Home Warranty of America UPDATE Post 28

[Sugarbug]

What repairs were needed on the toilet? Flange, wax ring?

From what my wife tells me, he just rebuilt the parts in the tank. The issue was it youd go to flush it and the bowl would fill up a lot or over flow before it finally went down.

Cant believe i got charged $153 for a $10 trip to home depot. Wish I had been home, but I had work.

 

[Yrdawg]

Worked on a lot of A/C and heat with the warranties, most pissed people off but some were good and paid up. They are a PITA for the service people though.

 

[Sugarbug]

So, I got home and looked at the contract myself.

There is not a single mention that things aren't covered for X days or anything like that. It expressly states that such plumbing issues ARE covered. I WISH that I had been home when all of this happened.

Some of you may have noticed that I can get rather mad... this type of thing sends me over the edge, though. I like to think I'm an honorable person and for them to take money and then say "that's not covered because you haven't been in the house long enough" is ********.

 

[sparky_benton]

Worked on a lot of A/C and heat with the warranties, most pissed people off but some were good and paid up. They are a PITA for the service people though.

Last time i dealt with them from a contractor side of things the operator questioned why i did every thing i did. Then told me his contractor didnt charge as much as i did. i asked him why am i here and your contractor is not , he shut up and gave me the po number for the homeowner to pay me , i guess they get paid back some how....never again.

 

[SamNavy]

If the parts in your toilet that the plumber replaced are 30yrs old and original to the house, then in a standard home warranty policy they should be covered. Somehow HWA thinks they are newer based on what you're saying. Did the plumber tell HWA that the parts had obviously been replaced in the recent past AND NOT INSTALLED PROPERLY, thereby not being a material failure, but an install failure?

Call them back and ask them to show you what part of the policy they're using against you. It may be a misunderstanding on their part.

 

[Sugarbug]

If the parts in your toilet that the plumber replaced are 30yrs old and original to the house, then in a standard home warranty policy they should be covered. Somehow HWA thinks they are newer based on what you're saying. Did the plumber tell HWA that the parts had obviously been replaced in the recent past AND NOT INSTALLED PROPERLY, thereby not being a material failure, but an install failure?

Call them back and ask them to show you what part of the policy they're using against you. It may be a misunderstanding on their part.

It's no misunderstanding. They know exactly what happened. The internal components in the toilet were old (I believe original, but even if not... not installed in the last 5 years). We've spoken to a supervisor and she told my wife to send her a copy of the receipt and she would "review" it.

 

[Booseman]

It's no misunderstanding. They know exactly what happened. The internal components in the toilet were old (I believe original, but even if not... not installed in the last 5 years). We've spoken to a supervisor and she told my wife to send her a copy of the receipt and she would "review" it.

I hate this happened to you brother but it happens all the time!! That is how warranty/insurance companies keep their P/L statements in balance!!

 

[Sugarbug]

So, I was able to get involved in this BS this morning. My wife had been given the email and number of a supervisor who told her to send her a copy of the receipt and she would review the claim. Here was my response to that:

Kelly,

My name is Joshua Temple. I am Jenna Temple's husband, whom you spoke with yesterday about the fiasco of a policy HWA is trying to make up.


Upon reviewing everything available online and the copy of the contract provided to us, there is not a single mention in the Limitations of Liability that certain things won't be covered for X days. We bought a 30 year-old house with a warranty and you have the audacity to tell us that it hasn't been long enough for those parts to have gone bad? What do you base that on? Do you look at how long plastic is supposed to take to deteriorate? "Well, it hasn't been 753 years, so we don't have to honor the contract you paid for.


How can you work for such a company? As a supervisor you must get countless calls a day pertaining to very similar circumstances. Is everyone in this company completely devoid of any integrity? After this happened, I decided to look up some of the reviews for your company. Are you aware of how bad HWA's reputation is? Speaking with a friend who is a local contractor, he said he had worked on a claim for HWA and after having to deal with the customer HWA was shafting, he vowed to never work for HWA again.


You told my wife to send you the receipt for what was done and you would "review" it. You will find the receipt attached. You are already in breach of contract. I challenge you to push this further. You cannot make up your own rules for contracts after they have been signed and paid for. You've already earned a BBB report so it will not be a far cry for me to begin pursuing this legally. Refund the $78.83 owed to us.

Ten minutes later, my wife gets a phone call from Kelly stating that she just reviewed it with the claims department and it should have been "technically covered under the warranty." We should get a check for $78.83 in the next 7-10 business days. She said she couldn't call me because she didn't have a contact number for me (a lie because my cell is listed as the primary number on the account). Can't blame her for not braving a phone call with me.

Although I'm glad they're refunding the money to us, it pisses me off even more that they tried to get away with it in the first place. They were just hoping that we wouldn't pursue it and they wouldn't have had to honor the contract.


To summarize: Home Warranty of America is scam company and for those interested in a home warranty for their home, there are MANY other, better companies to go with. Seriously, you could probably go with ANY other company and have a better experience.

 

[SeventhSon]

Good to hear you got it worked out. Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens all the time. I have found that a lot of insurance companies will try to pass on things hoping that you dont push. Enough people just write it off and dont call them on it that it works in their favor. You pushed back and they blinked. Good on you.

We also had to fight for a few issues we had with a home warranty when we purchased our house. Like you, they tried to scam out of things that broke (my central AC being one of them, original to the house). We fought and they finally agreed that they would pay it. It sucks, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Hope you don't have any addition problems.

 

[Hitman]

I salute you for following through. I wish more folks would do the same.

The problem I see these days is that people are literally WILLING to get screwed. Oh they over charged us for this, it's ok it's just $5. Oh they said they put Antifreeze but they didn't, probably just a mistake, we won't go there anymore. NO!

I'm all about forgiveness, but forgiveness doesn't mean your responsibility just got dropped. Hell my son understands this concept.

It’s pretty much ALL you can do. Hold people responsible for what you pay them for or what they said they would do. Do it respectfully of course, but have the intestinal fortitude to follow through!

 

[Btl_Rkt_Sci]

Strong work.

 

[cnodie1]

I will definitely be looking over my home warranty tonight. Less than 4 days in my house now and the ice maker stopped working...

 

[Sugarbug]

I do know for ours the refrigerator has to specifically added. Not an issue because the one we have is brand new and covered by the manufacturer.

 

[Mouthpiece]

Good to hear you got it worked out. Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens all the time. I have found that a lot of insurance companies will try to pass on things hoping that you dont push. Enough people just write it off and dont call them on it that it works in their favor. You pushed back and they blinked. Good on you.

We also had to fight for a few issues we had with a home warranty when we purchased our house. Like you, they tried to scam out of things that broke (my central AC being one of them, original to the house). We fought and they finally agreed that they would pay it. It sucks, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Hope you don't have any addition problems.

+1

Surprisingly, the number of people who do nothing after being denied in this type of a situation is quite large. I've seen a number of company policies where they stiff everyone initially, pay only the ones who vigorously complain and then have enough money left over for a fat profit.