American Home Shield Reviews

D & B was supposed to come out as a plumber to take a look at the leak caused by the first company that tried to install the dishwasher. They set a time with me to come out on a Friday, but I had to cancel it on Sunday because I got called into work for a Monday appointment. It was over 24 hours in advance notice to reschedule, but the guy still came and they charged us. I called American Home Shield and they refunded me the money. The company has two owners, D and B. Dennis was the one I originally scheduled with, but B was the one who showed up. He said it would have been better if they had been informed about the reschedule. But they still told American Home Shield that they showed up. I said I gave them a 24-hour notice. I tried to call them myself to reschedule, and there was no answer. I left messages but there was no response to reschedule it.

The rep from American Home Shield couldn't help me and told me that I was gonna have to call back during business hours. They need to contact that company to see if what I was saying was true. I called back, and they said there was nothing that they could do. I got more help through the online texting service than I did over the phone, and the online reps showed more empathy. The people that American Home Shield sends out are a gamble. Some of them are good, but you don't know what you're gonna get when they come out.

The guy from the first company didn't speak any English. So, to tell him what was wrong, we had to type it up and then translate it into his language. Then you had to wait for that company to get the part. They came out but that didn't do anything. They ordered another part, but that still didn't fix it. So, we had another company come out. They were fantastic. They said we need a new dishwasher because repairing the control panel doesn't make sense. But we had to wait and take several days off work. Plus, we have to be home the whole day because these people will give you at least a four-hour time slot. And sometimes, they don't even show up during that time slot.

I had to take off a day off work to get the dishwasher in my house, and when it arrived, there was nobody scheduled to install it. It had to sit in my house because the company won't come out until you have it on your premises. When the installer came, he did not take away the old one. He said if it was still there the following week, he would come back later and get it. But he said the trash company will pick it up. It sat out there for several days and I got a letter from my HOA asking why I had junk sitting in the front yard. The trash man ended up picking it up. I'm glad my dishwasher’s working now. But it was a complete nightmare. Everything was resolved, but it took four phone calls, messaging, and hours of back and forth to get there. It was frustrating all around. The price is decent, but it took me four months to get one issue fixed. So, it was more of a headache than it's worth. Even though it's cheap, you get what you pay for.

He took the panel off the front of it and said there was nothing apparent there. But he didn't drain it or do anything to see if there was any residue or build-up. He knew we're selling the house and one of the things he did that I thought was questionable was he asked if we needed work done on the house other than the water heater. We told him we had an inspection done, and there were some things we needed to do. He gave us a card for a company and told us they'd give us a free estimate. We told him we already have a handyman that we can call. He told us it was a free estimate so we might as well have them come and check what we've seen to see if it's fair. It felt like he had a monetary interest in it.

We had these guys out, and the estimate that came through was mind-boggling. We hired a guy to go under our house, and he spent all day long replacing insulation and fixing a dryer vent from our dryer. There was a vent that had dropped and not connected right. He cleaned that out, and he vacuumed for hours under there to get anything off the crawl space and clean it up. $600 is what we paid him, plus we bought the insulation, and we bought him a hazmat suit so we're probably 800 into it. But this guy wanted $5,700.

We also asked the plumber guy very clearly, before this guy came out and gave us this horrendous kid, “Will you put in writing that you inspected the hot water system and it’s running fine?” He said he would do that but he left the house and never did. He said it would be on American Home Shield's website. I'd be able to pull up the report ‘cause he would give the report to them. But it's not. All American Home Shield did was put on that the service has been completed, but there are no results. I've called American Home Shield and they said they sent me an an email and they'd send it again. But the email, once again, just said the service has been completed.

I want something that I could show a buyer that says we've had the unit looked at and it's running fine. But we don’t have that, and that's more of a frustration with American Home Shield than it is with the plumber. The plumber was what the plumber was. If the guy did a bid to repair something, my guess is that information would probably be available. But if everything's fine, that information should still be available because I'm sure he had to make a report to American Home Shield. The way that the home warranty is supposed to work is that I pay the deductible, they pick the dude, and dude comes out. If something's broken or needs to be replaced, he lets them know, and they cover that.

