American Home Shield Reviews

The next contractor only managed the stoppages but couldn't handle the fixture repairs. So American Home Shield reassigned me again. But it was right back to the company I didn’t want in the first place. That tech fixed the toilet, and for the shower, he told me I needed a valve, which I already suspected. He ordered the valve and we planned to schedule the work. I went out of town, so coordinating took time, but when he finally returned, he said he wasn’t sure he could fix it and needed to reach out to American Home Shield. He never called me back. Later that day or the next, American Home Shield contacted me instead.

My problem was that he left the shower worse than he found it, even though he said I could still use it. I ended up with only a trickle of cold water. When I called him, he offered to come back, but by then I didn’t trust him. He told me it would cost $1,200 to fix a valve and that he’d have to break into the wall, and that made no sense to me.

I called American Home Shield, upset because, at least before, the shower worked. They sent another company, and that tech got the water flowing again. He found a sediment issue in the cold line that needed repair. I decided to hire another plumber I already know and trust because I didn’t want to deal with someone trying to overcharge me. I’m not comfortable when it feels like someone is trying to jack up the price. I called American Home Shield to tell them about everything. Reaching an actual customer care person wasn’t easy, and that’s something they need to improve. They didn’t offer any money back. They said sediment isn’t covered, but a bad valve is a bad valve regardless of the cause.

A couple of years ago, I had problems with my refrigerator. They kept sending different people out, but they never fixed anything, and it turned into a mess. I kept asking why they continued to send the same people when they clearly couldn’t repair it, and that I just needed a new fridge. Eventually, a senior technician came out and told me the part had been installed but never attached. Once he fixed it, the refrigerator worked fine. I was annoyed because part of me still wanted a new fridge, but at least it was finally repaired.

From my experience, whenever AHS sends senior technicians, things get handled properly. It’s the other fly-by-night subcontractors that cause problems. If someone reports a bad experience with a contractor, American Home Shield should take that seriously. They should check the Better Business Bureau, and use that as part of their screening. A review was saying that one of these companies seemed like a scam, with owners running it out of their home. When I saw that on the BBB site, it made me not want to deal with them at all. I would still rate American Home Shield a 10 due to the breadth of their coverage. I've even recommended them to friends. Evidently, if steps could be taken to ensure more reliable contractors, experiences with them would improve significantly.

I moved away from American Home Shield briefly, and I went to HSA, which is an AHS back company. I have different vendors from straight up going through AHS. Maybe the same company, but I get a different set of vendors, and that makes all the difference. It's cheaper, and I get to get my systems fixed. The garbage disposal with the sink needed to be changed. The tech came out and looked at it. He had to order a part. He came back and did something. It wasn't quite fixed, so I had asked for them to come back out. They closed out the order and said that they came back out, and that I wasn't home. That was a lie because I worked from home. I'm home all day. I have cameras all around my house. I had to reopen the claim. That took a month of me going back and forth, and still not able to use my part.

This year, I had to get that same garbage disposal part that was supposed to have been fixed with AHS. I did it through HSA, but when I moved over to HSA, they had better vendors. I use the same vendors, but I never had the same vendors that AHS would send out that I had with HSA. And there are some subtle differences.

AHS outright kept increasing the deductible. Based on the poor merchants, it wasn't worth my payment. I will pay for service and quality all day long, but the waits were too long. It only happened at the end of the year. My theory is it grew so much in popularity that it made it hard to handle the workload. But with HSA, it's a cheaper price per month. I get a military discount. I don't care about the deductible because I seem to have good vendors. Even with the open claim, I've never had a bad report about a vendor. They come out, something else happens, or they have to come back out, but they kept in touch. They called and showed up on time. They were always nice and courteous. They took time to explain what's going on.

Going through HSA is much simpler, and maybe it's the different pool of vendors that service that side. Also, I like the fact that with HSA if I have three plumbing issues, if I put them in one claim, I pay one $100. With AHS, it will be $300. If a plumber was out here and he checked a leak, a toilet, handle or something, and maybe one other thing, it's just one $100. With AHS, I gotta pay $100 for the toilet, $100 for the leak, and $100 for the sink. I don't like the individual deductible per item. But with a good vendor, I could have dealt with it. If somebody fixed it right, hopefully, they didn't have to come back. I love the fact that if the repair is in the same system, I just pay one fee on the HSA side.

