American Home Shield Reviews

American Home Shield did a very good job handling that scenario. Submitting claims with them was a lot easier than some other places. Their reps on the phone have been good as well as the guys that they sent here. It took them about a week to resolve the problem and considering we were heading towards Christmas, it was quick. They installed the new washer we ordered and took the old one out. They came in 12:25 and were out of here about 1:10. They also did some extra work on the hoses in the back. They were so good I gave them a Christmas present. American Home Shield is a worthwhile company and we plan to stay with them.

We had a heat pump that wasn't heating up and we thought the thermostat was dead. It turned out that was the heat pump that was dead. The wrong heat pump was sent and three days later, they came back with the right one. The folks were fantastic at putting the stuff in. Woods Plumbing, the plumber, went above and beyond as value added for all of the people that AHS sent out. Also, we have 48 outlets in the house and an electrician checked every outlet and the lights switches. He gave our house a thorough shakedown which was much more than I would've expected. We also had a combination microwave and oven, and the handle came off and it was so old. The technician couldn't find a new one so they replaced the oven. They made it so easy and once we got hooked up with the appliance people, they kept calling me back. When we got that oven, the electrician from The Service Company came over and got the work done.

On the other hand, the thing that turned me off many times is that nobody answers the phone. 45-minute of waiting time on the phone is totally unacceptable in business. Their phone service sucks really bad. We pay $75 up front and I pay it by credit card over the phone. And then, I get a notice on an email I can't reply to that I owe $75. I'm not going to waste 45 minutes calling them about that. They should be the one to call me and explain why the $75 wasn't worth it. If they need more people, they should get more people. In addition, I hate the website. It is not user-friendly. So, if I could work online, I would. When anyone signs up to the program, somebody needs to call and walk them through how to deal with the website, especially older folks. Other than those, the product is fantastic.

We waited four months for our refrigerator to be fixed, which is unacceptable. The contractor told us that the part needed was backordered. We had our refrigerator for about 10 years. The icemaker went out twice and the first experience was the same, was the bad situation. And then, the second time, I purposely requested that I don't want that company. They sent us another one that was just as bad. And then, it went out the third time. We have been fighting back and forth; it works for us then it wouldn't work. We’re a family of five and, with no refrigerator, we’ve been living out of coolers and that was crazy. So I called and lost my marbles with a lady. I demanded that they send somebody else. They sent us Sears and within a week, it was fixed. So, AHS has the ability to do it. But the frustrating part is they're not always willing to go that extra mile to listen to the customer complaints about the contractors.

Another bad one was our garage door. Our garage door spring broke, so we couldn't get our garage door opened. And our vehicles were stuck inside. I called on a Wednesday and the contractor couldn't come out till a Friday. And when they came out that Friday, they said they didn't have the part. So, they would have to wait until Monday, which then turned into Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday. It ended up being over 10 days that we had to rent a car, which was ridiculous. Had we not had our insurance, I would have called another contractor and gotten the job done. But we're paying all this money for this insurance. I would like to use it. But that has made it feel like this isn't worth it because when we need it, they aren't there supporting us. When I called them, they were like, "We can't do anything about it." And I'm like, "You can do something about it. You need to call another contractor. You need to figure something else.”

I get that some contractors are not good, but it's frustrating that AHS wouldn't stand behind them and send us a new contractor. AHS would say, "We've already sent out the work order," or "we've already placed the work order, so we can't change that." To me that's not acceptable. If contractors are not responding, then, AHS need to get them off of their list. And then, even when something happened, I would call in to complain. I tell the reps that though the situation is over and done with, I want their manager to know our experience. And they didn't really seem to respond well to that. Reps would say that they'll note my concerns but they don’t seem to really care about the bad experience that we did have.

What we’ve been through with the refrigerator and the garage door made us think twice about why we're renewing our contract with AHS. We have been looking at other companies though we haven't had time to research on them so we’re still with AHS. And because there are some good things, which has made us not want to give it up. I love the ease that I can call somebody. We recently had our pool pump went out. And they sent somebody. They were responsive, and were able to take care of it. We were given a whole new one that we needed. And that was all done within a week. We had a super awesome experience with that. With the bad comes the good, but the bad has been really bad that if friends asked me about AHS, I'd tell them to look around a little bit to see what else they could have.

I also had a previous experience for the dishwasher and clothes washer in our home. I processed the claim and the nice thing about the plan was that if I had one or two things that needed to be fixed, I could have them repaired for one dollar amount. The vendor that AHS sent out was pretty quick and diagnosed the problems. They had to take the washer back to the shop for a few days and ordered the part for the dishwasher. So everything seemed to be heading in the right direction. But the vendor ended up keeping the clothes washer for a week. They said they were going to do one thing on it but they didn’t do it. They were also supposed to follow up with me but they didn’t.

Then the part came in for the dishwasher. The vendor called about that and came out but they couldn’t get my dishwasher out of the cabinet. They said it was stuck in the cabinet and they couldn’t go any further. There were four screws on the dishwasher that were level and it had been in there for a long time. So I called my handyman to come out. He unscrewed everything and pulled the dishwasher out. I also ended up just having him fix it and not the contractor.

Three weeks later, the vendor still had my clothes washer and wouldn’t return phone calls. It was a nightmare. They finally brought my machine back after I escalated. It’s a nine-year old GE but it was very expensive to replace. They ended up taking off the top part where I could select all changes in the settings, and taping it back on. The tape eventually fell off, then the whole thing fell off. So, the nightmare continued. I called the vendor and they came out, ordered a part and put the top back, but they still were not able to connect it. They ended up taping it again and two months later, the tape still came off of the thing. The washer works now but it’s a $1,000 machine and sometimes I have to push the top part to get it to work.

I gave up on the contractor and I escalated the matter with American Home Shield several times. But they said they could do nothing unless I put in another claim which would cost me another $100. Finally, they said it was my fault that I waited two months before telling them about it and tough luck chuck. They didn’t want to take any action and I could have sued but I didn’t have the time or the resources. I filed a complaint against the contractor as I didn’t want them touching $1,000 machines and somehow AHS put it in their system never to send them out again to me. But that didn’t get my machine fixed. So now, I’m going to wait for my clothes washer to not work one day then I’ll call in again.

I also filed a claim for the garage door opener and the tech came out on the same day. He fixed one but couldn't fix the other, so he's supposed to be back out tomorrow. AHS needs to be on top of the repairs with their contractors. Plus, they really need to hire local people. The ones they are paying to do the repairs are usually out-of-town people, which makes it more inconvenient.

I called AHS back and ask for a 2nd opinion. They sent out Baileys (still no heat during this entire time). Mind you my grandparents are 79 and 74 both of whom are ill. They send Baileys out December 12, 2017 at that time the technician state it is NOT the reversal valve but he recommended that I change filter. He also got the heater back working again. So 4 days later the heat pump goes back out, so now it's back to blowing cool air again. I called AHS who at that time a supervisor by the name of Marcus ** called back and said they had to go with the first company diagnose and they offered me a Cash Lieu (meaning I would have to get it done myself and submit all the paperwork and they would reimburse me) still NO heat. While Baileys was out there they offered me a maintenance program where they would come 2x a year to service the unit, I signed up for this program.

The first visit was December 22, they sent the same tech out. When he arrived we told him the heat had gone back out last Sunday, Dec 17, so at that time he put his amplifier meter and checked the unit computer module and stated it's NOT the reversal valve that's bad it's the unit computer module. So to keep my grandparents from being without heat on the coldest weekend of the year I had the computer module replaced, faxed them the itemized form from Baileys stating what was wrong with the unit and the receipt. They denied the payout. I reached out to them yesterday, the first rep with AHS, Megan who has to be the rudest customer service rep ever been hired told me the Supervisor was on another call and I had to call customer service to dispute the issue.

I then hung up and called my attorney who got Ms ** who was the other rudest rep stated they had no one in the building with any authority that I would have to call customer service. Needless to say I did not get anything accomplished with AHS yesterday and I am out over 500.00 so I could get my grandparents some heat. I happened to be a realtor in my local area. This will not be a company I will be suggesting for my clients to use.

First time waited 2 hours and 32 minutes before finally being disconnected. 2nd Time waited 93 minutes before being answered by one of the above descriptees and transferred to another number 1800 326 6710 using option 3. Gave up after waiting another 88 minutes. 3rd time waited over 92 minutes and the call disconnected. This was before the 25th December. Tried calling again today, actually got through after waiting only 23 minutes to be transferred to the above 1800 number which I am still waiting on. So after all this we are still in the dark as to when and where a replacement is coming from. And we are stupid enough to have two accounts with them. So we have been without a dishwasher for now over a month. This is a company with absolutely no knowledge of what customer service is all about.

A couple of years ago, a different company came and installed a water heater and it went beautifully. They just installed it, put in new flex line and put a pan under it. That's all they did. However, this contractor wanted to charge me $600 to do it. I was desperate and said, "Come on!" When the guy came in the house, he asked, "How about $300?" I knew I was getting taken and I expressed that to American Home Shield, but they wouldn't stand behind me at all.

AHS told me that the plumber said that it was an inconvenient place. It was hard to get to and they had to do all kinds of retrofitting, which is wrong. I'm not stupid. When the part went out here a couple of weeks ago, they tried to send that same company to me. I called AHS and I said, "I never want to see that company again." Even though I'm not in a remote location, they have trouble getting contractors here, which makes me wait longer. I'm at a town between Waco and Bryan College Station. Everything else has been very positive and I recommend American Home Shield.

And the other time, I had a ball of soup blow up in the microwave and it's a microwave-convection oven combination so it has an element on top. And the directions in the instructions in the pamphlet that came with it, told us to do something and consequently, the instructions were incorrect and we broke it apart. They claimed we broke it and they won't cover it. We followed the directions exactly to what it said. It said turn and drop the little piece down to drop the element so you could clean the top and then pop it back in. Evidently, it was a permanent part and it broke when we tried to turn it. Because of this, I'm beginning to figure out that most of the people that you deal with come out and they know exactly what to say but they don't get it fixed and they get the $125 for nothing.

Then recently, when we turned the heater on for the first time, the fan wouldn’t turn off. And so I called to have somebody come out and check it. And the guy that came out said something about a power surge. I notice that the panel had been scorched a little bit, but that’s been scorched for years. But when the technician called American Home Shield, he claimed that the reason for his estimate and his idea for replacement had to do with the power surge, which I disagreed with and that was not what he actually told me. The claims person called me and said that they didn't cover power surges. This is the second time this has happened and if AHS is not going to cover anything why bother.

Consequently, we had somebody else check it and it was fine. It was just the switch. I have recommended American Home Shield to just about all my friends but whether they’ve acquired American Home Shield, I don’t know. I haven’t talked about it for a long time as ever since the microwave thing I wasn’t recommending them.

They also came out to fix our dishwasher the first time, but it continued to leak so they came back and did something else. However, I heard a little click and saw a few pieces of black plastic when I opened the dishwasher the next day. We called them and they said they would give a callback, but it’s been a week and we hadn’t heard from them. On the other hand, they knew what they were doing and finally fixed the dishwasher as far as the leak goes. The contractors were also nice, polite and friendly. The reps were good as well when I speak to them and just said what was wrong, see what they could do and go from there. I like that they check back with you too to see how things went or how they were going. I recommended Home Shield to other people when they talked about their problem and told them Home Shield always did us right.

