HomeSmart from Xcel Energy Minnesota

I try to get coverage on my appliances today and was told to call home smart. After calling homesmart I was informed that my account was internally canceled as of October 16th 2023 and that I have a bill of $608. I have never received a bill from home smart regarding this matter. I was really confused because I get my mail from USPS by email showing all mail received daily that will be sent out to me, so I would have been notified by USPS. I also have a filing for all my mail, im very organized and I've never had one piece of paper regarding this $608 come in. When I asked the representative he said he can't state if they were actually sent out but they were developed. The rep stated I owe $60.85 per month for premium repair of 8 appliances, replacement assistant and plumbing. None of this I was aware of. They stated last year excel separated my account from home smart separately and they should have billed me separately. When in fact I canceled my insurance i believe more then a year ago, Which seems they continued to bill me without noticing me. I never added these 4 services my bill ever so I'm not sure where they pulled this from. It used to be around 30 bucks monthly when i did have it. so I'm not sure how or when they add these services. This is also not on my credit report so I had no clue of being aware I was being built by a company. They never contacting me by phone nor am I getting any piece of mail stating I still had service with up charges against my will with this company. This seems illegal. I verified my address and name because I'm in disbelief this was for me and must be a mistake but how can a company bill you and not tell you, call or send out mail. Very frustrated because I wanted to do business but these practices seen illegal and outright wrong! They are now saying they emailed me and I added plumbing but provided absolutely no proof.

HomeSmart used to partner in Eagan with Metro Cooling and Heating, who did a good job. Now the partner is 4Front. The service techs are not as expert as Metro. My tech came for an AC tune-up yet ended up red-tagging my water furnace for an erroneous reason! I wasted several hours dealing with the tech and then doing my own research to find that he lacked a simple piece of information that nullified his misconception about the water heater. When I called 4Front to discuss this, they didn't want to talk with me at all and did not care. Relatives have told me they've had similar bad experiences with 4Front. When I called HomeSmart to complain, I was told a manager would have to call me back to discuss it. After a week, no one from HomeSmart had called me, so I called again to add a reminder to my file for a callback. It's been another week and still no call. Horrendous customer experience all the way around. I'm cancelling my HomeSmart plan when this term is up.

Scam. Absolute scam. I couldn't even get anything fixed. The hold times are horrible, half the people that I do talk to are as confused as I am. I've finally had it and canceled my services after a 1 year contract. Called and paid off the rest of the year (Nov 2022) and specifically told them to not renew, and will be cancelling. They said ok, and I thought that was it. 2 weeks later, I got a letter stating that they renewed our contract. What?? I called, again on hold for the longest time, and they said "Oh we send those out automatically! We still have you here as canceled!" Sure, why would I doubt that? Well, just yesterday, I got an email asking for payment for December. I cannot be on hold again for something that you can't do right. You're not paying for the time I'm wasting on you. I will be leaving 1 star reviews on every platform I can find to warn others about this scam.

I am 85 years old and live alone. My furnace stopped working the evening of January 2, 2021. I called HomeSmart the next morning on January 3 to schedule an appointment and was told it would be approximately two hours for someone to return the call to schedule something (not sure why the woman taking the information could not just schedule an appointment?). After waiting the two hours, I called HomeSmart again and was told that someone did call back from HomeSmart and leave a message, neither of which actually happened (no call, no message; my Xfinity bill can prove it). Another several hours went by and finally I received a call. I told the man who called that I had been waiting for hours to address a non-functioning furnace and his response was that he “just got the information” and "it's not my fault". His tone was rude and belligerent. I told him that we had already contacted some other companies to address the issue but before I finished explaining, he hung up the phone on me. I wanted to ask him what my options were through HomeSmart, but since he had hung up I decided not to deal with him and try to find other options. I was already anxious enough about not having heat in January in Minnesota. While I diligently paid my $55.00 to HomeSmart each and every month, HomeSmart has not complied with its contractual obligations to me. This is disgraceful; why would I (or anyone) continue to pay for such terrible service?

We have the program where 8 appliances are covered by homesmart. On our online main page it list covered appliances and the last one says water heater-tankless and being covered. We now have a leaking hot water heater and they are saying that they do not cover tankless hot water heaters in minnesota. The side note of tankless also has more text that you cant see online of a risk note. So I spoke to the rep last night to set up service. She put it through and I even said on the call our tankless hot water heater is leaking so very nicely she put an urgent status on it. Got the phone call this morning from the service people saying oh they dont cover those you need to call them right away so I did. The representative was on a phone that kept cutting out and was very difficult trying to talk with him. Then it cleared up a bit to the point where we had the conversation and told me it wasn't not covered in minnesota but it is in colorado. I was like then why does it say covered appliances water heater-on our main page. He couldn't answer me and said he escalated it back to his supervisor with no specific time of call back and I was going to ask him but his phone kept cutting out so I hung up. I waited about 3.5-4 hours and called back since I hadn't heard anything. Now I am a authorized user on the xcel account and have now spoken to 2 reps that i have clearly stated my name and this was my spouses account that I am an authorized user on. I said to the 3rd rep my name and I am calling as a supervisor was supposed to call me back due to these reasons. She again stated that tankless water heaters aren't covered. I said well my online says it is covered. She told me the article and page of the service agreement where it says they are not. I said well then why doez it still say this and then she said there's a side note. I was like there is no side note or anywhere I can click to see the side note saying that it was not covered. Then she comes back and says it can be days before a supervisor gets back to you . I was like but my water heater is leaking to the point it has ruined a door now and possibly walls. (We ourselves have buckets to catch the water.) Then she said what's you name and i told her and she's like you are not a user on this account and I am like yes I am. I have scheduled a couple repairs before from my own log in page and my spouse has their own log in page. I also said I have the screenshot of it showing it online and she said I cant even talk to you any more about this until you are a user and was super rude. I said thank you and hung up. I cant believe this is happening. It has been a wonderful service so far but this is the last straw. I am going to be telling everyone who will listen about this experience and possibly escalating it to legal and the better business bureaus and other consumer reporting sites and bloggers. Sorry xcel this is not ok. So make sure you read that service agreement with a fine tooth comb as i dont want to see another family get hurt. Especially when i had major back surgery last week and dealing with this has caused even more pain and suffering. If it were possible id switch power somewhere else.