I'm a real estate broker and I have sold these warranties for years to people. I have bought them for years for my clients. I just got an email this morning saying that one of my clients had their washer/dryer fixed thru American Home Shield. I also had a client who had to replace their whole HVAC system. My client thanked me for buying them the warranty as it saved them money. American Home Shield covers what we wanted covered and the price is very reasonable. I felt that it was very legit because I've seen it work but it was only a great experience until I had my own.

That was where things got a little dicey. This was not the first time that I've had trouble with the refrigerator breaking down. When the tech got here, I had made a little sideways comment like, "Hopefully, it's actually dead this time," so I can just get a new one. He took that information back and said, "I can fix the refrigerator, but she doesn't want me to." But that was not what I said. We didn't have a conversation and I know that’s not how things work. Friday, he left, and then Monday was a holiday. So Saturday, Sunday, Monday, I was without a refrigerator.

I called on Tuesday because I hadn't heard anything from American Home Shield or the contractor to find out what was going on, to figure out an update. The AHS rep that picked up the call let me know that they were going to put in a request for the contractor to contact me directly. But she didn't have an update for me. So I was very confused about what was going on.

I spoke to American Home Shield, and they said they were going to call and leave a message for him. I also called the last number that he had called me from to see if he could just call me and let me know what was going on since nobody had an update for me.

I did not get a call back from the contractor until after 4:00 pm on that Tuesday and he was not intending to come and fix the refrigerator. Because he told them he could fix the refrigerator, but I didn't want to. I wanted the replacement in lieu of repair. I did not necessarily say that. But then once he said it, I was like, “If that's something I can do, what does that look like?"

I've had several issues with this refrigerator. And even if it was just the cost of the repair that I was going to be paid to replace the refrigerator as opposed to fixing it again, I feel like I should have been given that option. When people call in for repairs, the technician comes and looks at it unless it's a situation where the technician is fixing it right then and there. If they have to leave and go order parts and all of those things, someone should call and say something, "This is what's going on. This is what we can do, and this is your other option." That did not happen.

Fast forward, once the contractor told me that, I called American Home Shield back and the person who answered the call this time around transferred me. I let them know what has happened so far. He said he was going to transfer me to the escalation team. The person from the escalation team was very rude. I let him know, "If I am coming off aggressively, I apologize. I'm just very frustrated at the moment because I feel like I'm being given the runaround."

After the last conversation, when I was told that if I wanted to get the money in lieu of repair, that was an option I would prefer to take. The guy from the escalation team was like, "We already approved for the technician to fix the refrigerator. So that is what's going to happen." I said, "I just spoke with him. He hasn't even ordered parts for the refrigerator. You're telling me that I have to wait for him to do all of that to come and fix my refrigerator? I do not want to do that." He said, “That's what's going to happen.“

I said, "Sir, I don't want to talk to you anymore. Please transfer me to your supervisor." He said he would not transfer me because he already told me what was going to happen. I ended the call, he called me back to continue to argue with me that I had no other options. I was like, "Are you serious right now? I don't want to talk to you. I've already stated what my issue is. I've already let you know how I would like to proceed. You will not transfer me to a superior, so I'll call back and someone else will transfer me. I do not want to talk to you."

I got off the phone again, I called back, I talked to someone else. While I was on the phone with this person this time, the technician called me and he said, "What's going on? Everybody's calling me." When I was on the other line, the person was saying, “We have to talk to the technician." The technician called while I was on the phone with American Home Shield. I asked the technician, I said, "Can you please hold for one second? Are you okay with me merging a call?"

I merged the call with American Home Shield and the technician. I said, "Everybody's on the phone now, so everybody can talk." Everybody had the same understanding about what was about to happen. We got on the call, and the technician said what his understanding was: that he was not coming to fix the refrigerator. American Home Shield said, "Okay. Well, you can get paid out in lieu of the repair. So I have to escalate it so they can calculate how much you're going to get reimbursed." I said, "Okay. If that's what we have to do, that's fine." It is Wednesday, and I still don't have the refrigerator.

After I spoke to the last person at American Home Shield, he sent me over something immediately within the hour for me to sign. And I ordered a refrigerator. I was like, "I'm just going to buy a refrigerator. Hopefully, they give me some money back." But I can't be here without a refrigerator. If I would have known that the repairman told them what he told them on that Friday, I would have ordered a refrigerator on Friday and tried to get it over the weekend. I thought that he was actually coming back to repair the refrigerator. I would not have waited for him to find out that information on Tuesday.

