Martin Frické
8 years ago
Is this a scam? You be the judge. Arico ‘snaked’ my septic inlet because of root troubles. They recommended further preventative treatment with RootX. RootX’s active ingredient is Dichlobenil, and Dichlobenil works well. I usually do this treatment myself using Roebic, which is also Dichlobenil (and Roebic can be bought from Ace, Home Depot etc. for $18 for a one pound treatment). On this occasion, I thought I’d let the Arico plumber do it as the two of us were standing around. Treatment usually amounts of pouring the powder, about a mug full, into a toilet and flushing the toilet. In this case the powder was poured into the open pipe and a little water added. It takes about 5 seconds and no skill in either case. For this component of my bill, Arico later revealed that they wanted to charge me $96.20, including tax. Now, they are free to try to charge what they like, but for a proper contract they need to disclose the charge in advance or have a charge that is right or fair or proper. I googled ‘RootX’ and you can buy it online under $30 for two pounds, with no shipping charges.
Is this good service? You be the judge. I phone Ted/Tom in the office at Arico and suggested to him that he should reduce my bill for RootX to the market price of it (which he can check by Googling it). After consulting with the owner of Arico he got back to me with the statement that if I took in a 2 pound container of RootX they would refund me what was on my bill for this item. I asked, incredulously, ‘you are going to make me come to you’. ‘Yes’, was his reply (passive aggression at its best). So, I ordered RootX online, got the container for $30 and took it in to them and Tom/Ted gave me $96.20 for it.
Is this fair dealing? You be the judge. Arico have a minimum charge for a callout of two hours labor. On their website it says that if the job takes less than two hours the plumber would do other plumbing jobs as needed until the two hours was reached. My job took about an hour. But the plumber did not tell me of Arico’s policy and I did not know of it until later when I read their website in detail. I had plenty of other plumbing jobs for them, my irrigation system needed work. Arico were paid for two hours when they did only one hour work. When I later mentioned this to Ted/Tom, he demurred.