DENVER — When an HVAC contractor came to Bernadette Romero’s mother’s home in July for routine air conditioning maintenance, she said he asked her to come down to the basement to take a look at something.
Romero said when she walked near her water heater, she saw a pool of water on the floor. The contractor from Jurassic Home Services suggested the heater be replaced. He also recommended updating galvanized pipes in the basement to newer PEX material.
The contractor from Jurassic Home Services wrote up an invoice for $6,500 to replace the water heater and replace the pipes. Then Romero said he suggested Romero’s 75-year-old mother pay the entire amount up front.
“She asked him if she could give him half now and half when he was done,” Romero said. “And he said no, that he needed it all at once.”
Romero said the contractor suggested the water heater needed to be fixed immediately and that he could replace it within a week. But she said at first the company cancelled an appointment because they didn’t have the tank in stock. Then they cancelled because of staffing issues.
“There's been several appointments that they've either no-call and no show or they've called and rescheduled,” she said. “There was just an appointment back on Oct. 22 that they didn't show up for and they didn't call. We had to call them.”
Romero called Steve On Your Side this week, some three and a half months after her mother made that payment.
Her tip came the same day as Jolene Richardson, who contacted Steve On Your Side after she paid Jurassic Home Services $6,500 in advance for some work on her chimney flue. She said the company cancelled the day of her appointment because a technician had an emergency root canal.
By e-mail, Richardson told Steve On Your Side that she started researching Jurassic Home Services, which previously went by Jurassic Air, LLC. She found the company had an F rating with the Better Business Bureau and other online reviews of customers complaining of similar delays from cancellations by the company.
Richardson contacted the company to cancel the work and has been fighting to get a full refund for the last three months.
It’s not typical to pay up front
Meghan Compton with the Denver Chapter of the Better Business Bureau said most in the HVAC industry doesn’t ask for full payment up front.
“The risk of paying upfront for these services is that the work isn't done yet,” Compton said. “You're really putting your trust in the person who runs the business that they're going to do what they say they're going to do, and we always hope that they are, but especially in this industry, it's not typical to ask for 100% upfront.”
“You do run a risk of potentially either losing your money or maybe not getting the services installed in the time frame that you need, because you've already paid”
Compton said the BBB also suggests getting three quotes for any HVAC work you need done at your home and research a company’s online presence, including Better Business Bureau complaints before you sign on with them. And when you do enter into an agreement with a contractor, the BBB suggests you make sure that agreement lays out the scope of work and a timeline for completion.
A promise to do better
Steve On Your Side found the company, Jurassic Air, LLC and its owner Ronnie Cordova have had at least three civil judgements against them with customers complaining of similar problems. Work that wasn’t done after they paid the company up front.
Cordova told 9NEWS Consumer Investigator Steve Staeger that he’s fallen behind on business for a number of reasons – illness and staff retention among them.
“We just got a little bit behind on a lot of work, and that's, that's one of the biggest things, but we're going to get better at it and just keep it going and make sure that we stop rescheduling people,” Cordova said by phone.
He also committed to a change in his pricing policy.
“I'm going to make a new policy now that we're going to start taking half up front, and then half of them are complete,” he said.
Hours after first contacting him, Cordova drove to Richardson’s home and hand delivered a cash refund for the chimney work she cancelled.
And a day after Steve On Your Side reached out, a crew arrived to install the Romero’s water heater and finish the piping work.
“We just have to be a better company,” Cordova said. “I know that we're a lot better than what inspired what happened, but we'll make sure that we do better moving forward.”
In this story alone, Steve On Your Side helped consumers recover $13,000. If you have a consumer problem you want our team to investigate, click this link to send us a tip.