(Newswire.net — June 7, 2013) Mesa, AZ — As temperatures begin to rise, Mesa, Arizona homeowners contemplating the maintenance of their air conditioners are being advised to remember the old adage, ‘if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.’ The warning comes from Sam Bigger, owner of Air Conditioning Pros, an industry expert who isn’t afraid to speak out against the sham practices some companies are employing to trick customers into spending big.
Recently daily deal sites have become extremely popular. Consumers are enticed by the promise of amazing discounts, but the volume of scam complaints has exploded. The daily deal format is great for many things, but isn’t necessarily right for all services, yet that hasn’t deterred some less scrupulous operators from scamming the public.
Bigger explains: “In the search for a bargain, it’s all too easy for buyers to get carried away, overlooking even the most basic precautions. This became a specific problem for my air conditioning business in Salt Lake City first, and to a lesser degree later in Mesa, AZ, www.airconditioningmesa.org, when we found we were competing against other air conditioning companies selling AC/heater checkups for just $29 through deal sites. The price was so low, it looked suspicious right away.”
“The Better Business Bureaus started getting tons of complaints. Instead of sending out a qualified service technician, many were sending out salesmen that somehow always managed to find something wrong and always had a reason why someone else would have to return to make the repair, running up homeowners’ bills in the process.”
“This deal site method can certainly be a legitimate way for honest Air Conditioning contractors to offer an AC checkup for 70-80% off to about 50 people in an attempt to gain their trust and be the one they choose later when they do have a problem. But if they are not limiting the number of deals they sell and you can see that they have sold over a thousand packages, then warning lights should be going off in your head.”
So what should a homeowner do? Bigger concludes: “I think the most important thing buyers can do is check out the company’s reputation online first. It’s obvious advice but headline grabbing pricing can be so attractive that people often throw caution to the wind. You can check out specific reputation ratings sites online to quickly see any bad reviews on a company. The one mentioned here only needs the businesses phone number to find their bad reviews online. When people leave good reviews they usually do not leave much detail as to things you would really like to know about a company. However, when people are upset, they will tell you how many cavities the repairman had and what they thought of his mother too.”
- Air Conditioning Pros Mesa is based at 2266 S Dobson Rd #200, Mesa, AZ 85202 and can be contacted on 1-480-331-8998.
- For interviews please contact: Sam Bigger via smb@airconditioningmesa.org or 1-888-361-7333.