American Home Shield Reviews

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.

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.

I called American Home Shield back to say that a hole was forming in it again and they said they would need to send someone back out. When the technician came, I told her she had been out before and had fixed my dryer previously. She looked at the same area again but didn’t explain what was wrong with it. She just said I would get a call back. When asked what was causing the issue, she repeated that I would get a call and then walked out. No follow-up was ever received after that. I called American Shield and told them I want to know what's going on with my dryer. Somebody got to fix it. They said my claim was denied because I abused the dryer. I have had it for 14 years so I asked what caused it to happen.

American Home Shield sent another company out and the technician said that because of the way my dryer was, it hits against the washing machine. So, I didn't have space between it. Even though the first technician replaced it, she didn't tell me that I needed to have space between it. The problem is, when she replaced it, it already had the damage on the wheels that were never aligned back. So, whenever she replaced the drum, it just went back onto the same cycle. The wheels and the belt weren't replaced. I also found out that the vent needed to be vacuumed out, and it was why I wasn't getting any heat. So, multiple things were going on with the dryer, but I wasn't told until the second company came out and explained that there was nothing that I was going to be able to do with this dryer now because it had run its course. It's old, and it's going to break eventually.

The second company was more straightforward. They explained that repairing it wouldn’t be worth it because it would likely break again, and it needed to be replaced rather than patched up. But it’s a washing machine and dryer set so I didn’t want to replace the dryer. They said I’m going to keep having the same problem. They gave an estimate for what the dryer was going to need to be replaced. They told me it was going to take time for these parts to come in, but there was no guarantee that once we replace them, it's not going to happen again because of the age and because of the damage that's already been done.

If the first technician had told me that, I would not have been going through this. Instead, she only took the dryer drum out during the first visit and didn’t say anything else. I gave it the benefit of the doubt and reduced the load size and temperature, but it still wasn’t working properly. I started making the load lighter because maybe I was putting too many clothes in the dryer. But my husband said we weren’t overloading it, since the dryer says it can handle up to about 10 towels at a time. So it didn’t make sense. It just kept breaking, and something inside was clearly worn out from age. It wasn’t heating, so even small loads like three or four t-shirts weren’t drying and I had to run it multiple times. It just kept running without drying anything, and I was wasting electricity.

When I asked for the reason why the claim was denied, I was told it was due to abuse and that I was supposedly putting sneakers in the dryer. I explained that I don’t put shoes in the washer or dryer at all. I clean those by hand. I was pissed off and I called American Home Shield to ask if there was anything else that could be done because I wasn’t sure what else to do. I shouldn’t have to go to a laundromat since this is exactly what I’m paying the service for. I was livid but I had to remember that American Home Shield is just licensing people out to contract these jobs. So, my being frustrated with them wasn't the problem. It was the original people I was supposed to be frustrated with.

American Home Shield sent me a quote of how much my refund would be if I wanted to get the dryer repaired, or if I just wanted to get a cash out. So, I said I would do the cash out because I took the advice of the people who told me to just replace it. American Home Shield told me how much it was going to be and I found an appliance store that had a dryer that was comparable to the dryer that I had. It had a scratch on it, but it was brand new, and I got it at a discount. I had a one-year warranty on a new dryer, and I still get the warranty with American Home Shield. Plus, I was able to put the dryer on my current pedestal. I’d recommend American Home Shield to anybody. They stand by their customers. But they have to be wary of the contractors. The money that American Home Shield gets from me monthly cannot equate to what I went through. The $25 I give them every month covers all of my appliances.

He was very nasty. He bumped into me on the way out. I called and spoke to the owner of the contractor company. He said that that was not the first complaint that he had. It was a Thursday or Friday and I had to wait till Monday. The owner said, "If I try to send somebody the next day, it's gonna be the same guy." The technician didn't get disciplined or fired for his behavior.

I tried to get in touch with somebody with American Home Shield. We had to wait for them to close it out before we could do anything but they sent somebody else. Come to find out, the piece between the ice maker and the door where it pours out was frozen the whole time. The second guy that came back was pretty decent. He ordered different parts and tried to fix what he could. He went to my mom's and stated the reason why it wasn't making any ice. He was very nice about it. He told me I wouldn't know for a couple days but it's been a couple weeks and there's still no ice being made.

I've had American Home Shield for years. I tell everybody they need to have American Home Shield if they're older and they have an older house. It has saved my life many times and saved me a lot of money. I've had them fix my washer, dryer, air conditioner, furnace, plumbing, and dishwasher. When it came to my central heat and air which is from the 80s, they have fixed every part on it with no problems. I don't get a new system because in the summer, you could store meat in the living room. I don't think I'll find one that that is that powerful. The house has 15 rooms. I keep the same one, and they've been able to keep it going for me when I need it.

American Home Shield does good with everything except for garage doors and refrigerators. Every time there's a problem with the refrigerator or the kitchen appliance, it's hit or miss. It's very difficult if you're not satisfied with the services. The one time I had a guy to come and do my garage door was another thing. My garage door wasn't closing. He told me my sensors were bad, and that I needed to get new sensors. He got in his van, disappeared and closed the ticket. The next thing I know, garage door coverage was removed from my coverage. Then the following year, it was put back. No one's been available to discuss that either. It's hard to talk to somebody live at American Home Shield about your coverages and what you wanna change. It's overly automated.

At 5:00 in the morning, I went back into the system and selected the earliest possible appointment again, which was that day. It didn't give the computer enough time to reset, figure out and postpone it again. So, the guy showed up. He said the part wasn’t necessary and he was able to clean out the existing pump mechanism. The washing machine has worked happily ever after. That first service call was by a guy who was not competent enough. Because if the second guy had come the first time, I never would have had to put up with all that hassle and delay.

I don't wanna do without American Home Shield but I've had other frustrations. I had a toilet that was smelling and I couldn't figure out how to get rid of the smell. So, I reached out and said I need a service call for the toilet. And they said okay and took their $100 fee. But when the plumber arrived, he said they don't do smells. It was the first time I heard about it. If there's something having to do with the toilet that they don't do, then they should say they do everything except smells. I went back to American Home Shield and told them I wanted my $100 back. They said no to that and that it wasn’t their fault that the contractor doesn’t do smells. I understand that things happen. Nothing is perfect. But I was shocked that they would not give the $100 back.

I've recommended AHS to neighbors and family members. And we have a condo at the beach that’s old enough now and I'm considering signing it up. Plus, when my son moved into a townhouse in Gaithersburg, which is a town near where I live, as a housewarming gift, we gave him a year's worth of the warranty with AHS for his benefit. So, I appreciate the service. Most of the technicians who come are excellent and courteous too. They tell me what they're doing. It would be nice if they would give me the same contractor.

Recently, I had a plumbing problem under the kitchen sink and historically, AHS always sent United Air Temp. They were spot-on. But this time, when I had a leak under the kitchen sink, they assigned me to this other company. On the day that he was supposed to come, I got a call from the company saying the technician called in sick. I asked if they only got one guy and they said they only have one who comes to my area. They called me the next day and said the technician had to go to the hospital and so I asked to be released from them so I could get someone in here.

Finally, that guy came the following Monday. He was excellent, so I don't hold it against him personally. But if you don't get prompt servicing, then American Home Shield should have a mechanism to notice that or have me let them know. It might be good for them to send out a message to me within a certain amount of time, such as 48 hours, and ask about the status. AHS is a needed and wanted service. It’s generally well executed with some flaws that could be improved. But I'm not dumping them. Also, when we started with them, the monthly fee was less than $100. It's now $159 a month. And that rankles a little bit.