American Home Shield Home Warranty Plan Review

We live in the Arizona desert.  We've been sitting here for five days in 112-degree heat with a broken air conditioner.  The American Home Shield contractor came out, decided the issue was "lack of maintenance," said he "didn't have time" to do (chargeable) maintenance for us, took the co-pay, and left.

We paid for an independent serviceman, who actually examined the unit and found that the 27-year-old drip pan had finally corroded away (which he stresses is an age issue, not maintenance) and water is pouring into the electrical section, causing a shock and fire hazard.

We've called AHS repeatedly to get them to send out a technician who will actually do something, but the story is always "fax us this receipt," "none of my supervisors are available to talk with you," "we don't have any record of receiving your papers," "my supervisor didn't leave me any instructions," "I was out two days this week," and (my favorite) "I'm not the person you talked to before, so why are you all bent out of shape?"  (112-degree weather will do that to you, baby.) They claim they have only one AC contractor in the Phoenix area, the 6th largest metropolitan city in the US -- is that credible?

Finally, we were given to "Danielle," whose specialty is to interrupt whatever you are saying, and then drone on and on, repeating excuses she has told you five times before, and not allowing you to even get a word in edgewise. When you call her on that, she says she's "not going to be talked to like that," threatens to end the call, then proceeds to drone on and on some more.

We're planning to call Johnson Bottini LLP, who just won a class action suit against AHS for this same kind of obstructionism.