So, we’re trying to get that cleaned out now but still not able to use it. It got taken care of last week and I have been dealing with the contractor for about three weeks now. It's something that they don't have anybody to clean it. And instead of putting it in to be replaced, they figured it's fixed and now it's up to me to get that cleaned off. I'd recommend American Home Shield. I'd tell others it's good coverage as far as for their appliances. It's like having insurance and sometimes it's better than your own home insurance.

I have a family of six and two weeks of not having a dryer is a big deal. I had to spend $144 to bring my clothes to Fluff N Clean because the tech said to not use the dryer because it might burn my house. Also, when I call AHS, it takes two hours on hold and I had to call three separate times. I’ve had AHS for years on a separate property when I lived in Vegas and I never had issues with getting technicians out or getting anything resolved. Here in California, it’s just been a different story. It has been a 1 year since I’ve been out here and it’s been really frustrating to try to get assistance using their 800 number.

It was decided that it was the refrigerator itself that wasn’t getting cold enough in order to make the ice maker work. However, we use the refrigerator and it seems to keep our food cool. It would freeze ice in an ice tray but the ice maker itself would not work. On the other hand, AHS has been top notch and we would give them the best of recommendations. We’ve had real good success and they sent great people out. This is the only problem we ever had and we haven’t heard a word from them about it. We have been busy here with our little problems and we haven’t really paid attention to what’s going on at the house as long as things are working.

I asked to talk to a supervisor but Sam didn't make any effort or show any urgency. He simply tells me that they will call me in 24-48 hours. We've already been without hot water for 5 days and now they expect us to wait 2 more days in December. I asked him 3-4 times to see if a supervisor was available but each time he immediately replied that none are available. I do NOT appreciate having my service being held hostage for over a week in order to clarify the work. So we had a cold water Christmas with a huge, unexpected, UNEXPLAINED expense and a frustrating useless phone rep. I'm done. Don't waste your money on this company. Hopefully my experience saves you some frustration.

So far, we have been fairly lucky with the contractors being sent by AHS. But the company that ended up causing the dishwasher problem was difficult to get a hold of. I'm waiting on a call right from the gentleman who did the work. I’m still waiting for it to be fixed and I’m extremely frustrated. American Home Shield appears to be helpful but things are not getting done. We also don't have any choice on who they send out. At this point, I wouldn't recommend them.

I sent in what American Home Shield asked for and I haven’t heard back from them yet. They told me that I didn’t have to use the company that they sent out. I used Will Fix It and they agreed that that was okay, and that I would just submit all the paperwork to them and that they would reimburse for the water heater that was being put in. It took almost 10 days to get the water heater in. But that’s no fault of American Home Shield. They sent someone out immediately. The reason we chose the other company instead of immediate response is that the plumber from Will Fix It said that he could fix the floor and the close that was watered out. He could take that out and replace it. The other company said I’d have to hire an independent carpenter to do that. I didn’t like that at all because I didn’t have any idea how to find a carpenter who would come and do such a little bitty job.

The Will Fix It man who was going to do the carpentry work got sick. He was the only one who would volunteer to do the carpentry work and so we had to start to wait for that and we had to wait for the insurance adjuster from the Homeowner’s Insurance to come and look at the damage because American Home Shield doesn’t do secondary damage.

One of the other problems that I’ve had was a leaking washing machine. The plumber who came out to fix the water heater and the insurance adjuster were having a hard time figuring out whether the damage was being caused by the washing machine, or whether it was being caused by the hot water heater. I thought that it had to do with the hot water because it was sort of intermittent. Unfortunately, after the water heater got put in, I discovered it’s the washing machine and American Home Shield had sent someone out twice to work on it. Twice they’ve said they can’t find anything wrong with it. But still, there’s water all over the floor whenever I wash. The last repairman who came out, who also fixed my stove, did a fine job on that.

But on the water heater, he said, “Ma’am, I can’t find anything wrong with it. Just be thankful. Some people have water that goes all the way out into their living room. This is just a little bit of water.” I don’t want even a little bit of water all over my laundry room floor. That didn’t get fixed. I didn’t call Home Shield back to tell them. Not the first time, nor the second time that it hadn’t been fixed. It’s too hard to get them on the phone. Sometimes you get them right away, but sometimes you have to wait 45 minutes before someone comes.

The same thing happened with the air conditioner. Bottom line is, they fixed it but it was a lot of hassle getting it fixed, with a lot of people coming out, a lot of different times and hurry up and wait stuff. It was easier to wait for the cold water to be hot than it was to wait for the air conditioning to cool down the house because we had to wait over a week for that too in the Summer. I’ve entertained thoughts of looking for another company.

We’ve had the contractor here twice and this is the third time we've had to call them. The other two times, they were prompt. This time, they haven't been probably because of the holidays. Sometimes I'm not at all sure that the AHS coverage is a great bargain because it's so hard to ever get anything replaced. We’ve got to keep having people come and try to fix it over and over again. In the meantime, we're out and not able to use the product. So I've been seriously thinking about stopping it. Also, our experience over the years has been varied according to who comes out.

Recently, I filed a claim and it has something to do with the heater. So Anderson Heating came out, did their inspection and they noticed a couple of things wrong with the system. And they were able to fix one of the problems. The contractor said that unless it’s not working, they can’t replace the part. The other part, he was able to replace. So I hope and pray to God that I don’t go without heat because I feel that being proactive is better. Additionally, I've had good experiences with the contractors American Home Shield has sent. They have been very nice and helpful.

The plumber was early for the service call and he was pleasant while he was here. As far as the office goes, American Home Shield leaves a voicemail when they call, and when we called them, they called right back. Since the repair, we're no longer hearing water running through the pipes, unless somebody's actually using water. That means when the new bill comes in, it will be less than what the old bill was. Our normal bill is $14 to $16. The bill that I had paid prior to the plumber coming in was $32.

Nine months went by this year without having any claims, so there's always that discussion about why we are paying AHS if we're not getting any benefit. But, while the plumber was here filling out the paperwork, I asked him how much it would have cost us to have him walk in the house without our insurance. He said $195. Therefore, paying every month even though we don't use it is still a really good bargain. There's also something about being able to pick up the phone and call American Home Shield anytime of the day or night, and knowing that even if it is the weekend, we'll still get a call back from the local vendor within 48 hours. We don't even get stuck with high weekend/holiday overcharge, so it's great. It's really nice and I have recommended it to some of our friends.

I had two issues that I wanted handled. They assigned me a couple of different contractors and I called the contractors directly to make the appointments and it’s been the biggest hassle and the hardest situation to try to resolve. That one contractor for the plumbing kept giving me windows. I ultimately waited two full days before someone came out and when the guy got out here, he was just a jerk. I started telling him what the issue was and he said that there is nothing I can do about it and that it’s just the way the house was built. Finally, he said that there was something that could be done about it. Once they had my business directly, they got somebody scheduled the next business day. That guy came out and did a really good job but I have to make six calls to get the work order and the proof that I had the work done. I was so pissed at that particular company.

This is the person that AHS told me I should work with and in the meantime, I’m out a thousand dollars and AHS doesn’t cover any of it because the deal is it has to fully break before they will cover it. Also, I’ve always given the contractors a check for the service fee and I shouldn’t have done that because, on the HVAC, the contractor took a check and it was cashed but they are telling American Home Shield they never got the money. The AHS rep, Holly, was helpful and she asked me to send them a copy of that check and she stood on the plumber and I finally got the proof of the work that I actually paid for. But the whole experience really soured me because, other than a discounted service call, it was no help whatsoever.

So I called the heating company and they said they could come out between 1:00 and 5:00. While I was waiting for them, they called me at 3:00 o’clock to say that they found out that the work would be through American Home Shield and that they couldn’t do it that day. They said that they didn’t take emergency calls so they would be out on Tuesday. I told them that they already scheduled me, we were two hours into the service call, and they were the one who made the appointment. So clearly they had a technician available and they wouldn’t come out only because I had American Home Shield.

My son was sick at the time and I was staying with someone because the furnace had been out for a few days. I already brought my sick child home and we were sitting there waiting for the tech. I went ballistic and ended up calling American Home Shield. I told them that the company they were doing business with refused to service a customer based on having a warranty with them. American Home Shield said that sounded ridiculous and they were upset, too. I even talked to the heating company’s supervisor and they kept refusing me.

An hour later, after we talked to the corporate American Home Shield, the contractor called me back and said they were coming out. When the guy came, it took him 10 minutes to fix the problem. He told me that the carbon monoxide detector was tripping and I don’t know what he did to fix it but it was very quick. Then he tried to get me to pay them directly and not pay the $75. But I told the guy that I wanted to go through my claim with American Home Shield because if something happened, I didn't have to pay the money again since it was under warranty.

The heating company was trying to circumvent any paperwork through American Home Shield on this issue and I was very disappointed. We spent more time on trying to get the approval line on the phone than on what the tech did to repair the furnace. If they had come and done that, they could have gotten their money and moved on but it sounded like they wanted to price out the customer. They were probably on a fixed price and weren’t going to come out on an emergency call for that.

Despite my complaint on the heating company, I would recommend American Home Shield. They handled my claim appropriately and I was happy with their response. However, they should improve the initial service time and stay on top of that for the customer. They should make it where their process was streamlined and they knew the availability of the companies during a power outage or heating issues. They should also have some sort of real-time communication with their contractors instead of having to go through a list and call 30 companies. That way it cuts down on that delay time.

The previous issue I had was with our refrigerator and it took three different technicians to finally figure out the problem and order the right part to fix it. The first guy said there was no problem with the refrigerator even though it was clearly not making any cold air and everything was spoiling. The second guy said that it was a problem with the sensor. It worked for 24 hours then stopped working. Then this new guy came out and he figured out it was the motherboard, there's a computer in the back of these modern refrigerators. It was the most expensive part to replace next to the whole refrigerator itself and the compressor. It was six weeks until it came so we ate out every day until we finally gave in and bought a little mini fridge to store a couple of things. We have kids who like chicken nuggets and yogurt and sometimes just want snacks.

I was getting really frustrated because it was getting to a point where I just wanted my refrigerator to work and AHS needed to replace it. I was going a month with it not working. I got a little more attention once I raised a stink about it. But it was important that I had to get to that point. The refrigerator worked great once the right person came and I only paid the one-time fee of $75 but it took months for our refrigerator to finally get repaired which was really annoying.

Since then, the other issues I've had have been adequate. They resolved the problem in the end and gave me satisfaction. It just took a lot longer than I would have hoped and a lot more work on my end than I would have thought was required. I didn't want to renew with AHS but my wife really wanted the warranty for the protection. They're not an all-star outfit but they do a fine job.

I had spoken with two vendors directly and my property manager had spoken to vendors directly and a representative from American Home Shield. They mentioned that there was nothing that they could do about it and that it was the vendor. Then we switched vendors and had a similar problem. I had issues over the years in my personal home so I wanted to make sure they take care of that, and I’m a bit more patient. There had been times where I requested and they would have a certain benefit before. There were some issues with the dishwasher and I didn’t complain about it but that took three trips over a three to four-week period because of the wrong part ordered, mistaken diagnosis and then not following up. It’s probably an overwhelmed vendor and not American Home Shield itself but I let that one go.