Within the contract itself, AHS had a limit on Freon. After that limit was reached, I had to pay out of pocket. For HSA, I don't. I pay the $100 deductible, and if it needs 300 pounds Freon, they take care of it. There's no limit. I always get the upgrade. Recently, I had an issue with both of my units, and I tried to put in the claim, and I didn't see them located on the online. The vendor said, "AHS said that they gave you a payout, and you didn't get something fixed." I said, "I absolutely got something fixed because I paid an additional $4000." It was a cut off, so I took the money, got what they told me to fix, plus some additional upgrades for the code, and I had to pay the difference with the Freon. I got wet switches put on the unit. I kept having problems with the same unit. When I had AHS, the vendors seemed weren't doing what they're supposed to do.

I added lightning protection on the outside. I paid 4 grand out of pocket. AHS tried to say, "You didn't fix it, so therefore, what you're trying to fix is not covered." I said, "That's absolutely a lie. And see, this is what I mean." I sent that paperwork in, and I still had to call in the claim to put it out there. It was, "She did get that done." I was able to get both units serviced.

Recently the garage door wouldn't open. There was a disconnect between the button on the wall and the sensor. The tech changed out something with the wiring and the thing that goes all the way down. He made everything communicate and talk. He was amazing. He even tightened up the other ones on the other side.

On a second occasion, miscommunications arose when I rescheduled a repair. Despite personally contacting the same technician, the system hindered the reconciliation process, leading to delays as personnel needed time to adjust shifts and routes. Unfortunately, this caused drawn-out delays and created the need for additional calls.

I have a refrigerator that’s dying. The freezer part leaks into the refrigerator part. I keep a large bowl and a small bowl inside to catch the water. I don’t have a packed refrigerator since I’m just one person, but the first time it happened it soaked everything, and I had no idea what was going on until I figured out where the leak was coming from. After that, I called American Home Shield. A young technician came out, and he was great. He unpacked my freezer, took a picture, and packed it back up. He said there was some tubing that he cleared out and told me it would be fine, that it happens sometimes and it’s not really a problem. And for a while, it was fine. But about a month later, it started leaking again.

So, I called AHS again, and another technician came out. He said the first guy didn’t do it right, not to knock him, but just that it hadn’t really worked. He fixed it, and everything seemed okay. But about a month later, it started leaking again. I called AHS and told them I needed a replacement because it’s old, and that’s what people have been telling me. But they told me that if I need a replacement, I will have to call within 24 hours after they fix it if it’s not working. The problem is it’s a slow leak. It takes a while to show up, and it’s never going to fail within 24 hours. So, I just let it go because I’m fine living with this refrigerator, even though I have to be careful.

Sometimes, if I’m not paying attention, the large bowl fills up and overflows. It takes up about a square foot of space in my fridge, which wouldn’t work if I had a family or if my husband were still here and we had it full of food. To me, that’s a stupid policy, because there are plenty of things that are slow leaks. Now I’d have to pay another repairman $125 just to come out again and lie, so I can call within 24 hours and say it doesn’t work, or he has to lie and say it’s unfixable. Meanwhile, it works fine for about a month before it starts leaking again. I just don’t think that’s a great policy, so for now, I’m just living with it.

There was also an incident with American Home Shield when attempting to purchase an induction stove that took over three weeks of back and forth because the store didn't have it in stock, despite scheduling my delivery. While these complications weren't directly related to American Home Shield, having to use their Lowe's gift card increased that burden. I eventually planned around the delay by investigating other buying possibilities; however, the obligation may deserve a reevaluation as well to allow for broader compatibility.

When reflecting on the service costs, it has significantly increased, currently standing at double the original rate, now set at $50 a month, with a service fee of $125 for calls made. All things considered, American Home Shield provides adequate service, especially by way of the friendly, patient technicians once they arrive, though accommodating incoming information comes more slowly. Overall, I would rate my experience a 5 for service and a 4 for cost. I understand, especially given the numerous experiences I've had over four years, that there's plenty of potential left should improvements emerge in these areas.

Additionally, they took forever. They're called Pronto, but they took weeks. Most of those reviews that I saw about them are related to having to go to them through American Home Shield. It would be good if we have the option to pick our plumber and not have to go with them. When you call them, either they don't pick up and don't call you back or they pick up but they're rude. I called them a couple times, trying to figure out what the situation was after leak detection came. A couple of days went by, I called them again, but they didn't answer. I left a message but didn't get a call back. It was a whole week after leak detection came that I called them and they finally answered. They said they were about to call me because their service manager got the report back from leak detection. It was the most convenient excuse and they gave us this astronomical price to fix it.

