Incompetent Service

H

hukre

New Member
Jurisdiction
New York
A while ago I had a service man come to my house to repair a refrigerator which was not cooling anymore, and he replaced a part.
After a couple of months, the refrigerator stopped cooling again. I called him back and he proposed to replace that same part again. He stated that there is no warranty on the part or the labor and I would have to pay for both again. I told him no, because I lost confidence in him, and he left.
I then had a refrigerator service company come and fix the problem. The service technician said the problem was elsewhere and the part which the previous service man replaced was not the problem and was working just fine.
Now I got a bill from the first service man for for his second visit. I called him and told him I that I paid him for replacing a part which was working and I was not not willing to pay him for his second visit because he didn't fix the problem.
He then threatened that if I didn't pay his bill he would put a lien on my house and put me on a blacklist so no other service company in our area would ever visit my house if I had any kind of a problem.
Should I pay him for his second visit or not? Is he allowed to threaten me like he did? we are not talking about a lot of money, but his demeanor irked me to no end.
 
hukre said:
He then threatened that if I didn't pay his bill he would put a lien on my house and put me on a blacklist so no other service company in our area would ever visit my house if I had any kind of a problem.
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That is all frankly BS. Putting a fraudulent mechanic's lien on property is not only a crime but you can sue for damages. He must first send you a notice of lien and then perfect the lien.

The part about a blacklist is also BS because service companies want business. There is no blacklist.
 
welkin said:
That is all frankly BS. Putting a fraudulent mechanic's lien on property is not only a crime but you can sue for damages. He must first send you a notice of lien and then perfect the lien.
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Don't be so quick about this. Saying "I'm going to put a lien on your house if you don't pay" may, in fact, be a legitimate threat. Of course, he'd have to follow the steps to do so...that's part of the process.

The part about a blacklist is also BS because service companies want business. There is no blacklist.
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I would generally agree with this, with that caveat that some small-towns might work differently.
 
hukre said:
A while ago I had a service man come to my house to repair a refrigerator which was not cooling anymore, and he replaced a part.
After a couple of months, the refrigerator stopped cooling again. I called him back and he proposed to replace that same part again. He stated that there is no warranty on the part or the labor and I would have to pay for both again. I told him no, because I lost confidence in him, and he left.
I then had a refrigerator service company come and fix the problem. The service technician said the problem was elsewhere and the part which the previous service man replaced was not the problem and was working just fine.
Now I got a bill from the first service man for for his second visit. I called him and told him I that I paid him for replacing a part which was working and I was not not willing to pay him for his second visit because he didn't fix the problem.
He then threatened that if I didn't pay his bill he would put a lien on my house and put me on a blacklist so no other service company in our area would ever visit my house if I had any kind of a problem.
Should I pay him for his second visit or not? Is he allowed to threaten me like he did? we are not talking about a lot of money, but his demeanor irked me to no end.
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It's possible for a defective to present similar (or the same) symptoms as another defective part. It's also possible for a defective part to damage parts that are "down stream". It's my opinion that you should pay the guy for his second visit because you approved the work and he did the work.
 
Zigner said:
It's my opinion that you should pay the guy for his second visit because you approved the work and he did the work.
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The service guy did not do any work on the second trip and OP did not approve any work.

If OP wants to pay anything I would suggest paying for his time for travel and nothing more.
 
welkin said:
The service guy did not do any work on the second trip and OP did not approve any work.
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I stand corrected.

If OP wants to pay anything I would suggest paying for his time for travel and nothing more.
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Agreed - that's usually considered a "service call" and (I suspect) that's what the OP is being charged for. In my neck of the woods, that would be from $75-$125 and is usually waived if they do the repair.
 
hukre said:
I then had a refrigerator service company come and fix the problem. The service technician said the problem was elsewhere and the part which the previous service man replaced was not the problem and was working just fine.
Now I got a bill from the first service man for for his second visit. I called him and told him I that I paid him for replacing a part which was working
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I think it's important to point out that repair guy #2 couldn't possibly have intelligently told you whether the part that repair guy #1 replaced was or wasn't working. Repair guy #2 never inspected the fridge while the original replaced part was in place, so he can't possibly have known whether or not it was working. The only thing that repair guy #2 could have intelligently told you is that the new part that repair guy #1 installed was still working.

hukre said:
Should I pay him for his second visit or not?
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No one here has sufficient information from which an informed opinion about this could be formed. Here's what we know:
  • Your fridge stopped cooling.
  • Repair guy #1 replaced a part in your fridge.
  • This apparently solved the problem because the fridge apparently worked again for "a couple of months."
  • The fridge stopped cooling again.
  • Repair guy #1 came out again and inspected and made a recommendation that you declined to go with.
  • Repair guy #2 came out and told you that the new part repair guy #1 previously installed was working and that something else was causing the problem, and then proceeded to fix that something else.
Here's what we don't know:
  • The terms under which repair guy #1 made his second visit -- i.e., by calling him out, did you expressly or impliedly agree to pay for his time?
  • How much $$ is at issue.
  • Whether there is anything to the "blackballing" threat.
  • Whether you are likely ever to need an appliance repair person at any time in the foreseeable future (I've been an adult for 3.5 decades and have only once ever needed an appliance repair person).

hukre said:
Is he allowed to threaten me like he did?
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If you're asking whether the "blackballing" threat was a crime, the answer is no. As far as the lien threat, there's no basis for it, so if he follows through, then you'd have a valid legal claim, but I think it's unlikely that will happen.
 
Thanks to everybody who read and replied to my thread. To make it short, I left out a few details which I didn't think were important. Hereafter are some more items to consider:
Repair guy #1 came in and on his first visit, he said that the evaporator fan wasn't running and need to be replaced. The evaporator fan is mounted on a evaporator cover, so he ordered it and came in to install it. When he removed the existing ev. cover, it showed that the fan was totally iced up, preventing the blades from moving.
After he left, I took the old ev. cover in my shop and after de-icing it, bench tested the fan and it was working properly, at high and low speeds. After that, the initial problem returned, and we de-iced the area near the fan about every two weeks to keep it running. After a while, we said this is ridiculous and we called guy #1 back. He said he couldn't hear the fan running and said he needed to replace the ev. panel again with a new one because this fan was bad also and there was no warranty on the ev. panel nor the installation labor. It was at this point that we told him no, and he left.
Guy # 2 then came. He de-iced the ev. cover area with a steamer and removed it, found out that there was nothing wrong with the fan but replaced three small parts of the drain system which he said are usually the cause of the problem. He then re-installed the ev. cover he removed, and the refrigerator has been working properly ever since his visit.
Several weeks after that, I get a call from Guy #1 telling me that I never paid him for his second visit. Told him that he never ask for any payment and I never got a bill; also that he never fixed the problem, that I paid him several hundred dollars for his first visit where he replaced a part which didn't need to be replaced, and that I felt I didn't owe him anything. He then made the threats I was describing, and he sent me a written bill for $91.80.
 
Pay the $91.80 for the service call and be glad that you found a more knowledgeable service tech.
 
hukre said:
I left out a few details
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Now we know one of the four things I said in my prior response that we didn't know. It remains impossible to assess this for purposes of the legal issue.

I doubt anyone is going to sue, and I doubt the repair guy is going to file an illegal lien over $100.
 

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