I would recommend American Home Shield to those who I know could benefit from this kind of service with the caveat which you might get sometimes with vendors. I didn’t know a lot of this can be improved and the follow-up could be better. There are other companies where you book a vendor through them, not like American Home Shield style where they’ve already done the research for licensed and bonded vendors, and you work at your own deal with the vendor. The others follow-up and see how the service was, and sometimes the standard surveys with the actual phone call or email. I haven’t seen that from American Home Shield. They could do better with their personal touch. There’s competition now so they got to step up. Sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re bad. They could do a better job of following-up and bidding.

Also, I called American Home Shield for my refrigerator years ago because it was leaking water. They told me I needed an appliance person and I had one that I paid $65. The appliance person came in and he said I needed a plumber, so I called a plumber through American Home Shield. I paid another $65 and my ice maker was still not fixed because one was blaming the other and nobody was fixing it. They came three times for the refrigerator and I paid $65 three times, yet my floor and kitchen were getting ruined because I got ice in my freezer. I had a towel there for three to four years and I could not afford to call American Home Shield every time. Overall, my experience with American Home Shield was poor.

Also, it would take an hour and a half to call them and get hold of anybody, and it was just a pain. But once you reach somebody, they're very friendly and nice enough. It's just that they're not experts and they're relying on notes which may or may not be incorrect, and it's the same thing every time you talk to them. We would be relying on the repair company to give them good data and the repair company would tell us one thing and we would hear a different story from AHS as to what the repair company told them. So, it was hard to know who to believe. And telling a person your story doesn't necessarily get you anywhere because they're relying on the notes, so you talk to a supervisor, which took us a long time to get to that point as well. American Home Shield seems to deal and in contract with the lowest cost service providers out there that may or may not be the best ones to fix something. I understand why they do it but that's disappointing.

And when they came back, they brought in a new service provider, and that provider said that the other guy that was here didn’t even look and check the electric box that was inside the heater. He said it was not working properly. And he fixed it within five minutes. So I paid out of pocket for $1,800 which wasn’t necessary because the first guy didn’t take the time to fix it. I didn’t even know that they didn’t do the work until I spoke to the second guy that came in to repair it.

American Home Shield should be able to have quicker access when you call them. Whenever I call them, I can’t get through as quickly as we had a couple of years ago. It’s good being able to set it up automatedly but I didn’t even speak to the service provider. We did everything by text so I didn’t articulate and converse with anyone pretty much, so there was no one-on-one to assess what was going on. Also, they gave me a timeframe between 12 and 4 pm. I can’t even get a 2-hour time window. It’s worse than Comcast. But American Home Shield is good if you have an older home and you may have potential repairs. It’s definitely worth it and I'd recommend them.

Usually, when you place the call, they fix the problem, and if they cannot fix it, they come back. American Home Shield delivered what they promised and my experience has been okay. However, I had to drop them because I thought I could have a better deal in the contracts by having two properties, and that wasn’t the case. I had a deductible of $100 or more on my property and on the rental, I have $75. I have a low usage and then I did the math. If the heaters would not be covered or it was going to be a low buyout, I'd rather have that money on the savings account and if something breaks, I'll use the money for that. On the rental, the warranty works well because you send the claim and you pay for it, so I would place more calls on rentals and the claims could be better handled by American Home Shield. It's the tenant's obligation to interact with the contractors but sometimes I have to be there because the tenants are uncomfortable with that.

I also had problems with my washer before and I had someone out here about five times, and each time they came out, they went through the whole thing. The belts were broken and the motor stopped, but each time they came out here, they fixed it and now it's been running for almost a year with no problem. I was looking and having to buy a new washer but it worked out.

Overall, American Home Shield was timely. They're quick to get you to the right person and to get an appointment for someone to come out here and it's never been more than a couple of days. At one time, I had an appointment for a week out and I called back to Home Shield and they said they'll give me another provider, which they did and the guy was out here in two days.

In some cases, however, they say they replace the whole system just for $400. For small things, I know that when they come, I have to pay $100. One of my friends in Dallas called, they only paid $75. But when something major happens, since we are long-term customers, we have to pay some big amount. But generally, AHS is good. They always send experienced technicians and sends them on time.

The contractor was excellent and had great customer service skill. Prior to him coming into the home, he kept me abreast of where he was so that I would be able to meet him. We actually had more than one thing that we needed to accomplish. But he told me that I had to create other work jobs. I wasn't aware that I had to go through and make several different work tickets when I could have just combined all of it in one. I didn't like that because I ended up having to pay another service fee when I had a live person to speak with and I would have been able to do it all at one time. The website was just a little bit confusing and I would have appreciated a live person. But when I did get in contact with one, we were able to resolve it. The repair person was excellent. He came in and did what he needed to do.

The next day, the contractor came out. He took a look and said that American Home Shield won't pay for a bathtub being repaired and he's not allowed to fix it. Someone from American Home Shield called and said that someone will check into our conversation and will get back to me. A week or two went by and nobody has done anything about it. In the meantime, my washer started making this horrible noise. It sounded like a helicopter is going to land in our laundry room. I called American Home Shield about it and the lady I spoke to said the washer has to stop working for them to fix it. They could have sent out an appliance person.

I also received a statement saying I didn't pay the $125 fee. I have paid for it when we had someone come out for the hot water heater. We've had no trouble with our homeowner's insurance. It's American Home Shield. They were a great company back then. The only reason we even went with American Home Shield is when we first bought our house, the people who were selling our house were going to lose a house that they wanted. I think American Home Shield may be going out of their way to make life miserable for people. If somebody said to me that they were going to get it, I would tell them not to go with American Home Shield and go with someone else.

I couldn't get American Home Shield back on the phone once I put my claim in. They kept me on hold so long. I was at work and I stayed on the line waiting on them for three hours where the answering machine told me that I would have over an hour wait. So, I called Greenway because those are the people that were going to do the work and they told me that they had not gotten an approval to replace the hot water tank. So, I found somebody that was licensed to put it in and they put my hot water tank in. I tried to call American Home Shield back. I didn't want them to pay any for the labor but I wanted to get paid for the hot water tank because I didn't have any problem with anything else. But I never could reach them anymore.

Greenway finally called me and said American Home Shield approved it to get fixed. I told them I had already gotten it fixed. I was reluctant about using them because every time I use that company, they want me to pay for a permit. I paid them a hundred some dollars for a permit, then another $100 to get rid of the hot water tank when I should not have to pay a disposal fee.

Also, when they did my heater, they charged me a hundred something dollars for putting an electrical outlet in that was never done. I called Greenway back and told them that they owe me some money because I paid them $800 something and $100 something for it. I couldn't get AHS to give me any justification why they wouldn't refund me because they referred Greenway to me. And I couldn't get Greenway to give me a justification because they gave AHS a quote on how much it was going to cost for this that. But the contractor that came and their customer service were good. The people that came to my house knew about the equipment. They did the work and cleaned up after themselves. I really liked them.

However, American Home Shield needs a service where I could leave my name and number so they’d call me back as soon as possible. When I have a disagreement or when I need to contact them, I can't get them on the phone and it takes so many hours. Some of my questions never got answered. Nonetheless, I will recommend them. It's good to have a company that would send a reputable person and company to my house if I call them. I don't have to look in for somebody to do the work so I'm very satisfied with them. American Home Shield is a very professional company and they know what to do to get the work done.

Our neighbor who referred American Home Shield loves them because it's cheaper than calling somebody. She has so much wrong with her house. American Home Shield is a great service when it works. But they got a limited number of suppliers. We had one guy who was great. The next guy was the most useless person we've ever met. For a garbage disposal, we got charged 150 bucks and all he did was turn a switch. He reckoned we needed the replacement but he didn’t do any diagnostic. He was brutal. Then he was saying something was wrong with the water with the shower. He turned it on and off. That was it. We ended up getting a neighbor come over to fix it.

I usually submit claims with AHS online. I have done it on the phone before and their reps were excellent, but sometimes, it takes longer and it's hard to get somebody to talk to. Sometimes, I'd be on hold for quite a while, but they’ve always gotten the vendor in the area and they’ve always gotten in touch with them right away. Also, I've always been contacted right away by whoever needed to come out. The technicians have been very courteous, professional and prompt. Even though I pay the fee to come out, it's nice to have peace of mind that if something major breaks down like the air conditioning, it's a good value. I may not use it every year, but at some point, I'm going to need to use it or have some sort of home maintenance. Even though there's always room for improvement with anything, I would recommend them. Overall, I've had a very good experience with American Home Shield.

However, I always had a good experience with them and the contractors that they sent out were professional. The tech who came out to fix my dryer explained to me what was going on although I didn't have a clue. Even as a young person, he was very well groomed. Also, the tech who came out for the stove was courteous. The contractors have been on time and courteous and if they're running behind, they will call to let you know and ask if it's still okay for them to come. I was even surprised that they came out here for plumbing. American Home Shield provides very good service and I would recommend them to the world.

Then, I explained to the contractor who came what was going on and told them that it might be coming from the alley. But I was wrong and he told me exactly what it was. He fixed it in less than an hour. After that, I seem to have more water pressure. Having American Home Shield has been great for us. We picked it up from the recent owners that had the house and we took over when we bought the house. I would tell friends if they had any plumbing, electrical or appliance issues to give AHS a try.

Then today, they called and said that my American Home Shield policy is expired. I said that I called on the 12th and paid in full. They said they had records that I called and for some reason, it didn't go through. Technically, I was on auto-pay so if the statement that I got said that if I took no action, they would just continue the auto-pay for next year. So, it should not have expired anyway. It concerned me that that was going to hold up my repair, but they assured me that it won't. They called and scheduled the appointment for the washing machine so it was okay.

I'm very happy with the people that I call when I call for service. They have always been very good about taking a service order and getting the vendors to respond back to me. I've been with AHS for about 20 years or so and the vendors that they're using now are way better than they used to be so I'm much happier. I get the people and they get back to me in a timely manner. They've all been very good, very helpful, and very accommodating. Everything goes off without a hitch. $75 is a little bit steep for a visit, but it is what it is.

After waiting a week and a half, I called American Home Shield and they said they don't have anything like that. We called Antech Appliance and they said they put it in the notes. When I called back, they said they would have to send somebody out again. The same guy came out and said that he recommended for the fridge to be replaced, that he didn't know why he was sent back out and that he was going to re-put the recommendation in his notes. I called American Home Shield and the Antech Appliance receptionist on speaker phone. The receptionist said, "He said what?" Then she read his notes and they said that he had fixed the fridge but that I wanted it replaced. The guy didn't deny it when they were on the phone. He waited until he got off the phone and said he would never talk to that receptionist again and that she had done this to him two other times.

After that, Antech Appliance sent over the lead tech and he was good. He didn't even take a look at the fridge and he knew what was wrong with it. He really seemed like he knew what he was doing and then he ordered a part. That's going to be in in the next couple of days and hopefully that would fix the fridge. If it does not, he’s going to put in a request to replace the fridge. This last claim was definitely a runaround although getting through with other claims has always taken a long time too. Even other companies schedule by the week out but that aside, American Home Shield has been good.

