Matty's Appliance Service

It is with regret that I write something like this. I would much rather write on a positive issue than a negative one (see my comments on Hunters Heating & Air and Southeast Plumbing Repairs for two very reputable service contractors). However, in events such as the one that has taken place, I feel it a duty to warn others. On May 2nd, our family?s dryer stopped working. The next day, May 3rd, I made a phone call to Matty?s Appliance Service and explained the situation to Matty who answered the phone. I explained to him that my first concern was whether or not it would be more efficient to just buy a new dryer and skip the service call. He asked a few questions and stated that he knew what it was, it would be a simple fix, and he would order the part and be by within a week to fix the dryer. By the 11th of May no one had phoned or came by, so I made another call to check on the status. This time my wife and I spoke w/Matty?s wife who told us that she would check into it. The 13th of May came and still no response, so we called once again and were told the same thing by Matty?s wife. By now, I am sure that you can imagine the complications of no dryer, but we were trying to be patient and understanding. Another difficult laundry weekend came and went, so on Monday the 16th of May with still no word on the situation, we made another call. This time the wife answered the phone again and said that the part was on back order and should take no longer than a week. We gave it another week and called on the 24th of May and were told, with no further explanation or concern, that the part was still not in. It takes a whole lot to get my wife upset, but by this time it was wearing on her. Each and every phone call we made up to this point we were treated hastily with no explanation, which we found to be very rude. Two days later on the 26th of May my wife did some research and found Matty?s cell phone number, and we called it. It was an odd and frustrating conversation because we had to explain the entire situation. Even more bizarre was the fact that he told us that he was not aware of any of this but would look into it and call us back. That afternoon he called and stated that there had been a misunderstanding between him and his wife. From the conversation it appeared that neither Matty nor his wife had EVER even talked about any of this from the 3rd to the 26th of May. However, he did apologize and stated that he would have the part rushed. It was at this time that my wife and I discussed calling another service, but by now we thought for sure that Matty would offer some sort of discount and rush this job, so we decided to keep our commitment to Matty?s Appliance Service. One week later, June 1st, we called and were told that the part had come in and Matty would be out the next day. The next morning, June 2nd, Matty finally arrived at our home. This was the first time we had seen Matty since we made the first call May 3rd, one month earlier. Matty then told us that there was more wrong with the dryer and that he would have to order another part. I have to admit, by now I wanted to throw him out on his rear. He had an entire month to come out and know this, but insisted he knew the problem on the phone. However, since we kept thinking there is no way he is going to charge full price, and surely he will take care of us by now, we continued with our commitment to Matty?s Appliance Service. Never hearing from him we left a week later for vacation. June 10th came and while we were away from our house on vacation Matty showed up to fix the dryer. Thankfully, the grandmother was there. On this day, Matty came into the home and finally fixed the broken dryer ? 5 weeks after the first phone call. It took him a total of 30 minutes to fix. We were overcharged $53.00 for a roller kit, and $38.50 for a thermal cut off kit ? the two parts waited on for 5 weeks because of their miscommunication. I say overcharged because from what I found on the internet and shopping locally, we were overcharged by at least double for these parts. Obviously the overcharging of the parts was to pay for the rush order shipping for their mistake in miscommunication. The parts charge plus his time and labor, he had the audacity to leave a bill for $184.46 total. After returning from vacation and taking a few days to gather research, my thoughts, and patience, I made a phone call on the 21st of June at 11:30am. I was told by the wife that he would call me back. It was 8:00pm when he called back that same day. It is quite odd how quick a response can be when there is money involved. As I answered the phone I attempted to explain that I was having trouble understanding the bill. I very humbly informed Matty that in our opinion the service took too long to complete, there was a misunderstanding between him and his wife, and the ending bill did not fit the beginning question because a new dryer in that model would have been a better value than the bill itself. I tried explaining that some sort of discount might be called for. However, during the entire conversation Matty would not hear any of this. I felt ignored the entire conversation. During my humbled, challenging effort to explain the entire situation from our customer viewpoint, I was cut short several times with heavy tones of anger. The end result of a very frustrating and rude conversation on his part was simply met with the statement that he was ?too busy to deal with this @#!*!? It was at that point that I informed Matty that he would receive the payment in full, but it would be about as rapid and considerate in response as I found his service to be. There are other options in our area for service, and I plan on using them before ever calling on Matty?s Appliance Service again.