I appreciate the service of American Home Shield. Because if I didn't have the money and I did have to wait for the repairs, I would have done that. But I had the money and I consulted my family and we discussed it and everybody was like, “If you can afford it, just buy a new one. Because what happens next year?"

American Home Shield's deductible is $100. The refrigerator has broken down at least once every year for the last three years. So that's $300 that I'm out of pocket just to get it repaired over the last three years. My family was like, "Okay. So if you get it fixed this year and it happens next year, then what?" I spoke to the man who does the things for me to get the reimbursement and it ended up being $500 -some odd dollars that I got reimbursed because that was the cost of repair.

I called because, when the technician came to me that Friday, he was telling me, “This is what it is and it's going to cost about $600, almost $700 to fix the refrigerator." I was like, “That's crazy." I know parts are expensive and labor is expensive. I called American Home Shield after they gave me the specific amount that I would receive, because I just wanted to know how they got to that calculation and the technician said something different.

The person who explained to me what was going on was very nice. What she did was she refunded me my deductible that I paid because of the service that I experienced. In total, I got $650 in reimbursement for my refrigerator based on that experience.

I've been with AHS for a very long time, and that's the first time that it was horrible. And the fact that he wanted to argue with me, and I told him, "I'm ending the call. I do not want to talk to you anymore." I just hung up. But even when I was saying I'm ending the call, he was like, "You need to listen to me." And I was like, "Don't yell at me." Aside from that, I've never had a bad experience. Also, someone came out and looked at my dishwasher once, and then there was a leak in one of my bathrooms, too. All the time that I've been with AHS, those are the only things that I've ever had repairs on.

In the bathroom, there was a continuous drip on the hot water valve side, and he said they would have to cut a hole in the tile, take out the complete faucet system, and install a new one because there was no way to stop the water from continuing to run. I asked if it was not simply a matter of replacing it and that he has to identify the valve to solve the problem. He said they needed to take this whole faucet system out and install a new one. I knew that wasn't true. Then in the kitchen, he said that it was extreme negligence, that the faucet should have been replaced a long time ago, knowing that American Home Shield will not cover it if there is blatant negligence, which is understandable. The guy unstopped the main sewer with the cleanout that's on the back of the house and then told me that it was going to cost approximately two grand to solve the problems. I knew that wasn't true, so I requested a second opinion.

Another plumbing company came out and did exactly what I said and resolved the problem. They went into the cleanout that was already there in the laundry room and cleared out with a regular snake the stopped-up washing machine draining line. They went to the bathroom and replaced the hot water valve for the tub, and everything was fine. In the bathroom, the stopper assembly, when you pull up the ball to stop it up, it does not. And all that was required was a new stopper assembly. The point of the matter was that the individual did not come out with the intent of making the repairs unless it was something simple and easy. And what he recommended was overkill to solve the problem. The other plumber company that came out for the second opinion went right to it and knocked it out.

I've been with American Home Shield and have had multiple contracts for over 25 years. They are doing a better job at following up quicker, and continuing to do that would be a plus. The second opinion was a great avenue, which, in this case, as a customer, I didn't feel that the first plumbing company did me justice, and it was proven that they didn't. My experience over the years, in large part, is that American Home Shield is fair. The only negative thing is that their marketing department sells the contracts, but they don't have adequate technicians to provide timely coverage for the various problems, which is something I have complained about over the years.

The part of the organization that's responsible for recruiting licensed, qualified technicians isn't locking those down soon enough, and so the customer pays for certain problems to be resolved in various areas like plumbing, HVAC in particular, and electrical. They don't have enough contractors to respond in a timely manner and the customer has to wait as much as a week because the ones that they have are booked to the rim. That's not good because the customer is not paying to wait. The customer is paying for the peace of mind that when they have a problem, American Home Shield will provide technicians to address the problem in a timely manner.

For instance, my last experience was with my dishwasher and within a matter of minutes of the technician leaving, I ran it to make sure the heating element was working correctly. I stepped away while the cycle was running, not thinking anything of it, because I was just trying to get to the heating element part. When I came back into my kitchen, I slipped and fell in a huge puddle of water, which I wasn't expecting because I didn't have a water issue with my dishwasher. At that point, I was fumbling on who to call or what to do. I stopped the machine then tried to reach out to American Home Shield to ask them to get ahold of Sears, see if they could reach that technician, and send them back here. Unfortunately, it was right before the holidays or before Easter, so that didn't quite work out.