Updated on 05/11/2018: In December we had problems with the air conditioner. The guy came, didn't do anything, we still had the same problem. I wrote down here about that in December. Afterwards some Nicole **. from AHS contacted us and said that in wintertime that problem could have not been solved and that they would send a specialist in springtime for free. OK! Nice! Now we called and left several messages to this Nicole **. with no answer. We have had some positive experience with AHS, but not with the air-conditioner yet. I'm sorry that I have to write it here again about that.

We also liked the plumber they sent. He was very informative and very patient. He answered questions. We can call American Home Shield 7/24 so we can't get better than that and we're very pleased. We've had American Home Shield for a long time now and we can't imagine anyone not wanting to have home insurance with them. We weren't expecting to have any problems because the house is only four years old. But in Richmond we had about a 50-year-old house and they were very helpful there also.

In addition, when I called in to submit the claim, it took me over an hour and a half one time to get through. It used to be that I get somebody pretty quickly on the phone, but now, it’s a nightmare. The people making claims through the phone are already mad due to their issues and waiting for an hour to get somebody makes them madder, and they take it out on the person trying to help them. They need to hire more people. I’ve referred AHS to people because I’ve been happy. I’ve been very happy up until these past six months with my microwave and I had to call back several times. Unless that changes, I’m not going to tell anybody to do it again.

My most recent claim was for my water heater which was leaking. AHS sent out a guy from the company they always use on us and he walked us through what the problem was. He gave us options, which was I either go find someone else who has a cheaper price as far as the water heater was concerned or I could go with them. They are people that not only explain everything to us that they're doing but they always have one or two, sometimes even three options. Sometimes they’re pricey, sometimes it’s not pricey but the fact that we’re secure in their work ethics and the product that they deliver we’d rather stick with them.

American Home Shield should continue what they are already doing with the customer service. They have been very professional in that field. They don't only sell you something to get money from you but they take time to get to know you and your family and the issues you have where they could be of benefit to. I just feel that if they continue to go down that road they would be successful for many, many years to come.

Also with every warranty company, when the techs come out, they only fix what they think is wrong. I’ve had several claims with the heat pump and it seemed to be just recurring so I thought that we have to get the problem fixed in one trip as opposed to making several trips. If you’re paying for that out of your pocket, they’re going to come out and do the systems check and get everything right so you don't have to call back in six weeks because something else is wrong. My dishwasher took two trips. The tech thought he had it fixed but it wasn't so they came back. As for my microwave, they replaced it. They offered me about 20 different models to choose from but I didn't like any of them. They said that if I didn't like them then they'll give me this much money to buy a new one and I thought that the amount of money that they gave me was fair. They almost gave me enough to replace it with the same make and model that I have.

However, I wanted them to fix it and I didn’t want to have to go get a new one but that’s just the way it turned out which I completely understood. I was without a microwave longer because when I ordered one myself; I had to wait for it to get here then I had to install it. I still haven’t been reimbursed. I had to send them a receipt and they said I can get the money after two weeks but it has been almost two weeks so I’m still waiting to see about that.

The other problem I had was on the second house I had. A couple of weeks before the warranty was about to expire, I called them and told them that I was not going to renew it. They discontinued it but they deducted the monthly payment from my checking account. They straightened that out but the next thing I knew, they took out something from my checking account. I also got a letter from somebody saying that the contract was going forward. It took me several phone calls to get them to stop and refund that. We just got that check two weeks ago for $48 and it was supposed to stop on October 3rd. I would not recommend AHS to anybody.

I spoke to the manager and she was really helpful. She understood what we were saying and she tried to get in touch with Ultimate Plumbing company. Unfortunately, it was closed on a weekend and most of the companies had their teams already out in the field scheduled for a farther distance from where we are. She really tried hard but nobody could make it. It wasn't possible, so we had to wait. When the contractor came out, he was fabulous. He was very courteous and told us exactly what he was going to do. On American Home Shield's website, there's no way for us to express how urgent the issue is. I suggest there could be a field where it says “Urgency” so people are not guessing and the consumers not thinking that somebody will be out here soon.

We also had a big issue with our refrigerator and it took months before the tech finally couldn't repair it. And he said it was our fault since there was dust under it. It was a new refrigerator under warranty and the book we got for the refrigerator says that you do not have to clean under it so we hadn't cleaned under it. This technician had offered to clean it for money on the side and my husband told him no. Then the tech said, "Well then, you're declined to be under warranty. We're not fixing it because of that." It was weird. We'd gone so many months without our refrigerator that we were done with it. We needed a refrigerator and my daughter bought us one after that. Most of the time American Home Shield is good, but I would tell others asking about them to look around.

American Home Shield keeps satisfying me every time so I keep renewing. And submitting claims online is easy. I’ve had them for three years for this purchase and I’ve been using them before with my previous homes. It's very well worth it. And if customers ever have a bad experience, we just have to call back to American Home Shield and let them know of our dissatisfaction and they would send out another contractor.

One time, I felt insulted when I had an electrical problem. The person from the electrical company talked to me like I was stupid. I’m not an electrician and I answered to the best of my ability, but he kept asking the same question even after I've answered it. I told him that the whole left side of the house has no electricity, but he kept asking, "What socket?" I'd tell him again that the whole left side of the house has no electricity and I don't know which socket. It was frustrating. When it was over, they wanted me to hang up, but I got the feeling that he and another person on the other end were talking about me.

Other than that, I’ve never had a bad experience with American Home Shield. When the electrician came, he was decent. It’s been a few years and I’m glad I have American Home Shield. It has saved me a lot of stress. I know that when something breaks, I don’t have to worry about it because I have that added insurance. It would be foolish not to have American Home Shield or something like it if you’re a home owner or landlord.

However, I have an issue with AHS because they charged me $75 for the first company that came but never came back to fix my shower. I called AHS a couple of times to get a credit on that, and they said that they will give me credit. I've called them twice and I'm still waiting for it. They told me I don't have to pay the second $75. So, I didn’t pay for the second company that came. I was guessing that they’d put the charge I paid for the first company against the one that did the job, but I’m still getting emails that I haven’t paid that credit. I don't want to pay for a job that wasn't done.

I’ve previously had an issue with the icemaker on my refrigerator. A guy came in and said that he’d have to order a part, and nothing was ever charged until the job was completed. So, to my understanding, we don’t pay them until the job is done. But with AMTM, it was charged immediately. Other than that issue, the shower is good now. The second company did a good job. My contract with AHS ends in November, and I’m now paying $50 a month to keep it going. So, I’m satisfied with them.

I called American Home Shield three times regarding that matter. I waited for an hour once and they said that they would call me back because I had another claim for my dishwasher. They replaced that and I had it put in. But I bought it for less than the payout and AHS told me they would send the rest of the money to me but I have yet to receive that. Also, the technicians had a good demeanor and they were friendly. But to not come back for many weeks or call me and tell me they got the part is not a good deal. I like American Home Shield for the most part. They're reasonably priced for the coverage and the copay is not that big. But they are super slow about getting anything taken care of.

However, I have one caveat. Every year we got these people coming out and we went through this with our air conditioner head on. It gets us through the year and then the next year when we turned the furnace on, it wouldn't work so we have to call them back. So it's service fee, then service fee again. We finally just replaced the air conditioner on our own then we reduced our expenses. Other than that, I would recommend AHS because they are responsive and they do a good job.

I called again and then I tried getting online. That was also a problem trying to get online. Because if I canceled that or did anything then it will hold back everything. I had to call and they had me on hold for about an hour. I just hung up and waited until the next day. I was able to call someone and let them know what was happening. It was only until American Home Shield contacted the contractors that we've been called back by the contractors to set up an appointment. It took them a couple of days in order for them to get to us. We had to go and borrow someone else's refrigerator and put all our things there until they came and took care of it. AHS couldn't get me an appointment anytime sooner because there was a high volume of people needing their help. It took three days for the contractors to come. They took care of it right away and the refrigerator has been good since the repair.

I was very pleased with American Home Shield for getting another opinion, so it was a good deal. The repair took a while but it was fine, and the people that were sent out were professional about it. American Home Shield handled the claim well but if I can add some constructive criticism, it is that we didn't understand that they were referring the job out. We only knew when the company called us to tell us, so we wanted to make sure that it wasn't accidentally double booked. Had there been some correspondence explaining that they wanted a different opinion that would have been a bit easier. The vendor provided the information so I didn't want to see someone else show up and they weren't supposed to. There should have been a bit more communication concerning that.

Since the last repair, the fridge has been perfect. To replace it was $8,000 so I wanted them to do whatever they could to make sure it was running. However, I think they repaired the refrigerator a year prior and it sounds like the same part may have gone out, but I don't have those records. So I'll wait for them to look internally and say, "Hey, why did I have to replace the compressor twice or evaporator twice?” Just to protect their business.

I would absolutely recommend American Home Shield through a friend. Sometimes it takes a few days for someone to come out but I also understand that working in a warranty program it's not going to be immediate service. We had another fridge so it wasn't a big deal. But the people they use were prompt. It wasn't next day service per se. It was always a few days out. So that would be the only complaint. But they handle it well. I'm pleased that they fixed the fridge again. I didn't have to buy a new one because that would have really ruined my Christmas.

But one experience I had wasn't very good. The technician had to come out and do the job three times for the same issue. But I'm assuming it's just a third party so I'm still going to actually renew with Home Shield and also it was just that contractor. After that I had other water stuff and they sent me another contractor so that was good. Looking for somebody in an area that we're at everybody's going to try to charge an arm and a leg but I'm really impressed with the whole warranty. Everything's been running good and I'll recommend them.

I was also having issues with my billing. At the time of the heating problem, I had an electrical issue happen as well. I had two appliances that fell out and American Home Shield was going to one charge but I kept getting billed. But other than the new billing system they've got, American Home Shield has been good. Everybody with the company has been very forthcoming and helpful. For the price, I would recommend AHS. But there are certain things that I'm not happy with and I would be more satisfied if the problem that I'm facing would be covered. With the price that I paid for the warranty, that would be nice. I'm at a point where next month my home warranty expires and I'm really trying to research to see if there's a better company out there.

I usually have someone come out every year for our air conditioning and I remember replacing the air conditioning. The contractors came out here and fixed it but it just lasted through that summer and they never came back again. The issue is not the vendor because American Home Shield sends vendors out according to what they think is wrong. Some of the vendors have even told us that AHS defaults them to come out here and repair the issue just to get it going, to not replace anything. I've been with American Home Shield over 25 years and the service that we get from them is not worth it. As a matter of fact, I'm really looking for somebody to replace American Home Shield.

American Home Shield get on top of things when you tell them something is wrong. But right now, they’ve been out twice to repair a dishwasher and it stopped working again. We want to call them back but my husband said he was going to look around and see if he could find somebody else before he calls them back because he got upset. I will still recommend American Home Shield. They respond when you need them to respond. And they don't have any control over what contractors they hire to do the job. And maybe because we never went back to report the contractor for the second time, they may not have a clue that the dishwasher stopped working again. I have told several people about them. My son bought a house and I told him that AHS was the way to go. When my oldest son gets ready to purchase his house, he is also going to have AHS. A lot of my friends deal with AHS through word of mouth from me, too.

