American Home Shield Reviews

Now the part in on back order for 7 to 10 days as of June 19th and I close on the house on June 27th. and per the contract the dishwasher and range hood (another similar complaint) need to be repaired by closing. The hood vent is turning out to be another nightmare, It's been about 1 1/2 months since around 5/3/02 and its still not fixed. They (AHS) have had 3 vendors look at the unit which is the original 24 years old. I have called many times, have had to leave work to meet them and put a lot of effort into just keeping the ball rolling and today were back to square one, waiting on the vendor or AHS.
Other than very frustrated, several hours on the phone, time off work, I am selling the house and close next week on June 27th. Both items listed above need to be repaired by the owner (me) by close. This could seriously impact the sale of my home, as well as several other factors with both parties. I need to have these issues resolved by early next week and may have no choice but to purchase and have installed a new dishwasher and hood vent and exhaust fan and pursue small claims court.

Don should probably pursue the Small Claims option.

After three hours, we called Power Plumbing who advised they had not heard from AHS and couldn't come out until 4-1-02 anyway. We called AHS back and were advised that their policy was not to notify Power Plumbing until 4-1-02. I explained that we were trying to catch the water in buckets but some water was running along the pipe and causing damage behind our cabinets. In other words, the situation needed immediate attention or the damages would drastically increase. (It should also be noted that AHS covers only the access to the plumbing and the repairs to the plumbing.) In spite of this, AHS still refused to call a plumber until Monday.
I asked the operator at AHS if they would pay for the damage to drywall and cabinet damage due to the two day delay in getting Power Plumbing out to fix the leak. We were advised they would not.
We were left with two options, the five people in our family could shut off the water to the home (making it uninhabital) and stay at a hotel, or call a plumber ourselves. We called WJ Maloney Plumbing (licensed, bonded, and insured) who came out and effecuated repairs. We saved the piece of pipe that was leaking, took photos, and had the plumber write up a detailed description of what he saw and did.
On Monday, Power Plumbing came out. "Sal" examined the opening in our ceiling and wall, examined the pieces of pipe, and the invoice. Sal confirmed that repairs were proper and the charges were reasonable and customary. The invoice was $357.74. We called AHS while Power Plumbing was there and advised of their evaluation. AHS asked us to send in a letter requesting reimbursment along with a copy of the invoice from WJ Maloney. We did this on April 3, 2002.
AHS sent us their final decision on April 10, 2002 refsuing to reimburse because their contract states, "American Home Shield will not reimburse for service performed without its prior approval." Stated differently, the work performed to our plumbing is not in question, neither are the charges. AHS is hanging their hat on a condition in their contract which had no detrimental effect on their handling of this claim. Their own plumber confirms this.

This position, in effect, negates any benefits under the contract which may otherwise be available to their customers when losses requiring immediate attention occur during weekends, holidays, or nights. The American Home "Shield" is activated less than 50% of the time.

After 5 phone calls that day, us calling and the company calling us, no one could be found to come look at our refrigerator. At approximately 8:00 p.m. we were authorized $60 to rent a refrigerator as we could find no one to come look at our refrigerator either. We could also find no one that would rent a refrigeratorWe contacted the company in the morning and they said they would put the claim back in the circulation section, as it had been closed as soon as we were given authorization to find someone to come look at it ourselves.) Even though we communicated to them that we could not find anyone and they authorized us $60 to rent a refrigerator, they had closed the issue.)
After hearing nothing, we purchased a refrigerator and had it delivered at 5:00 p.m. on Saturday. We contacted Phil, of American Home Shield, told him the situation and asked if we should keep the refrigerator or have it taken away. He said that since it was old and probably couldn't be fixed that we should have it taken away. Phil said that he couldn't make any decisions on payment or reimbursement and would have someone call us back. Courtney called on Monday evening at 8:00 p.m., she said that her determination was that since we were informed that they had to have someone look at the refrigerator and try to repair it and that they weren't given a reasonable amount of time to try and effect repair that they weren't going to do anything to help us.

Our food was at a neighbor's house, which is really inconvenient when you have children who are always hungry and one who is hypoglycemic, requiring frequent food and drink. Our neighbors are orthodox Jewish people, therefore, on Saturday they observe Shabbat. Much of their day is spent at the synagogue and not at home. We were unable to access our food. Most of our plans for the day had to be cancelled waiting for calls from this company with information about someone coming to look at our refrigerator, which never occurred. Our old refrigerator was worth 1200.00, the refrigerator that we bought was 700.00. The policy has cost us 820.00 to date.