Technician unable to repair. Indicated need professional cleaning. Gave me suggestion on who to call and left. Nice enough guy, but it's January in Minnesota and I have no operational heating unit.

Both the furnace and central air were tuned up prior to the season.

Homesmart appears to be a good deal...HOWEVER...if you look at what is NOT covered, it is a mile long with the most costly repairs not covered. It is very deceiving, so think long and hard before you commit to a year of payments and are stuck with a worthless plan. Preventive is also not covered, like it is with Sears. Basically, the plan covers nothing expensive, it covers things like knobs and soap dispensers, but heaven help you if something big goes wrong.. It locks you into a year contract and you have no way out even if you are not satisfied. It is a racket and should be illegal. If you choose you can add a preventive maintenance, and replacement plan but it will cost, much more. Then you are spending a bucket load of money for a things like "replacement" which gives you LESS then it would cost to replace the item. Worthless! Don't do it!!!

On time courteous but inexperienced with my high efficiency boiler no consistency in service techs. Had to come back multiple times with no effective repair done

It's part of the service. We pay a monthly fee for coverage on key appliances. It includes the heater and the air conditioner. We're very pleased. We've been with them for years. They have good value. The main reason I like them is reliability. We thought we got the best overall value. Everybody we've seen has been professional.

This is a program with our electricity. They have an appliance repair, we can pay a little every month on our bill and they will come out. They came out and cleaned our dryer vent out. They were very good. The scheduling was a little bit difficult. We were trying to get it done as soon as possible, because it could be a fire hazard. It was a difference of 2 or 3 days before they would come out. We had no issue once it was done.

The process went well and we appreciated how the auditors replaced all of our bulbs (40+) with energy efficient LEDs. They were helpful in providing actionable items that we can do to improve energy efficiency.

The cost was free. It took about a week and a half for someone to come out. Worker was professional.

It was free because we are on a contract. It is the utility company here and they are controlled by the government. They have always done great work. Just one service person came out, and he was great.

We have always used them. They've been great. I don't know why I would change. I think we get them go come out here before the heating season and then again before the cooling season. They will be out in May again.

They are quick to respond and on time if I have a problem. They call me when it's time to do maintenance and schedule a visit. It took about 20 minutes to a half hour to inspect. Left area clean. Tech was polite.

I would use them again in the future.

The provider arrived on time, was very methodical and explained some of the problem areas. When he left he said we'd receive a written report in about 10 days. The service was performed on 12/1/2015. It is now 1/5/2016 and we have not received a report or bill for the service.

My oven was working intermittently, so a Homesmart contractor replaced a part. That part and several other parts didn't work, so had to replace my oven because they couldn't get a working part.

I needed insulation and they told me what needed to be done.

I had excellent service for over 15 years with Minnegasco Home Service Plus, but they can't work on any Excel gas lines so they were not able to really take care of the new little Home I bought in the Highland Park/Mac Groveland area of Saint Paul, MN. ....so I switched to Excel HomeSmart service full coverage with replacement insurance for my little bungalow. VERY BAD IDEA! My central air conditioning unit failed on 7/2/15. Todayis 7/16/2015. I have spoken with two subcontractor (K.B. Services Company) employees and no fewer than 6 Excel energy direct employees trying to get some air conditioning repaired or replaced in my home before I expire from the heat. As I sit right now, no one has even called me back except a customer satisfaction rep (after I gave their follow up survey a less than stellar response) and the sales dude (Mike) when we were trying to coordinate a site visit for a full replacement estimate. I am so disappointed. After paying into a service for over a year, they turn out to be more of a hindrance than a help. What a waste of $50 bucks a month huh? Use Homesmart services by Excel Energy with extreme caution.

Everything passed with flying colors. They basically went over all the systems in the house and did the test where they exit the air out of a house to see how quickly new air comes back in and that's when they said we had a really tight house. They went over everything to make sure that we were not wasting energy anywhere and stuff like that.

They come and fix anything for free for their members. They're inexpensive. They send someone out right away. The worker they sent out was super nice, fast and polite. I was impressed with him.

From sales to installation, the HomeSmart team was a pleasure to work with. The sales approach was no-nonsense and the price was similar to below what other high rated installers were proposing. The system was a top of the line Bryant Evolution 2 Stage with Variable Fan, New Humidifier and a Smart thermostat with WiFi control. The installation crew was polite, timely and left no mess behind. They also installed an insulated vent for our dryer.

Went extremely well, Energy Audit with Xcel and Neighborhood Energy Connection done by Tom Stangl. Really good representative went through the house thoroughly and checked everything. Highly recommended!!!!