I called American Home Shield again to send somebody out, and he walked in, looked at the brand, and said it was indeed the thermostat. I was very happy with them fixing out this last time, but the first time, I wouldn't use them again at all. I didn’t even think the contractor that was sent was a licensed plumber. We spent six months lighting our water heater on a leaky basin. Every day, it would be out and we had to go in the attic and relight the darn water heater. But after the second guy was sent out, the water heater has been working very well. We've gone through quite a bit of home warranty companies and I've been pretty happy with American Home Shield.

They got a plumber from a new company to come because I had water in my basement. And he was great and knew exactly what the problem was. He was able to show me a bypass switch on a sump pump. The sump pump was not failing, but the sensor would sense when the water was in there. So, I would be manually doing that process whenever it would rain for about a week or so. I could alleviate the problem of my flooded basement, but it also meant that I have to get up a bunch of times in the middle of the night when it’s raining to make sure that my basement won't flood. The plumber fixed it immediately and we signed the paper and moved on.

I thought that the online portion of AHS' business worked fine, but it has been kind of a hit or miss. The expedition of service needed to be corrected because every time I had to call, it’s taking a really long time to get a hold of them. It’s like hold upon hold. Sometimes I could chat with people and sometimes I’m not able to.

American Home Shield is extremely helpful when purchasing a home because of the unknown of the appliances and the high-priced items that may malfunction in the first year in which one would own a home. I definitely got the value from that service as I had a few things went out in my first year when I moved into my new home. I’m glad my real-estate agent told me about it because we’re in a better position to correct some of those issues.

The contractors were here the next day and they disconnected the water heater. American Home Shield contacted another company for me who cut out the drywall and put in fans. I was pleased with the work they did and everything was right on. I had plumber I never wanted to see again, but these guys were great. They were friendly, and professional. They arrived just right on time. I thought that it was going to take a while and I also had to rush them because I had to leave again. They had to come back after they put the drywall in and the plumbers came back to put the water heater back in place. They knew it was urgent and they did it. I’m a really picky person and I like efficiency. I was surprised at how quickly the plumbers turned around. My garbage disposal also went out and they were right on again. The same set of people took care of it. American Home Shield can do no wrong and I’ve already recommended them to a friend.

Most recently I had them come out for two items -- a washing machine and my microwave and they sent the same appliance company. The appliance company, at first, wasn’t fixing the microwave correctly. Then I started telling him, “Look at it, does it look like it's fixed? It's not meshed. It's not lined up right.” He drove it too hard with the screw so it was buckled in like it was about to break the door. So he had to loosen or undo it again. He did it and it came out correct. I was sitting there watching him.

So next when he finished that he looked at the washing machine. He sat in front and ran the cycle. He didn’t listen for the noise that the washing was making. He kept taking the door and had to make a report but didn’t fix anything and left. Yukon Appliance did not fix it. About a month went on and the noise began to get worse so I called American Home Shield back and had them bring someone out regarding my washing machine. I said, “Do not send the company that you sent for my microwave because the guy is lazy.”

The second company they sent was MS Appliance and they gave me an appointment window of 8:00 am to 11:00 am and they came out at 8:36 am. He turned the microwave on and heard the noise. He said, “Your transmission went out. That’s why it's doing that. The transmission is gone on the washing machine.” I've been calling these people since December 12 and they said they're waiting on a diagnosis. I have an invoice from the company that came out and that was the reason they can get paid.

Now American Home Shield said I don’t have to pay the second company and that’s on them to pay him because the first company didn’t fix what they were supposed to fix or properly diagnose it. They have yet to send someone out to tell me whether they're going to order a part, replace it, cash it out or do whatever my policy states that it has, and I've called these people numerous times.

I called MS Appliance, the vendor that they sent out to coordinate an appointment window, and they have yet to return my call. American Home Shield said they’ve sent emails to these people for a diagnosis because they can't go any further and they have yet to return their email. I've asked American Home Shield, “Oh, you have to remedy this without legal ramifications because I'm paying you a monthly service charge, the service I'm not receiving. You paid this vendor for a service that they did but they have not completed their end of the bargain or their contract and I need the service. So how do we remedy this?” They can't tell me. They're on an automatic bill to my checking account so I'm not pleased at all.

They're getting their payment for the service charge and I told them, “I ain’t paying an extra bit of those service charges. You bill me almost $50 or $48 a month for service for me to have this service with you guys and you guys keep sending these kinds of faulty vendors.” I've told them that when I request services, we had issues in the past with those vendors that I've used and come out here and that I do not want them sent again to my residence. I'm thinking of a class action lawsuit. American Home Shield has been sued in the past and they’ve sent me a check. This service is horrible and that may be the route that has to be pursued in order to remedy or provide a better level of service because there is a liability issue here and I explained that to them.

They need to tell me, “You collect the premium, how would you resolve this issue? Either with your vendor…“ and I told them yesterday that they'll get another vendor out here, which will be the third to give their guys hopes that they’ll repair or you can cash out. I've had this policy for years and every year, we auto-renew. This has gone two weeks and this is unacceptable to me. I need my washing machine available that’s why I purchased the washing machine and I don’t want to go through a laundromat. But they have repaired some things and I've been satisfied. They’ve sent Up the Coast for plumbing issues. It is a very reputable company in Florence and they do well with work. They’ve sent a few vendors that I've been pleased and have replaced things over the years. They also did the water heater. But I've called them yesterday and it was over an hour wait time to speak to somebody. I held up and they left.

They called back and left a phone number so I can call them back regarding the matter. And then after 10 attempts to call them back every time the number was busy. I called back to their 1866 or 877 number again to call for a service request and once again I had one hour wait time. And then I demanded to speak to a supervisor the first hour that I had called and I never got one. The second one they told me they will have someone call me back but nowhere from their company or representative or supervisor has addressed this matter.

A week later, nobody had called so I called again and was on hold for 35 minutes. Finally, I got someone from authorizations but he was as rude as a customer service person could be. Every time I tried to lay out for him what my story was, he said it wasn’t what their policy says. After being on the phone with him for around an hour, he said that all they could do was to give me the value of the faucet and the estimated cost to put it in. I also asked to speak to his supervisor but he didn’t put me through to anybody else and said that his supervisor would tell the same thing he did. So, I asked for the estimate and he said somebody would call me. But until now, nobody called yet. The sink has not worked since the middle of November so I was very frustrated and not happy with them. I've been a customer since the 1990's and it's the first time I've ever had an issue with them and it’s terrible. I would recommend American Home Shield with reservation.

So, it's not like some companies might have parts but it might be the same process. They would certainly cut out the part about calling American Home Shield, but in a way that's a protection for us as well. And then they have to come back for a second visit so the length of time can be a little bit longer than if you had someone that came and fixed it. But it has helped me reduce my risk exposure for an outlay of money.

The problem that I have is I got a Delta faucet which is a good quality faucet and it's dripping. The drip is getting worse though in my bathroom and my husband doesn't know how to fix it. Then I got a toilet that he can spend more money on trying to change out, but he just has an aversion to plumbing and by the time he's through with it and gone too low several times, we're going to spend more than 75 dollars. So, our risk exposure for getting those two items repaired for financially is 75 dollars assuming that the contractors fix it. In the end, I try to be knowledgeable about my contract and know the things that it will do, and it wont do, that they'll pay for.

Other than that, American Home Shield made a change and I didn't know they were making the change, but now you have to submit a credit card. You have a choice of whether or not you want to pay for the service fee immediately or if you want to wait until after the service is performed and my preference is to wait until I actually see someone come to my house and physically do the repairs. So, that was something and I have wondered what if you don't have a credit card? Because there's no other option other than entering in a credit card. Also, when I was submitting my claim, I was able to enter a credit card but the other time that I did it, I kept waiting for it to clear my bank account since I used a check card and it never came. I later learned that it was not going to be processed until literally after the person came. So, I have not seen any written communication as to why they were doing that. All in all, I would still recommend American Home Shield, and if someone were to look at my experiences with them, it's all across the page as far as the different vendors I have worked with. Over the past there's been some I don't even want to see again and some that are fine.

Then the contractor called me in a timely manner in which they say they were going to do. We set up an appointment and they came out. The plunmber said that the garbage disposal had gone bad and that I needed a new one. He reported it back to American Home Shield and they okayed the replacement. The plumber was professional and he answered all of my questions. He also had a very nice attitude. I'm very pleased with American Home Shield overall.

When my washer wouldn’t fill very fast, AHS sent this company out of Cone, Texas and they put the parts on backward. They were here about four times to repair one little item and I needed to pay them but I wouldn’t pay them. I was trying to tell AHS that they needed to investigate this because it was ridiculous. When I finally got through, AHS called Sears. Their guy figured out the parts that the first company had put on the wrong way, reversed it and fixed a lot of the stuff that needed to be fixed on the washer. I couldn’t believe that the first company could be that stupid and I couldn’t figure out why AHS keeps on calling that company back. Why did they get them in business in the first place? AHS said that there very few companies that deal with this particular washer, which is good. I understand that, but they didn’t know what they were doing.

Another experience I had not too long ago was that I’d have to pay $733 to get the air conditioner repaired. Freon and some stuff had to be added to the air conditioner to follow regulatory conditions. That was money out of my pocket that I didn’t need to be taken out but, other than that, I have been very happy with AHS. I’ve been with them since 2004 and I have been pleased with them. They used to offer this deal where I pay almost $18 a month and then they come out a couple of times a year to check out my air conditioning and furnace. It was a wonderful service but, all of sudden, they no longer offered that. Also, one thing that’s wrong is, recently, when I call in for service, I don’t get to talk to anybody. It’s all computer or an answering machine. If that’s the way they want to do it, that’s their business. As long as I get the service that I requested and when I requested, I have no problem with it other than laying people off.

The young man seemed not to be conscientious and he did not have the problem right. And when he left, he left some stuff undone like screws not put in place, and my wife had to crawl under the sink to plug the thing back in. There were also two grommets or rubber fillers around the washing machine that were torn when he pulled it out. He said he would order that and a valve but nobody got back to me for two weeks. I finally called them back and they said they scheduled me 8 to 12, but nobody showed up. When I called, they told me guy’s truck broke down so they’re going to have to reschedule. Yesterday we finally got somebody out here who really knew what he was doing. He was very sharp and nice, and he fixed the dishwasher. It was not a valve problem or pressure, so the other guy just messed it up.

Also, they never ordered the part the guy said he’d order. They never got back to me, so their office at Active is not very reliable. Then I got a call this morning saying that the parts are not covered by the insurance company. The people there are really rude as far as the office goes. Now American Home Shield is looking into it and they’re getting back to me because all parts should be covered. They’re trying to get through to Active Appliance. The second appointment they called, the guy was scheduled and they told me 12 to 4 and nobody shows up at 4. I called back and they said, “Oh, no. It’s always been 12 to 5.” And then, nobody shows up at 5 and the guy finally showed up at 6 o’clock. It was the guy that messed it up. So, I’m not too thrilled with Active Appliance except for the outstanding gentleman that came over yesterday.

Things didn’t work out to my satisfaction, but the person that I talked to at American Home Shield did her best and told me about the contract. Right now, I’m taking pictures of the damage to the dishwasher grommet. I have to send it to Claims to get them to repair because it’s considered secondary damage. American Home Shield is doing a good job, but Active Appliance has done a very bad job except for one guy. It’s very frustrating.