So far, I've yet to be able to run a full cycle because we got in the habit of hand-washing dishes. But this was recently repaired two days ago. So, today, I will make sure to run my dishwasher. The tech said that the heating element wasn't installed correctly the first time. But he assured me that all the water fittings were secure, so I shouldn't have water leaks now. But that makes me nervous, because then, I could face other issues with water leaks in my kitchen. So, we'll see.

Then, for my first claim for my dryer, it was pretty obvious that something had malfunctioned and caused several issues, but the technician wanted to first repair the motherboard. I'm no mechanic but that sounded like he wanted to do brain surgery when it was already a zombie. And that was what happened. So, it put me out of a dryer for two and a half months. I was dissatisfied because it was the holidays. I didn't have a dryer for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We're a large household and the laundry was piling up on me. It was causing marital issues between my husband and I when we argue on who would be doing the laundry.

I tried not to take it out on the customer service representatives, but there were times that I was getting a robotic response from them. But there was never an offer to redeem the situation. I even suggested for them to take my dryer to your shop and work on it as long as they want. I'd go pick one up from a rental center, because I needed a dryer. In the end, my dryer was replaced. American Home Shield sent me a link with options of what to select, and I selected one that ended up coming from Lowe's. It was delivered, installed, and now I'm happy. So far, I've had no issues with my new dryer. But getting there was a little frustrating. Anyone else would have given up. It took a lot to get to that point, including days off of work, rescheduling, a part that didn't come in, and the techs saying that they needed an additional part after installing one. It felt like a whirlwind.

John was the technician who came out before with my dryer and I appreciate him. He seemed very knowledgeable and he usually came back behind another technician. He has accommodated little things, too. For example, the first tech who came out for my dryer was George and he took it entirely apart, which was kind of mind-boggling to me. When he tried to put it back together, he was really having a hard time. So, it caused my drum to be disbalanced after that, and that wasn't originally the issue. Then, John came out and he said he was going to do his best to fix it back in place. And he did, which was what I was looking for. Someone to be a little more sensitive to the customer's needs, my needs.

Other than that, American Home Shield has been are very reasonable with their price. I also like the app and the video chat option. I've used it a couple of times and that feature is great because it allows American Home Shield to see what you're talking about. Sometimes I don't know what to call the problem and instead of trying to scratch my head and Google what I'm looking for, I use that feature.

You have no idea what people deal with in life. I already battle with several health issues. Dealing with something like this can really push someone over the edge. I'm a hard working mom. I swore an oath to the constitution for BOTH my jobs. I do what other civilians won't do. And I don't ask for anything in return. I serve and take things day by day. Of all people, why do this to me? Is it because I'm a woman? Is it because of my military career? Was it my race? What is it?

It is now day 12 and I still have no complete diagnosis from servlegacy that states what was actually inspected and the results. I deserve better. I pray to god no one else has my experience. I am working on terminating my warranty with American Home Shield and I will warn my neighbors in our community app and on ND about servlegacy. This is so sad. I'm in the process of contacting the state and county regarding AHS and servlegacy. This is so wrong how I've been treated like a criminal as if I'm trying to scam the system. This hurts bad.

But what they did was run the washer through a couple of cycles, and it did not make the noise. But I told them they didn't run it in the cycle that we normally use. But they dismissed that. And they got done with it and didn't find anything wrong. So, they got in a car to leave. We went to use the machine. They were still in the driveway, and it made the noise. I went out and told him. He said, “The American Home Shield will get with you on the next steps." So it was a very dissatisfactory process.

I complained to American Home Shield, and I told them I did not want him coming anymore or his company coming anymore because that was unsatisfactory. They offered to let somebody else come as a second opinion, but if the second opinion found the same result, I would be charged again for it. I said, “I’m just going to let it totally break down, and then y'all have to come and actually repair it."

I tried to be proactive when I started hearing the noise because it sounded like either a belt slipping or a bearing going bad. I don't know what's in the washer to do that, but, to me, it would have been better to fix that ahead of time instead of waiting till something totally messed up. But apparently, they don't feel the same way.

It was pretty easy to submit the claim. The only thing I don't like is that they want me to pay up front before they even send somebody out. And my old warranty company, before them, did not do that. They sent the repairman out, and I paid him the required amount. And I thought that was a better way to do it.