Roto-Rooter Plumbing & Drain Services

Reviews 3

DA

Dawn Worthy

I knew I was going to purchase a home that was built in 1920 last December. I was very familiar with the overall condition of the home so I began to shop for different services which I knew it would require. In January I purchased a voucher for Roto Rooter plumbing services for $149. When I did not follow up with Roto Rooter and make an appointment they sent me a message through the Angie’s List portal asking me to schedule a date. At that time, I told them I would be using their services at some time in the future and I explained the situation. At the end of May, I sent another email requesting to schedule an appointment on the day that I closed on my house. We scheduled for June 10th and a fantastic plumber showed up and did exactly what he was supposed to. My problem started with a site upgrade done by Angie’s List. Suddenly, my vouchers are no longer in my payment history. There is just a note telling me to call if nothing is there. I did and the entirety of the office was out attending a companywide event. I have 9 messages between Roto Rooter’s Cindy and CK Cooke and since they first contacted me when I didn’t immediately call to spend my voucher I just knew they had some information regarding my purchase. Little did I know I was about to become Roto Rooters vessel for repeated denials and incredulity. The anti-helpful customer service representative said she was going to help me. Her help: she would sell me a voucher from the Roto Rooter site for $40 against my $150 bill. According to the representative they have never talked to me before today despite my 9 messages from Roto Rooter employees and their call to me this morning to schedule for today. I go on to be accused of lying and trying to defraud Roto Rooter. So because they will not attempt to confirm the information I am telling them, I have to pay another $150 to the plumber along with being besmirched by multiple employees and the manager who was promised to call and resolve the problem never did. My problem is not that something went wrong; stuff happens. It is no one was willing to even try to confirm what I told them and everyone was willing to accuse me of lying despite having a representative in my home in front of my computer who could see the messages I was referring to. They did not want to fix it. Everyone was satisfied with the take an extra $150 solution. Do you have an extra $150 to pay because of someone else’s folly? If you do, no worries but I don’t and it hurt me. Addendum 06/16/16: This is my second review of this incident. Why then am I writing a second entry? Because in the course of doing business, sometimes bad things are going to happen; even the best businesses are going to have some unfortunate events which occur for any number of reasons and the measure of the business is not whether or not these things happen but what management does once they are aware of the situation to resolve the matter. The original incident occurred late in the afternoon on a Friday. To my surprise, bright and early Saturday morning I received a call from the Customer Service Manager apologizing for the problem and promising to handle it as expeditiously as possible. A few hours later, I received a call from the Regional Manager who apologized for the problem offered me a satisfactory settlement of the problem and assurance that the people involved would be re-trained regarding the issues that came up during my service call. I received a third call Saturday afternoon just to confirm that all of my needs had been met and that the situation had been resolved to my satisfaction. Further, they wanted to ensure that I would give them another opportunity to service my needs and I will. As I said, bad things are going to happen sometimes and the question is what you do about it. They went above and beyond during off hours to make sure that my service needs were met and my ancillary issues resolved. In the end, Roto Rooter hit this one out of the park.

TI

Tim Porter

Sunday morning, Fathers Day, getting ready to leave for church, and I hear a frantic "DAD!" behind me. I turn to see my 19 year old daughter in the midst of a total breakdown. "I think I just flushed my engagement ring down the toilet!, she said. It was at that point I realized Fathers Day was not going to be about me this year. I immediately went up to her bathroom and began piecing together what had just happened. After looking everywhere around the toilet, I removed the toilet and verified it was not be found anywhere I had access to. Considering that this ring contained a fourth generation heirloom diamond from her fiances family, I knew no stone could be left unturned. I was told by a family member that Roto-Rooter had a camera snake and might be able to see if it was somehow still in the plumbing system of the house. Within 2 hours of my initial call, I was talking to Dave who was ready to head our way. He was not as reassuring as I had hoped. After a brief conversation with my daughter who was on the phone with her soon to be mother-in-law, I was convinced that that job must be done and told Dave to head on out. About a half hour later, Dave is at my door with a new attitude. "We just have to believe that were gonna find it!", he said. He then proceeded to lug his gear into the upstairs bathroom. Within 5 minutes he had assembled his rig and was snaking the toilet drain. Two feet into the pipe, he declares, "Well there it is!!!" Sure enough, there sat her ring,diamond glistening, facing right at the camera. After a failed attempt to hook it with a piece of wire,Dave asked if we had a small wet dry vac. We did and withing a couple minutes we had it in place and ready to try. The first attempt only succeeded in pushing the ring a few inches farther away, but on the second attempt, Dave looked up with a start, nodded his head, and said, "I got it!!!" I opened the lid of the vac and there it was. I handed the ring to Dave and told him that he could give it to her. In the meantime, she had gone down stairs to take numerous phone calls. My daughter was convinced that the attempts to retrieve the ring had failed, so when Dave opened his hand up with the ring in it, my daughter burst into tears. I have to say that I believe she was happier when Dave gave her the ring than when her fiance had given it to her. As Dave lugged his equipment back to his van, he told me that he almost broke down himself. He said, "That made my day! Im gonna be smiling all the way back." Needless to say, we could not be more thankful to Dave and the Roto-Rooter company for accomplishing what I had thought impossible. Thanks Dave, Thank you so much!!!!!!

JE

Jeffrey Cole

My experience was so different from every review here, I have to wonder if the reviews are solicited or fraudulent. I called to have a plumber look at our gas water heater. It makes popping noises when heating, and some research tells me thats normal while other research says its a cause for concern. They told me theyd have someone out within an hour. It was almost 90 minutes later when someone showed up. No biggie. He was nice enough, but didnt even tell me his name (while most of the other reviews call out Techs by name and sometimes number). He didnt know why I had called, which makes me wonder if they even sent someone with water heater experience. I took him to the water heater and turned up the heat to force it to kick on. I told him the unit is 11 years old, but I dont want to replace it just for age because a wall will have to be removed to replace. He told me he had lots of experience "with this water heater," while waiting for it to start making noise. He then told me it wasnt good, and not normal, and that it should be replaced because its getting old. Never having looked at the brand, model, or manufacture date, he said, "So you say its 20 years old?" I reminded him I had said 11 years. He immediately started looking at the room around it and commenting on how difficult it would be to get the tank out. He took a picture of the wall I told him would have to come down, then went out to his van to check on something. Later he comes back to the door and tells me it isnt good and cant be fixed and asked if I wanted an estimate. He pulled out his cell phone and showed a picture of a partial price list water heater like mine for $1,920 installed, including tax. He then scrolled through other pictures on his phone showing me something new that had to be installed with it due to code changes this year. I couldnt understand what he called it because he was Vietnanese(?) and struggled with English. His "estimate" didnt take into consideration the wall that would have to be removed. Overall, I was disappointed that the responding "plumber" seemed to know more about trying to sell a water heater than diagnosing one. I find it odd that most other reviews list a Tech name and even ID#, and my Tech didnt even provide his name. Online reviews can be easily manipulated. Based on my experience today, this RR doesnt provide the great service that everyone seems to rave about. I would suggest choosing a plumber by getting a referral from a trusted friend rather than 90+ questionable online reviews. I wont be calling them again.

Other organizations