The contractors, though, were always great, professional and easy to talk to. I enjoyed my interactions with them. After the repair, the sink had better performance and that really helped out a ton. With the furnace, there wasn't anything wrong and that went well. But for such a big company, there should be better customer service. I didn’t find the long waits helpful because as a consumer that just purchased a home, if I wanted questions answered, I wanted those answered within a reasonable time. And that was hard to get which was my big dissatisfaction.

There was also the thing about finding out more about the warranty. I was going to get my faucet replaced and I saw that what the warranty covered was something very basic. I had a nice faucet but I had to pay hundreds of dollars to get that same level of faucet. I felt that they should at least replace it with the same kind. Other than those, it was an overall good experience. AHS is okay but others should find out more information before signing up.

Generally, what AHS has repaired has been fine. It's usually heat pump-related and it's either cooling or it's in heating. We've also had a problem with the water heater one time, and they were not going to replace my water heater. They were just going to give me a very small amount of money for it. It was the same way with my dishwasher that went out a couple of years ago. I feel that as long as I've been paying the company, they should be more loyal to my problems. But other than that, I would recommend them.

Twice, both companies out of Cibolo, Texas told American Home Shield they're in San Antonio, when in fact they're on the outskirts of San Antonio on the far southeast side of the city. They set up their appointments based on proximity to your location. I even told one company, “Hey, it's not a big deal. I'm willing to wait a couple of weeks. How long do I have to wait before you guys can hook me up with a morning appointment?” And that company lied, said, “Well, we'll see what we can do.” That’s not what they meant. And then when I finally talked to somebody else in the office, they said, “That’s never really going to happen because we never schedule our appointments like that and you're furthest away from us, so you'll always be later in the day.” Another thing, 8:30 to 3:30 was their specific time window.

I said, “That’s not very specific. That’s the entire damn day.” And when I get to negotiate, American Home Shield insists they can't guarantee. I said, “I know you can't, but at least give me a company that will work with me.” All home visits don’t always make the easiest process because, for me, I lose work. If I'm not at work, I don’t get paid and I've never had an air conditioning company through American Home Shield that can make some kind of morning arrangement time for me. And you can rarely get the same plumbing company back. A couple of years ago, I had a major plumbing issue and had a company work on it. They dealt with it beautifully and I interacted with them beautifully but they no longer work with American Home Shield. And that’s consistent that they have their own issues with American Home Shield outside of the clients’ interaction, but it's a drudgery and it really is.

The regular logistics stuff of American Home Shield isn't horrible but the call-in stuff is insane. It's my fault that I don’t have internet in my home currently but it wasn’t going to be that much of an inconvenience and these call times have definitely gotten worse. I've had American Home Shield now for six years and I've never really done anything online. I've always done it by phone so these call times are definitely increasing. The quality of work done by the contractors has been variable especially depending on getting finished on how much should they clean up after themselves and on their professionalism. I'll take whatever contractor could meet my work schedule more so than the ones that are really the best ones for the job because that’s my first priority and we can have a contractor without having to take time off work and there are times that I have settled because it's the scheduling issue.

These were not rush appointments where I have to have somebody here the next day. I understand that with having a limited schedule, I might have to wait and being told, “Oh no matter how long you're willing to wait we'll never be there – we'll never make a morning appointment for you.” That’s really frustrating. Even with some of the other companies that aren't plumbing-related, it can be frustrating because it's hard to get people off the list with them that you’ve had bad interactions with. I don’t know how far American Home Shield follows through on complaints that their clientele like myself make with these. And I've told people indirectly in this regard that a lot is spent in because of limitations on the contractor grade things. If you have high-end fixtures in your home, don’t get American Home Shield because in the contract guarantee, you're not going to get the commensurate equipment fixtures.

So, if you have really high-end faucets and sinks and countertops, it's not going to behoove you. If you're at a more medium price point of a household or it's a rental unit for you, it's very efficient. It's cost effective and that’s been my biggest frustration. This is my first home and I bought more into it than I've ever lived in before and I can't get them to replace what I have. I get contractor equivalent or contractor grade or grade prices and if they can't find it, then they simply say they can't fix it. I have one particular issue with a very expensive tub faucet that they replaced once in my history with them and now that it's broken again, they can't replace it because they cannot find one in what they call contractor price range. The faucet is available but not at a place they're willing to pay for it. They said they'll cash me out but it's hard to go get my own plumbing company and that cash out that can be anywhere near what it's going to take to fix it.

But for real basic stuff like the garbage disposal, no matter what name brand is on there, they're all universal and all basically the same thing. If your garbage disposal breaks like mine did, they’d come out and quick exchange. They swap it out with a new one. But on higher-end fixtures and items, if you have a very expensive refrigerator, washers and dryers, if they die out completely, you're not going to get what you have. And at times from what I've been described even by their own contractors, not even close to what I might have one if it finally breaks. What I have are above what they're willing to pay out on a replacement for different things, so buyer beware.

So he had to come back. He then told me that something inside the unit was burnt and was causing the issue. But that wasn’t the case, either. It was something else. I've called them three times for this claim, he's been out here for seven times and ordered parts twice. Last week, he even had his supervisor come with him who said that the issue wasn't something that the contractor looked over, but he just took a while to figure out what the problem was. He came today, and hopefully, what he did today is going to resolve it. If not, I’ll be calling back because my grandson had bronchitis, a sinus infection, and an ear infection. And we can’t be in a house with no heat the way the weather is now. We live in North Carolina and it’s cold here.

I explained to him the same thing that was happening. It was overheating and it wasn't blowing cool air. He said, "I won't be able to do it until Tuesday," and this is on a Thursday evening. I found that hard to believe that in Florida they would expect people to wait that long. It's 82 in my house and he said, "Well, that's just the way it is." I said, "I'll call and get somebody else." He said "Oh they won't give you anybody else," because he has just done the job the week prior. He said, "I'm totally booked unless you want to pay for expedited service." Right then and there when you're telling me you're booked but I can pay and somehow you have time in your schedule to help me out, no.

I have a friend in the AC business so I'm just going to have him look at it because it's not worth it. You would think it would be worth it to have American Home Shield based on $75 service fee because you wouldn't be doing that a couple of times a year in Florida. However, if they're not going to fix it and if they're not going to come back out, it really isn't worth it. Other than that submitting a service request online or doing it by phone is very easy and the payment method was easy as well. But you're better off going independently and possibly paying a little bit more money for your service calls and finding someone who backs their work.

There was a time when I had a leak in the faucet which had been going on for a couple of months. I got it scheduled and had a technician come to fix it. Sometimes, there were contractors who were very nice and professional but other times we’ve had people who have been downright rude and not very wanting to please or cared much about whether the problem got fixed to our satisfaction or not. Also, I had a situation where the washing machine was giving me problems. A guy came out four separate times to fix it but he was not happy to have to come out so many times. The machine was fixed when he came the fourth time. However, it was not the fault of American Home Shield but the service provider. I would recommend AHS to anyone and I would never think of owning a home without having it.

But that was way back before, so I was honestly disappointed when I saw that it was the exact company that came when I submitted the claim recently for the air conditioning upstairs that just stopped working. This company does both the air conditioning and plumbing, and the AC turned out okay. This time with the air conditioning problem, as far as I know, it's fixed. It was just the thermostat that needed to be replaced and the contractor did it pretty quickly.

They weren’t supposed to take it out but they did. They said it wasn’t covered but it was, and I have to argue with them. The lady I talked to on the phone doesn’t take care of the business very well. They take out every month my $39.99 for my coverage. I had to pay them $100 every time they come out for service. I wasn’t too happy about my trash compactor. When my husband died a couple of months ago, he forgot to tell me there’s a reset button so I called them over and thought it was something wrong with my trash compactor in the sink. It was just a reset button but they still charged me $100. Then I had to get a new faucet and charged me another $100. I also had trouble with the refrigerator and they sent out some people that didn’t do the job. They’re all right and it’s better than nothing.

Right now, I really need them because I don’t have my husband anymore. I also recommended some friends to American Home Shield. We were recommended by some friends. Sometimes, they do a good job and sometimes, they don’t. I always make sure I ask them who they’re sending because we had two dummies that came here for our refrigerator. The ice maker wasn’t working and it needed a heater because we’re in Las Vegas. The one guy was very brilliant. They sent a guy for my refrigerator and he told us it can’t be fixed. Now, we’ve had some problems with them. Sometimes, they have a good representative but we wait forever for customer service.

You have to wait a long time to get somebody because the lines are busy and you wait 20 to 30 minutes to talk to somebody. You can reach them online but if you do, they’re going to send you who they want to send you. I’d rather call them and ask them, “Where is this company you’re sending me from? Where are they located?” I go online and check out where their address is to see how it looks outside where they are. They sent a couple dummies here so I had to call them and tell them, “You got to send somebody else that knows what they’re doing.” They don’t always have the best of the best. You’d be lucky if you have somebody that knows what they’re talking about.

I like the plumber that was here but they shouldn’t have charged me a $100 just to reset the button underneath the sink. He saw a crack on my old faucet and he came back and replaced it. I had to pay another $100. He bought the faucet but I had to pay for the labor for them to come out. And I talked to this other dumb woman yesterday and I wasn’t happy with her. I said, “Why did you take out my built-in microwave? It was already included.” “It’s not included now. You have to pay $12 more a year.” So, I paid it because I wanted my built-in microwave to be part of my service. They also need to pay me back my $100 for pushing a button up underneath a sink, especially I’m a senior citizen on a fixed income.

A week later, my garage door opener failed. And as I checked into my policy, I only had the entry level that the literature evidently provided and it didn't cover garage door openers. So there's different levels that you can buy. The realtor, when I bought this home a year ago, provided me with a $650 something entry level and the garage door wasn't covered. But besides that, I had a fine experience with AHS.

Then someone will come on and I have to go through the whole story of what’s going on. I tell them first up, I know who I need to speak with, but will they let me? No. I have to go through the whole story and then they tell me, “Oh yeah, I can’t help you. I need to transfer you.” I can’t count the times that I’ve been disconnected after waiting the hour and a half, and I have things to do too. I’ve been at the doctor’s office and I’ve been in traffic. I have got a hole in my wall that is 18 inches by 18 inches right now and on the opposite side of that I got these Chinese faucets that these horrible plumbers from hell, the ones that put the 18 by 18 hole in didn’t even tell me that they were replacing my beautiful delicate faucets that I paid 189 dollars for. They replaced them with something that was just sitting around their office.

I have been begging for help and these people weren’t even allowed to come back again. The guy threatened me and he wouldn’t even come back. The faucets were just spinning in circles and I couldn’t get them to turn off. It was running full blast. The next day, I decided, “Oh, I’m going to take a shower because I haven’t had any.” I was out of hot water for two weeks during the same process and this all started with just a drip in my shower. This man destroyed my bathroom. I was told that there was supposed to be sheetrock repairs. I told them easier than sheetrock, just have them put a little access panel in there for me in case work needs to be done because these guys were idiots. I would hate to have to have somebody cut into sheetrock again, it gets really expensive to do that.

