Victim Location 75025
Type of a scam Home Improvement
I found this company online when I was searching for a company to clean the air ducts in my dryer. I called the number and scheduled an appointment with the tech. They came out and all communication was handled via text and phone, they offered a special of $86.00. Once they were here, they said that I had a very “difficult” vent acces and therefore a hazardous fire condition, which required a payment of $800.00. They scared me saying that I had a very dangerous situation. I was able to lower the cost to $500.00.
Once finished, they stated that the inside and outside of the ducts were cleaned and the outside portion of the duct was a real ”mess” – that the cleaning had left it dirty and messy with everything they had vacuumed out. (When they left, I went to outside to clean the “mess” that they described, and to my surpsirse I found nothing!)
While they were still here, I wanted to make the payment via credit card but the tech said he needed to call the office to make the payment because he didn’t have a terminal with him. We called the office and made the payment with my credit card via phone. I requested a receipt and they said they would text me one. They did, but the receipt/invoice didn’t even have the company’s name or address on it. Additionally, once I received the receipt, the signature that appears on it is not my signature, which means they signed for me?
One week after they were here, the dryer was still not working properly. Thinking that something was wrong with the machine itself and not the ducts, I called Sears (the manufacturer) and asked them to come take a look at the dryer again (they had done so previously and had instructed I have a third party come clean the ducts). Sears inspected the dryer and came to the conclusion that the ducts needed to be cleaned. I told the Sears tech they had cleaned them a week ago and he said they were not clean.
I called the number on the receipt that was texted to me by Kleen Green again to inform them that the Sears tech had retested the dryer and that the readings indicated that the ducts were clogged. The person who answered for Kleen Green said that this number I was calling was their private number, and that the service had only had a guarantee of three days (which I was never informed of before), and that I would not be getting my reimbursement or another service.
I then called another company, which brought completely different equipment and actually cleaned the ducts this time. They confirmed the ducts had not been cleaned.