Joseph Gullett
2 years ago
BE WARNED AND READ TO THE END!!!! I wouldn't recommend this company EVER. We called JEA because our lights were flickering. They came out to check it out for us and were nice enough to leave us a door tag saying hey we shut your power off until you get your power meter box fixed. Here enters Colonial Electrical Services. They called and said all the right things but they cant get someone out that night. They said they would send someone first thing in the morning. I waiting until after 9 but no one showed. Got a text from the owner at 10:13 am saying the guys were on their way. I said Awesome Thank you. Do you know when they will call with an estimate. No reply. I went home at 2 to check on everything because I didn't hear anything. Work was done but no power and never got an estimate. I called JEA about getting my power on and they said the permit was never filed. I called Town of Orange Park and they confirmed the permit wasn't filed. When I was finally able to get ahold of the owner it was oh we filed it with Clay County because we didn't know. So because they are not good enough to look up the area the repair was in we had to spend another night without power. Thanks for that by the way. Finally the next day power gets restored and then the following Monday I get an invoice for $1,000.00. Seemed really high so I got estimates from 2 other electricians that came in around $500.00. When reviewing this bill I noticed that they charged me 6.5 hours for 2 men. On their way at 10:13 and gone by 2 seems more like 4 hours not 6.5. I didn't pay the bill because I wanted to talk to the owner first. When the bill didn't get paid the office manager started calling members of my family to get paid and then started asking if we even lived there or if the house was a rental. WOW. Called my family to get paid. I finally spoke with the owner about the bill and his reply was he has to pay his men from the time they leave the shop until they get back. I never in my life have heard of paying drive time to the electrician. I always thought you paid for the job but here I am paying for their guys to drive to my house and back to their shop as well. I told him the times didn't seem to add up so he went back and reviewed their GPS to find out that they weren't there that whole time so he was nice enough to take 1.5 hours off the bill. Goes to show you they are not truthful about their time billable time. When I asked about the no estimate he said the job was considered an emergency so they didn't need to provide an estimate even though I asked for one. I got the updated invoice and called today to pay with a credit card to find out their machine is down and they are in the middle of switching. So to pay with a credit card I'd have to get a cash advance or have them send a check. Par for the course with this company I guess. Their service is absolutely awful. So bad that my brother that recommended them didn't use them for the job that he needed done. That sad part is if they would have came out the first night and got our power restored like JEA said good electricians would have done I would have been more than happy to pay the $1,000.00 bill. But since their main objective is ripping off clients by overcharging them for time spent on jobs and using unethical collection practices by their office manager we spent 2 nights without power. Maybe they should spend more time learning their service area and where to file permits correctly and they wouldn't have to resort to such awful ways of collecting money.
And for full disclosure the first night JEA came out and installed a bridge that would allow half of our power panel to come back on. This half did not include the kitchen, washer or dryer, heat and AC, or hot water heater. So we did have lights and power in our bedrooms but nothing important worked.