Instead of putting a little plywood panel on there with some trim work, that you can screw in and out with wood screws. It’s sitting right on studs, and it’s measured eight because the studs are 18 inches apart. It would be so easy to get some wood screws and do it, that way you can unscrew it instead of having to cut into sheetrock and a lot cheaper too. I know this guy had to have put down in his report, so he could get paid this ridiculous quantity of money. That he had to put this big hole in my wall and to get paid for it, and now American Home Shield is telling me that I owe the other plumbers that had to come in and take over the hundred-dollar deductible. I said, “No, I don’t. Because I already paid Biff’s Plumbing.”

AHS said, “They haven’t said that you paid your deductible.” I said, “I paid with a check. They cashed the check two days after I gave it. They hadn’t even started work yet.” They didn’t even give me new faucets. These people made out like a bandit. You can’t wash your dishes and you can’t get stuff clean with cold water. I’m being patient, but this guy has scared me now because I’m by myself. He’s big and he’s yelling at me. He comes into my home, he goes, “Well, I need a screwdriver, you got a screwdriver?” and I’m standing there shaking, he goes, “Well, hurry up give me a screwdriver.” I was like, “God, you’re supposed to be licensed and insured. I’m not the plumber.” I was terrified and I was digging around trying to find a screwdriver for this guy.

They had to get these other guys which were fabulous, J Star Services. They were so good. They came in and did my water heater and it was so totally rusted out. They had laid it out at my front yard and they said they had never seen it that bad ever. When I sent my friends pictures, “How can it be that bad?” I said, “It’s bad ‘cause it was making so many noises even before.” In the picture, it looks like a cigarette that’s all burnt on one end and dark. The whole bottom, about 9 inches, was rusted out. Now I’ve got water.

When Biff went up there, he should’ve drained it and he didn’t. What he did was, he turned it off, so it made it overflow into the pan which made it overflow into my ceiling. When I was on the phone with American Home Shield, I said, “I’ve got to get my water heater.” They called him while I was on the phone and he told them, “I already changed her water heater out, I don’t know what she wants.” I said, “He lies.” I said, “I wouldn’t be on the phone with you if I had hot water. Why would I have just sat on the phone for three hours trying to get to you?” I said, “I would not be spending my time like this.” They found out that he was lying.

Now I’ve got a problem up there too. J Star Services isn’t looking to me for that, but they are looking to American Home Shield, and I told them I said, “I will email you the front and the back of the check, tell me where to email it to.” They said, “Well, we’ve called them and they have 24 hours to return our call.” I said, “And, I need to get my sheetrock work done.” I’m waiting to paint. I’ve got to get the sheetrock work done, that hole fixed. I’ve got to get my bathroom done.

I’m trying to sell my house. How am I supposed to sell the house with it looking like that? I can’t even paint it or do anything with it until we get these gigantic holes. It’ll look like this house has got major plumbing problems now. Now American Home Shield is just letting me sit like that. My house is at the 15-year mark and it’s like everything is on a chain reaction.

In the mean-time, it decides to have electrical problems for me. All at once and by the way this was over Thanksgiving. I got ceiling fans going out. I’ve got electrical outlets in my kitchen that are not working. I’ve got lighting in my kitchen - my recess lighting over the bar, two of the lights were out, and by the time he got there the third one’s out, and I’m like, “Oh god.” He got the ceiling fan done and all this was going on with Biff, and then they got rid of him. As a matter of fact, American Home Shield said, he’s on their don’t call list.

If they’re going to replace my fixtures they need to tell me about it so that I have the opportunities to select them and upgrade them if I want to. Because in my master bathroom, every towel bar, the toilet paper roller, everything in there matches. They’re all exactly the same because when I had the house built, I designed the house.

I went to Lowes and picked out all the fixtures and stuff, and brought them back to the builder so that they put it what I want. When I came in there and saw this stuff, I was like, “What? You didn’t even tell me.” and I said, “Well, take it off. Take it back and get something else.” he said, “Well, you can’t.” I said, “It's really easy, take it off. Let’s return it. I’m a reasonable woman. You didn’t tell me that. You told me everything had to be done from the back.” They did not say anything about replacing the faucets.

I saw this box that has the faucets in it and I go up later on. I don’t want this piece of crap in my house. It doesn’t even come close to matching, and so, I go up to Lowes, and you got to keep in mind, you can see through my wall now, with the faucets on. Because they’re small even with the rings on the faucet there’s space around it. I’m looking because he’s bragging, “it’s a Moen faucet” I said, “You know, Moen has a bottom of the line and they have a top of the line.” I said, “You can buy a Moen faucet for 23 dollars, and you can buy a Moen faucet for 400 dollars. This is the 23-dollar one.” I went up there and I’m looking, and I’m looking, and the sales people are fabulous there too. I asked the guy, “Have you been working here a while?” He said, “Since they opened, which was nine years ago.” I said, “Do you all carry this faucet set?” and he says, “No. Let me look it up.” And he looks it up and he goes, “This is a really old model.”

I used to work for a construction company. When I lived in Houston, I used to work for David Weekly Homes. It's really a large home builder and those guys used to do crap like that all the time. They get gifts and perks from different vendors and stuff. They’ll come in and they’ll drop off and say, “Here, you know, we’re pushing these and try these out.” He didn’t pay for it. What he did was he saved it, so he could bill for it. That’s what he told me straight up, “You can’t take it back.” You can’t trust people like that.

It took the electrician him a couple of weeks to get the fan. He did a good job and he got my electrical sockets working in the kitchen that was out. He had to replace some stuff and he said, “This is just weird.” I said, “I know.” and I don’t have little kids running around sticking stuff in or anything. It’s me, so I know nothing hinky is going on. Then I’ve got the recess lights. I gave him cash for the hundred dollars and I remember asking him, “Should I give it to you now or what?” and he says, “No, you can wait until the end.” But I gave it to him because he said it was going to be a couple of weeks and I said, “No, I’ve got to give it you now.” I was out of checks, and they didn’t take debit cards. Personally, he couldn’t so, I gave him the cash, fortunately, I happen to have one on me.

By this time J Star Services got my water heater in, so I’m happy. I’m relieved. I got some sockets in the kitchen going on, recess lighting is out, but I got sockets and I got hot water. I’m not hearing from this guy after Thanksgiving and American Home Shield, they’re sending me messages that I owe them a hundred dollars. At first, I was confused, I was like, “I’m supposed to pay him when he’s done.” Then I started thinking I said, “Wait a minute, no.” Because then when I talked to him after he reminded me that I gave him the cash.

When American Home Shield says, “You pay us a hundred dollars.” I’m like, “Let me get a hold of them okay?” If you were to talk to this guy, he’s like straight up business-business all the way. The way he spoke, he sounds like he’s even related to the owner. He didn’t say so straight up but it sounds like he is. I don’t see him ripping off the owner in other words. I’m trying to get a hold of this company and I can’t get a hold of them.

I’ve had American Home Shield now for the third year. I’ve had American Home Shield when I lived in Sugar Land, Texas so like with my refrigerator. My refrigerator died on me when Sears came out. They saw my refrigerator and listened to it. It’s 14 years old, the noise is terrible it was freezing stuff out, then heating stuff up. The whole side of the wall was all cracked up from it doing that. I was losing a lot of food. But as soon as they told them it’s got to be replaced, it was a matter of picking out the refrigerator. I paid a little bit more and fortunately Sears is having a fabulous sale and that just happened.

A lot of times I don’t like to pay ahead of time if they don’t do anything. Like I had my heater wasn’t working at one point. The guys came and walked around the house. They’re supposed to be licensed and insured in AC and heating. When they show up at my house, they looked at my thermostat and it’s a Bell Howell. It’s one of those programmable ones, and they said, ‘Oh wow, look at this. I’ve never seen anything like that.” I was terrified. This was about nine months ago, and I ended up having to pay them the hundred dollars. They didn’t do anything. The guy touched it but all it needed was new batteries.

I’m very dissatisfied because I feel like AHS is not helping me. I pay them a lot of money. The thing is they know what problems I’m having, like with Biff’s. I need somebody to call me back and help me. I can’t get a hold of the electrician who was supposed to be coming back out here to finish his job, and American Home Shield thinks I owe them money, and I don’t.

When the new guy came out, stuff got fixed. He's very professional and I'll always use him. He put a brand new part in and it worked fine for a week and a half. But now, it's progressively starting to squeal on the dry cycle again. I don't want it to cost another $75 just because it isn't resolved. Another issue is that they can't seem to get one billing situation squared away. When we purchased this house, the real estate agent bought the contract for us and then when that contract ran out, we started making the monthly payment. And now, the billing is saying I'm 30 days past due on payment when I normally pay the contractor the first time they show up. When I called them, they said, "Well, you can ignore that." And I get another one about a month later. Other than that, I've been happy with the service American Home Shield has provided me and I would recommend them.

After all of these happened, I got a letter from American Home Shield forcing me to take on guaranteed rate, which I've been paying until I can find someone else. They raised my fee from $60 to a $101 a month at a guaranteed rate. I'm very disappointed in them because at the time when I needed them, this was how I got slapped in the face, like, "Oh, you've had too many claims within this amount of time so we're going to just screw you down." That's how I felt about the company and that's going to put a lot of people off. I couldn't control when things breakdown and that's what having AHS for. It is just unfortunate and I didn't appreciate it.

So my contract now with American Home Shield is a month-to-month deal and that made me thinking of going with another company. But they have people sent out here to replace and fix things before all these happened. But I also had an issue with a guy who tried to fix the refrigerator two different times and the repairman kept saying to Home Shield that it needed to be replaced. American Home Shield kept fixing it and took a long time for them to finally see that it needed to be replaced. So, my wife, my son and I were eating out of a Yeti cooler for three weeks where we kept our perishables to keep them frozen.

On the other hand, when we bought our house in August and the contract for American Home Shield was part of the deal, the lady who owned the house before transferred it into my name on the day that we took possession of the house. Then about a month later, I got a bill from AHS for $80 for something the previous owner had done but hadn't paid for. So, together with my realtor, we spent four hours waiting on the phone with AHS. It was upsetting as sometimes she had to wait an hour to even get an agreement. But AHS didn’t handle it the right way. We had to call back and go through the two-hour deal again until AHS finally got it straightened out.

We're on good terms now. They sent me a bill for the new contract next year and they started sending it three months in advance which wasn’t due December 9th. So, I paid it on November 9th and two weeks later I got another bill from them. I called and AHS said they never received the check. When I looked online on my bank account, they cashed the check. I had to go through a long, long process to get that straightened out. They told me to pay it again and if the check arrives, they would return it to me. I paid the other one with a debit card.

So, there was a payment for those two things but yet they're saying they never got the money and they aren't going to return my money. So, I went to the bank and got a copy of the statement that showed the check and the debit from the account. I sent it to them and had to wait about six weeks to get the money back. Having gone through the experience, I’m very disappointed with AHS and I’d tell my friends to find another company.

The guy started with the easy stuff, and as a matter of fact, by the time he got here, the furnace started on its own. He took the furnace part anyhow and he probably saw corrosion on the heat sensors and he scraped them off. Things seemed to be working fine, and then we left and came back at 7 o'clock and it was out again. I called him and he said he would be out the next morning at 10 A.M, but told me that I should contact the warranty company because if it went beyond what he was doing, it was obviously going to cost more money, and that was beyond my free service call for the year.