I talked to another plumber from Fix the Drip Plumbing and he said it was the worst, most expensive and most inconvenient way to fix it. He gave us an alternate route to where we could fix it by just rerouting the water line through the attic down the wall so we don't have to cut concrete. I ended up fixing it myself, finding where the pipe is, capping it off, then rerouting it back to where the source was. Now it works fine. I got half a month worth of water bill with no leak. It went down to $170 instead of $330. I was able to do it within the cost of the cash payout that I got from American Home Shield for the material.

The process with American Home Shield was fine as far as getting the claim set up. It was nice that I could, at least, talk to somebody pretty easily. I didn't have to call 10 different times and do a bunch of menus and talk to a robot for a while. But it was at times a little difficult to understand people's accents. That puts a wrench in communications. Also, it's a little confusing about what is covered and to what extent. The person I talked to didn't know what was covered and what was not. There could also be more transparency upfront about a cash out option. That was a last-minute thing when I was talking to American Home Shield. I was telling them the Pronto Plumbing wanted to charge us and we couldn't pay that. All of a sudden, they told me about the cash out option. I wouldn't have even started the process if I had known that from the beginning.

We have American Home Shield because the seller of the house we bought paid for a year of the home warranty. But I don't plan on renewing next year. We paid for an annual subscription which is $700, and we got paid 300 and something dollars for this specific repair. If I put $650 in the bank, I could have just taken $350 out to pay for this repair. I don't think that it's worth it to renew.

I had a claim for the HVAC that was not putting out heat. I had it maintenanced by another company and they froze it up. There was two inches of ice outside, there was enough puddle of an ice where everybody called it an ice skating rink, and it was only blowing out part of it. I had two other heaters sitting in the living room. So, I called AHS and they said they were going to send so and so out on such and such a day, and they were going to be from Cool Heat Heating and Cooling Company. They're over on the far side of Eugene which is about 20 miles from me.

The guy who showed up was named Wade and he asked me what was wrong with it. I told it was not heating like it was supposed to. He then proceeded to tell me to quit arguing with him. But I told him that I was not arguing with him. So he got two feet in front of the machine, turned it on high, backed up to four feet, and said that it was working fine. He also looked at the filters and he left. He was here for 15 minutes and I was a little upset. He didn't really do anything. I called American Home Shield again, so their rep made another appointment. I asked if it was going to cost me and she said no because Wade didn't fix the problem. She then said that Cool Heat would send Wade and Ben, because I asked for a different technician.

Five days later, Wade shows up. Nobody else. The fist sentence out of his mouth was, “What seems to be the problem this time?” I told him that it was the same as before and he said, "I told you it was working just fine.” But I told him that it wasn't. And again, he went with his I'm-gonna-argue-with-you spiel. He then said that he was going outside to make a phone call. He was out in his van longer than he was in my house and this time, he didn't do anything. He comes back to the door and he said he was waiting on the warranty company to call him. Moments later, I got a ping from American Home Shield saying that I have an appointment set for February 6th. So I wrote out my review on this guy. He was very curt to me and he didn't want to explain anything or communicate.

I waited a three days, then I called up American Home Shield and I told them that since my HVAC is not working, I went to somebody else's house for a few days. And I told them that I would like to know what this appointment is for. The guy then went out of his way to find out and tell me. He said that the diagnosis was that the motor wheel was dirty and was not blowing out air out of half of the unit. He then called Cool Heat. I was so impressed with this guy. He came back and said that there was going to be two guys in my house on the 6th and they were supposed to do some sort of cleaning. But he said they were not paying for it because they don't claim those items. The first meeting, the guy told me that the motor wheel would cost $200 to $500 out of my pocket to clean. It's an internal wheel.

At this point, the rep told me to hold on again and he called Cool Heat back. When he came back, he said I was going to have someone come out on the 6th to look at it thoroughly and there would be no cost to me. Cool Heat was going to take care of it. So right there, American Home Shield is a 12 out of 10 in my book. Also, their rep did not want me to hang up at all. But he still didn't know exactly what they were going to do or who was going to come over here. On February 6th, there was a knock on my door and a guy younger than Wade came up. Apparently, he had been sitting out in his pickup because he was 20 minutes early, and he said he'd go in and see if he could do something. He said that his name was Sebastian and that he was waiting on Wade. I told him that Wade didn't like me, wouldn't tell me anything, and that he liked to argue. Sebastian said that that was what he does. I then asked him what they were going to do that day and he said they were going to tear my machine apart. And he started taking it off the wall.

There underneath the unit that needed to be moved and when Wade showed up, he didn't say a word to me other than, “All this stuff was supposed to be moved”. I told him that he didn't communicate to me what he wanted me to do and he pretty much quit talking to me after that. So, they tore off my unit, took everything out, wrapped it up, cleaned it internally, lubed this, looked at that, did this, did that, went outside, added some Freon, and checked the connections. They were here for over two hours and they did not fool around. When I went outside, I told them that there was still water and ice. Wade told me that those were supposed to be there. What he didn't know was I was taking pictures the whole time of what they were doing and how they were doing it.

