to his truck. He said, "You see this Allen wrench? I'm gonna give it to you. Next time it locks, just unscrew it." I said, "You know what? I'll go for that." I put that thing right there next to the disposal. But now, I stick a wrench in the middle of it and unscrew it. So, I'm just waiting for it to lock up because it's already locked up and you can hear it making noise. And if you turn it on, he said, "Unfortunately, it has to completely lock up," and not working at all whenever he gets here.

The other thing on the plumbing was I said, "This thing, the wax ring is leaking." He said, "Unfortunately, I don't see it." I said, "Do you have any dye to put in the toilet tank so when you flush it, you'll see where it's leaking from?" And he said, "No, I don't." I said, "May I make a suggestion? Invest to some dyes that you can drop into it because that's how they found the water leaks. You're a plumber. You ought to know this." He said, "I know."

I only had one problem. The contractor had replaced the faucet and the next day it laid in the sink. I called back and told the contractor that, The tech came back and looked at it. But I called AHS and told them the people they sent out were just trying to find a way not to warranty it. They should not send the same people out. Send somebody that would fix it. The guy came out here and said, "That's a defective faucet. I got another one coming. I'll have it replaced today." He replaced it that day. I ran into things like that. But I'm still happy with AHS. And I would recommend them to anybody and everybody.

I got Home Shield because my cousin was telling me about it. I just got signed with them going on a month and I'm still with them, but now, the freezer on my refrigerator is messed up. The refrigerator is warm, and it's also an older unit. If Home Shield gives me the same runaround as with the water heater, I'm just gonna cancel them and look for another home warranty, 'cause I know there are some warranties that don't give people as much headache as Home Shield. I don't know why they do that.

They got into an argument with my husband. I spent $600 worth of Freon and it started hissing the next day. My husband went out there and the pipe had busted. But they said that it was the pipe was rotten. My husband said they tightened it too tight and that there was no way we were paying them $900 again and the tech said he could just take the Freon out. It was very unprofessional. We had been asking AHS to change companies and with our most recent AC claim, thank God they sent out a different company to fix it, Apex. They were real professional, real concerned, and really good at what they do. I hope that they keep Apex for me next time because they are really good.

I've had issues where they sent someone out and they broke the AC. But they said that it was already broken but it was working properly before. It was supposed to be one of those checks. It was really difficult to get them to send a different company out, 'cause I didn't like that company. They also never reimbursed the first one. That one was a headache. They weren't able to understand that the first company broke the AC, so I had to pay twice. It's nice to have coverage from AHS, but sometimes the customer service is difficult.