Submitting a claim for it was where my headaches started with the warranty company. They assigned some other people that had been out here before for my air conditioning. They said that they would be out. This was about 7:00 at night, but by 11:00, no phone call or anything. I called and talked to somebody from, and the woman told me,"It's a holiday weekend, so the people don't have to respond within 24 hours." This is Thursday night. She then says they don't need to call me back till Monday morning. I said, "This is Cleveland, Ohio, and it's November. You're sort of taken a slip of an attitude and I should be satisfied with that." I asked them if they could check to see if they could still use Franz. I was told they're not sending calls to them, and they'll assign the claim to somebody else.

By Friday afternoon, I still hadn’t heard from anybody. I made probably about five or six calls to American Home Shield. Finally, Friday night somebody said, "We're going to expedite it since you don't have any heating and you're in a cold region." It is Saturday morning and I don't hear anything. I called and they said, "We have it queued up for an emergency, but then it hasn’t been assigned yet. Sorry, we're a little short on people." It was supposed to be expedited, but it's sitting there for over 24-hour.

Finally, I called and I talked to a guy that I thought was pretty good. He was from their Phoenix office. He says, "Hey, you guys. We can't have that." He called around and got me somebody that was in Akron, Ohio, which is about 40-minutes south of here. As soon as I got off with him, he says, "They'll call you." They did, but said it’s out of their region and called the warranty company back.

I lost six phone calls. Finally, another person down south, calls and goes, "I got somebody, but you're probably not going to hear from them until like Sunday morning." By about 8 o'clock or so on Sunday morning, I called it the phone number of the people that were assigned. I finally got a hold of a guy the night before and he says, he goes, "Yeah, we can't come out." Then, Sunday morning I called him and he goes, "We'll get out there and I'll be out there in a couple of hours."

He showed up here about 11 o'clock. We had a birthday party at noon for a good friend of ours. I was like, "That'll work out fine." I figured it wouldn’t take very long. He shows up, goes through it, and finds out what the problem was. He said that what the other guy had done was fine. He was checking out things in the order. He went further and then it turned out to be a bad switch. There's two of them and he replaced one. He says, "Unfortunately, I don't have one with me, but I have a guy that lives just north of here, about half an hour northeast." He called him, and the guy had the switch in his car. He says he'll be down here in half an hour to fix it. He showed up by about quarter after 12, and everything worked fine. Those people were actually very nice. I would use them again, the last contractor that worked on it.

I've been a customer of American Home Shield for years. I'm in the insurance busines and have I've actually recommended them. It's just the response time. On this instance, I'm dissatisfied, but the quality of the workmanship of the people that came out, I give those people a top score. The fact that I got handed around and it took like five, six phone calls, and that I probably spent a couple of hours on the phone. That is not impressive. I don't buy the excuse that it's a holiday weekend. This is on Friday and they said it's a holiday weekend. I said, "Excuse me. The holiday was yesterday."

With American Home Shield, sometimes it goes too long to get through. But I've had them for years and I've had claims that have been very good. As an agent though, I've had 20-year accounts and I lost them because of what somebody did. I said, "What about the 20 years of good service I gave you?" They said, "You're only as good as the last thing you do."

The interaction with the rep was great and anytime I have to use them, they’ve been great. I’ve used online a couple of times and it was good too. The service reps were quick and responsive. Somebody emails you and lets you know when they’re 10 minutes away or something. Then the repairman will call and find out if you’re home, plus you’ll get an email. The only thing they should improve or do a little differently is that’s keeping me on the phone for 30-40 minutes. I know other people are calling with problems but it would be better if you could leave a call back number because the volume is so heavy and it’s going to take 30 minutes or 20 minutes, and then they call you back that night or the next day.

For example, I wanted to report that the dishwasher guy couldn’t fix it and he said I needed to get a plumber, and I’d like to get a plumber. I had to hold on the line for about 40 minutes but if they could have a thing on there or “push a button and leave your number, we’ll call you back when we’re not busy”, that would help speed up things. People should get Home Shield because they’re really good and very efficient. We like them. They fixed all my problems and they’re comparable to other home warranty things.

They sent a technician out to work on it. We pointed out those two issues to him, and he had to order a part for the water dispenser. And while he was there, the alarm didn’t act up. Then he received the part, made the appointment, came out and opened the part. Our refrigerator is white, and the model year that it is, the most popular was stainless steel. So, the part that came in was stainless steel and he apologized and said that next time, he's going to open it at the office before coming out. So, he had to make another visit.

In the meantime, the little pieces behind the little paddle that you push through your glass against to get the water started falling out. So, when he came out, he had additional parts he had to order. When he was working on the water dispenser, he opened the door to look at something, and then when he shut the door, the alarm goes off. So, he’s going to be back out to address that issue.

After his first visit before he got the part in, somebody marked the claim closed. I went online to try to figure out how to tell them that it was not done yet, and accidentally wound up filing another claim, which then I called to say that the recently filed claim was a bogus and to mark the other one not solved. But I had to call them because somehow almost a month later that claim that I accidentally filed got sent to GE. And a GE technician showed up with no clue whatsoever as to why he was here. So, I chatted with him and figured out that the claim that he came out for was supposed to have been canceled. And then a little bit after that, I got a notification that we had been billed for his service visit. I’ve called American Home Shield and they took that off our bill. So, they’re good that way.

In general, we’re very pleased with them. We have had a different home warranty service, and we didn’t like them, that’s why we wound up with American Home Shield. We did have a problem with our air conditioner, which went on for years and then a technician who was sent out finally correctly diagnosed what the problem was. It was a poor installation so, we contacted the builder, and they’ve gotten it taken care of.

So, sometimes especially with regard to air-conditioning, it’s not so much American Home Shield’s problem as in general the assumptions made by air-conditioning and heating companies about what is wrong with an air conditioner can be questionable, to say the least. But American Home Shield is stuck with the fact that they don’t have somebody “on staff”. They rely on farming out the work. Now, then in general the people they have sent out have always been wonderful, friendly, caring people, and they’ve always made sure to try not to track in dirt by putting on booties.

The only complaint is that when a claim is marked complete, even though it is not, there’s no way on the website to go in and say that's not right. So, you have to wind up calling American Home Shield and sometimes there’s a delay before you get to talk to somebody. But, I do recommend them to friends, though I caution them that they need to watch their claim because it can be marked as complete when it’s not.

During our recent claim, the plumber came at the very beginning of the window when he was expected, which was nice. We also got a call in advance that he was coming. He did everything and then he left. We also had a different plumbing issue about a month ago when we had a clogged toilet two days before we were having a whole family over for Christmas. It was the same kind of experience. He came the very next day after I made the call and took care of the problem. I have not had to call back on the same issue ever. Overall, American Home Shield is everything you're looking for. The service is prompt and the people who come are professional. I'm also very pleased with how quickly we got an appointment. I recommend them.

I do not hear from AHS for a week after the contractor's visit, so I made the dreaded call, waited in a queue for an hour and spoke to a representative. She claims to have spoken with the contractor while I was on hold and said that the contractor does not recommend a replacement. I was ok with not replacing the equipment as long as the issue is fixed, but her response was that the contractor thinks that the whistling noise can be lived with and nothing needs to be done at this point. I find that response unacceptable, in short AHS does not want to replace or repair because they think we should be ok with living in a house that has a heating system that whistles through the night. I discontinued my account with them. I rather not pay premiums for a service that decides on what my family should be ok to live within the house.

As a consumer, just pray they do not send an incompetent buffoon of a contractor to repair a problem. Also, as a security measure, some of these contractors are very, very creepy, so if they give you a bad vibe, I would be cautious. One contractor was talking to himself...like whole conversations in the first, second, and third person. "First person" was upset at "Third person" apparently because he was struggling to repair a sink pipe. He was allegedly a plumber...allegedly. AHS loves to throw out there that you do not have to pay a second service fee for the work that should have been properly repaired the first time. Clearly AHS doesn't get it. Consumers EXPECT that they will not pay another $75.00 to another contractor to repair the problem. What AHS really doesn't get, or care to get, is the inconvenience they cause to the consumer and the disruption to their lives.

Contractors have even complained to me about AHS, and how they will not approve a repair or replacement. I can only assume that reliable and competent contractors do not enter into contracts with AHS because of the way that AHS treats them, or pays them. Eventually, AHS will be obliterated by competition. It is only a matter of time. I have friends in other states who are trade workers. I have implored them to start up at home services in their respective states. As a consumer, people just want the bottom line, a parts repair or replacement, and they do not want to have to navigate through endless mumbo jumbo and exclusions embedded into the AHS service contract.

They are a for profit company. I get it...but when a company exacerbate the problem with their intransigence and horrible contractor pool, you infuriate customers and make them not want to use you again. Alas, I have since cancelled AHS and bid them and their low IQ contractors bon voyage. I have repaired most of what their contractors could not repair, or broke, and have learned much about DIY. Thanks AHS! I just needed your incompetence to motivate me to make my own repairs!

My garage trolley broke suddenly due to high winds and part of the garage door was knocked off the track causing a safety issue. I needed to get it repaired immediately. I went online and attempted to submit a claim but I was unable to register due to website technical issues. I then attempted to call customer service and waited on hold for over an hour. I was so frustrated, I finally hung up in disbelief. I then called a local garage door repair Company who immediately sent out a repairman to fix the problem. I paid $500 in out of pocket expenses. The following day I tried to call AHS to discuss my inability to get the proper assistance with my urgent situation and to discuss reimbursement for my out of pocket expenses. Unfortunately, I wasn't on hold for almost 2 hours and had to hang up.

I called AHS again the following day and after waiting on the line for over an hour I was connected with a rude and abrupt representative. After explaining my issues I was told they would not provide reimbursement for having to obtain emergency services on my own without filing a claim online or by phone (impossible). Trying to make a claim with this company is impossible. After they take your money they make it very difficult to file a claim. I would imagine that most people just give up trying. I feel like I've been scammed!

I live an hour and a half outside Memphis and there’s no competition, so people can do what they want. So, if they call and say, “We’re going to be here,” and they aren’t, you have to wait until they decide to show up. So, twice we had waited on them. The technician came and was annoyed that he had to work here on a Saturday. He asked me if I had anything that he can put down the sink. I told him I had a loaf of bread that I’d gladly put down there. Then he told me he didn’t see that there was a problem. I told him he was putting mushed up bread down there and it was soft. It could work great for a couple of days and then back up.

He went out to his truck for about 20 minutes, came back inside, and told my husband that he didn't know how to fix it and that it was old. We asked him what he would do as our sink was backing up. He told us they were going to have to get us a new one. We asked if there was any chance it would be before Thanksgiving because we were having 20 something people over for Thanksgiving. He told us no and that they'd call us after that.

The guy should’ve ordered the part or a new disposal, but apparently, he just closed it out. My husband and I both work full-time, so my mom had taken over the phone calls. She was calling me while she was on hold on her landline with American Home Shield and with the plumbing. They said they'd get another person out. We already paid the $100 so I was wondering if we were going to have to pay again. They need to come out and fix and at this point, I don’t know if I want them back out here. This has been a total nightmare. It wasn’t American Home Shield’s fault, but if these are on their referrals, they need to get these people off there because they aren’t doing a good job.