Florentine Sqs
map-marker Greenwood Village, Colorado

THE WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE ON THE PLANET!

Updated by user Jul 18, 2013

I am posting an update to the review I posted last night. I was very angry and upset with how I was treated by one of the owners of the company.

I do feel that he could of handled the situation much better than how he did, I can only be responsible for my own actions. In the future I will wait and calm down before I react to what had happened. In all fairness what happened to me with Steel T Heating and A/C was just my experience, others may have had an excellent experience. I truly believe in "karma" and with that statement, I felt I needed to explain my actions.

Today, in business it's ALL about customer service, and without that people today will just give their business and hard earned money to another company. There is so much competition out there today that the ONE thing that sets ALL businesses apart is their customer service!

Original review Jul 17, 2013

I hired Steel T to to a major job on fixing our A/C issues in our home. They did the job and we paid them.

Years later I found out that some of the fixes this company did were not correct. This was brought to our attention from another Hvac company that we called because water was leaking from our ceiling. I though that I would give Steel T Heating and A/C a chance to make things right. Well let me tell you what a bad idea that was!!!

I spoke to one of the owners and he would not even let me finish a full sentence before going down my throat about how wrong I was and how everything they did was correct and 100% up to code. I no longer could take the verbal abuse and hung up! Buyer beware!!! I still cannot figure out how this business can be in business today when they treat their customers this way?

Today especially is ALL about customer service and it does not matter if the customer is right or wrong " the customer is always right". Well, with this company the customer is ALWAYS wrong!!!

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Loss:
$2000
Anonymous
map-marker Englewood, Colorado

HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!

It was getting really warm in Colorado so we decided purchase a new air conditioner from Steel T Plumbing and Heating. They were the company who installed our furnace so we wanted to take advantage of the "customer loyalty" discount they give for returning customers. I had a very cordial exchange with a man named Stephen through the quote process and we very happy they were able to schedule us an appointment within the week. Stephen was even nice enough to knock off $200 since we had already ran the electrical line.

I did make the mistake of waiting until the last minute to do financing. I will admit this was my mistake, but since the application for financing could literally get approved the day of, a nice woman named Erin assured me it was not a hugh problem - just probably frustrating on their end, which is totally understandable.

The customer-company relationship took a turn for the worse when the nice man installing our AC unit asked me to sign my final receipt. The quote we were given was $3,967 with the $200 discount for the electrical. The receipt i signed had a different amount to it and we didn't even notice until my husband got home form work and was reviewing the receipt. The amount on our final receipt was $2,967. A huge difference from the price we were expecting. We assumed that they must have given us a discount for already having the AC lines wired in the house. THe original quote was for 8 hours of labor and the installer was at our home only about 3.5 hours.

Instead of signing and sending in the financing paperwork that was mailed to our home, I decided to ask the company for clarification. We had been told different prices all throughout this process. It started as $3,967 and dropped to $3,767 when i was informed we would get $200 off for the electrical. Then we got a final receipt for $2,967 and the financing paperwork came in at $3,967!

Can anyone else see how this can be confusing and need clarification?

So that's exactly what i did. I asked for clarification, explaining that we assumed the price was reduced because of the AC lines already being in place. I WAS NOT trying to cheat the company out of their money, I was simply CONFUSED with all the prices i was being given!

The reason I decided to file a complaint on this website AND with the CO BBB is because I got the most ridiculous call from Stephen this morning.

Instead of calling and handling this situation with good customer service and like a gentleman, Stephen argued with me. He said "You agreed to pay the price we quoted you and that's that". He flat out accused me of trying to stiff his company! What kind of customer service is that?

I tried very hard to be cordial but his defensive attitude and accustory language made me get defensive and angry as well. We had a 3 minute shouting match where he ended up admitting he wrote down the prices wrong, but still insisted I was trying to cheat his company. HE ADMITTED TO WRITING DOWN THE PRICE WRONG! How is that my fault. Why did I deserve to be shouted at on the phone about a mistake that HE made?

This could have been handled in a much less escalated way, but his rude attitude and absolutely abhorrent customer service has angered me so much that I will not be keeping my mouth shut about how awful his company's service is. He has turned an advocate for his company into an absolutely pissed off consumer who felt embarrassed that he had the nerve to accuse me of being a cheater.

If you do decide to go with this company, don't expect them to follow "the customer is always right" motto!