Compared to Wade, Sebastian was communicable and personable. But every time he tried to tell me something, Wade would shut him up. Then they decided to go outside. Wade was also very upset because I have a decorative cover around my outside unit and he didn't like that. In the end, it wound up taking three weeks to solve the problem. I left for a whole week and went to somebody else's house because it was ridiculous that I had to have two other heaters sitting here in the living room to keep me and my animals warm.

On their second trip, Ben was supposed to show up, but it wound up being Wade and Ben. I questioned it and never got an answer. On the third trip, Wade's phone rang and he said to tell Ben to meet him at his house. He said that he didn't need to go to that place, so Wade told Ben not to show up here. Also, I don't like people coming in and being curt with me and telling me I don't know what I'm talking about and what I'm saying is wrong. But I liked that American Home shield stepped in and explained what they could and could not do for me, and that they could communicate for me.

Recently, I had a claim for my dishwasher and I was so impressed with the tech that AHS assigned. He was professional and communicative. Other than that, I was told that AHS covers microwaves only if they're built in. They also cover a hot water on demand unit, but they're not all lumped under appliance. I was also going to have them look at my fridge and dishwasher, and they told me that they're not under the same thing. But the stove and dishwasher are under one heading of appliance. The refrigerator is under another one because of the refrigerant. So, if I would have had the dishwasher and stove looked at, it would have been one service fee. But to add the refrigerator to it means another service fee because of the breakdown of the different departments.

Then, the HVAC is by itself because it's a heating and cooling unit. But exhaust fans, they would cover the one in the kitchen and the one in the bathroom. The lady was so kind and patient in explaining these things to me. But the service fee is not extraordinary and it threw me a little bit. But for the short experience I had, I would give AHS 12 out of 10.

This is the first time I've had to make a claim with American Home Shield 'cause I was with another company. Everything is coming out of my account, and the amount I have to pay for somebody to come out is extreme, but that is what it is. I was paying 65 before and now, I'm paying 130 something. I've been with American Home Shield for over a year and I could do other claims, but it'd be small stuff, and it'd cost more for me to do it than to call them to come do it.

The tech explained everything and did a good job explaining what was wrong and what needed to happen next to get it fixed. It was the main circuit board that was bad and it would have been more ideal if he would have had the part available the next day, but it took five work days to get the unit fixed. Fortunately, it wasn't cold that time. Everything's been working fine since.

To get the problem resolved didn't take that long. The technician knew what he was doing in order to repair the broken spring. He recommended that I replace both springs, not just one. American Home Shield was not gonna cover both springs, even though that seemed like a natural repair. But because it was two physical different springs, the company was not gonna repair both of them, and only one of them was gonna get a credit of that.

I don't live at the address. I tried to get my tenant to be there and he said, "I believe I can have somebody there out during this time." It was in the morning that the contractor had scheduled to come out. Unfortunately, they waited a few minutes and thought that was too long. AHS said, "We can't schedule another contractor to come back out," because I missed their scheduled appointment. I had to find somebody outside of AHS.

We wanted to try to resolve the issue as soon as possible because of the frigid cold temperatures. AHS only had Countrywide, which services either gas furnaces or boilers. That was the only contractor in the area, which I thought didn't make sense. AHS said, "Since I guess the thing was in motion, we can't go back and try and reimburse you for a contractor because it didn't get approved for you to find a contractor yourself."

AHS should have defended their customer paying them every month and show loyalty. The guy defended me and said it was a human error. We all make mistakes. I can't necessarily be there at the property at all times so I confirmed with my tenant and they said they could be there. But they didn't show up in time to get to the property. It must have been only 15 minutes and they decided to leave to go on to the next person. And three hours is their window time. People gotta work. People do things. I said, "How do you expect to get paid for your services if we're not working for that?" I also asked, "Is there anyone even beyond the customer service? Is there a manager or someone that can help handle this, especially, if I paid for that 125 service fee for it to come out?" I didn't like that. But I didn't have time to sit there and argue because I tried to be efficient and get the job done.

I've done a lot of different service calls and things with AHS. They have reimbursement in the past. If you're dealing with anything that has to do with steam heating, they don't have much support in that area. I had to find my own water and sewer company and wondered, "Why don't they just either add them or try to find some more?" I have some drain clog issues, so I have been trying to find a contractor myself.