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agtucker T
map-marker Aurora, Colorado

Horrible Service - Shady A/C Company

Steel T came out to diagnose an issue I was having with an AC unit and blew out the compressor during diagnosis. They then refused to resolve the issue. While they were diagnosing things the tech specifically stated it wasn't the compressor after he checked it out and the readings were all good. He then continued to test things. While testing, or whatever he was doing, he changed out my fuses to non-standard ones and somehow shorted/arked the line and blew out the compressor. After which he then packed up his stuff and left, leaving me with a quote of $1500 for a new compressor. Thinking something was off, I called another company out to look at it and possibly fix the problem. They told me that they would not do any work on the unit because Steel T blew out clips and caused a short somewhere that could likely result in the same thing happening again. As I have never seen a company turn away business in such a manner I immediately called back Steel T.

They, instead of coming out and resolving the issue, chose to try to up sell me into a new AC unit. They also offered reducing their fee for a new compressor by 20%, a compressor that they blew out. While on the phone with the owner he chose to ramble on for over an hour about how their techs don't make mistakes and that these things happen. However, after discussing the matter with 4 more HVAC professionals from different companies, I have discovered that, as I suspected, this shouldn't happen if the diagnostics are done in a particular manner. When they are done the way Steel T has done them, there is the chance of a blow out and when that happens, the company should replace the unit, no charge. As the compressor was not blown when they arrived, they should've known what to do or what not to do.

When I told them I had outside bids on a compressor replacement – since it was now August and I needed it fixed - that were far cheaper than what they had offered, they simply badmouthed the competition and said you get what you pay for. Well in this case, I paid Steel T to diagnose what was wrong with my AC unit. Instead of getting what I paid for, I got a unit that doesn't work at all and an up sell of $1500 in labor. Rediculous!

As a longtime businessperson within Colorado for over a decade I expect more out of the service companies I call. Mistakenly breaking someone's AC is one thing - assuming that is what happened and it wasn't purposely blown out - but to not acknowledge the mistake and to try to charge someone $500 an hour to repair the mistake is yet another. I will not stand for it.

The AC unit has been repaired by another company since, and at this point I can only hope that my words here help others avoid the ordeal I went through with a very suspect and poorly serving Steel T Heating, Inc. As there are many options out there for AC and Heating services, avoid Steel T, no matter the price, no matter the circumstance. It will cost you far more than what you expect.

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Loss:
$1500
4 comments
Guest

Steve Reister is Pres. of Steel T and is a liar and is about the most unreliable human being I've ever met!

He says one thing and does another -- Leaving me to wonder how the company stays in business. :(

Guest

As expected Steel T didn't address any concerns and would rather spend time debating the obvious and confirmed validity of my complaint over the internet than to even attempt to contact me to resolve the issue they caused. I have said my piece and now can only hope that it did some good. AVOID STEEL T AT ALL COSTS, or it'll cost you a great deal, as it did me.

Guest

Christopher from Steel T stated that they offered to reduce the costs of installing a new copressor at a significant discount, (20%) which is true. What he failed to mention was that his bid was almost twice that of any other company and therefore his "discount" to make me happy didn't even get his company - who broke the thing in the first place - equal with his competitors bids.

He laso stated that the competitor I had initially bid the repair didn't have an account with Carrier, which was complete bull. All you need to have an account is to go to the warehouse and sign up using a license, as I confirmed later. And as I said, I had three others come out and tell me the same thing - that they should've repaced it becuase they broke it, by diagnosing it improperly. They all said the same thing, and they ll were from companies I called out of the phone book.

Why would I agree to have one of his friends come out and tell me something I already heard from him? Why would I trust a company to send out another "company" to confirm what they told me over the phone? Do they think I'm that ***? Of course they do.

Instead of them sending out their friends, I called 4 other companies, three more after they trashed on the first one, to confirm my fears, that STEEL T IS A SHADY COMPANY! They arked my system, blew out my compressor, and failed to repair/replace it...and it was even under warranty. A job that took another company a matter of minutes of actual work to repair - granted they were here standing around for another 2 hours while they waited for everything, but regradless minutes of actual labor - Steel T was trying to make me pay $2300 to repair or replace...AFTER THEY BROKE IT!

If I were you I would avoid this company as best you can. Go with someone else, it's ust not worth the headache or cost.

Guest

We have done everything we can to make this customer happy including offering to pay a reputable competitor to come out and validate our diagnosis. If we are wrong I told him i would replace the entire unit free of charge.

He refused and said he trusted the contractor that came out and said we caused the failure. The contractor who said we caused the issue is not a factory recognized dealer and we can't even find them in the phone book. He told them he was not even comfortable fixing the issue because he didn't know if it would work. No reputable qualified contractor would say that.

I offered to not only replace the compressor at a discounted rate but to even extend the labor warranty the three years he had left with the manufacturer to give him further piece of mind.

We didn't cause the issue but showed him what was wrong and how to fix it. It is a very unfortunate situation and I understand why he is upset but there is nothing more i can do if he won't let me fix the problem or at least have a good contractor validate our diagnosis.

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