i caught A Accurate Air Conditioning of Orlando trying to rip me off.. then they voided my warranty

Hi this is a long story but it pretty much sums up like this i caught my A/C company trying to rip me off by converting a warranty call into an up sell for a new thermostat. When i refused and proved that they did the wiring wrong not only they refused to refund my money but voided the warranty on a 7 month old AC unit as you can see in the email he just send me. a screenshot is attached.. i guess he didn't like the fact that i reported him to the BBB. i don't know what rules he is talking about. i guess he has some secret rules where he mentions "don't report me to the BBB" but i'm not sure since he didn't give me a copy of the rules.. I'm attaching 4 items 1) a screenshot of the email he send me after he received a letter from the BBB 2) a screen shot of him replying what rules did i break. 3) a picture of his faulty wiring 4) a picture of how the wiring suppose to be done the long story can be found below..... This Company went from installing an AC unit to fraudulently charging me for their faulty wiring and revoking my warranty with the old "we don't have records of your purchase" line. Please don't use this company if you value your money. This company installed an AC unit about 6 months ago because my old one was leaking freon. They did a great job installing the unit and everything looked good until they tried to reinstall my 1 year old programmable thermostat. This is where i saw their true colors and ignorance shine through. This is also when i started to regret my decision to pick this company to install my unit. It took them what felt like hours to install the thermostat and it truly became scary when they resorted to sending a guy to the outside unit to yell back and forth "is it working now? " "how about now?" "how about now?" finally they managed to get it working. This was the summer time and it was working fine during the hot summer time in florida. However, around january when it started to get truly cold i finally turned on the heater and noticed no hot air was coming out. The fan would just blow cold air and the poor cat was freezing all night. I immediately took the day off the next day and called the A/C company since judging by my experience during the install i believe that they did the wiring incorrectly. A/C is not that complicated specially thermostats. Anyone can install their own thermostat if the wiring is done CORRECTLY before them. If you know what cable does what it's extremely easy to install a thermostat i did it before with my programmable thermostat and it worked just fine. i could of probably fixed the wiring myself very easily but why should I? They are the ones that installed the thermostat incorrectly then they should fix it free of charge right? Well looks like this is too much to ask from this company. I called them and told them that i believe the wiring on the thermostat was done incorrectly and can they please send someone to fix it. They said they will send someone over free of charge "BUT" if it's my thermostat or equipment they will have to charge me for the visit call and the labor. Notice the emphasis on that word "BUT" this is the difference on a free warranty call and couple hundreds of dollars. I checked the thermostat made sure i listened for the clicks when i turned it on. The temperature was correct and it would click trying to turn on the heat. So i knew it was not the thermostat. i knew it was their faulty wiring. I took a picture of their wiring before they came. i said fine send someone over and They said they will send someone by 9:30 am which is great i'll be back to my job by lunch time and i can keep working.

WRONG!! the technician did not show up till almost 12pm and this was after repeated calls trying to find out where was this guy was at. Finally the technician shows up almost 2 hours late and starts to check the outside unit and the heat pump etc. everything works correctly and he immediately starts talking numbers. This is going to cost you 225 for the service call, labor and NEW BASIC thermostat. This is BEFORE he inspected the thermostat and it's wiring which i constantly told him was the problem from the beginning. Finally i got him to check the wiring and he says look i'm going to prove the wiring is correct by bypassing your thermostat and jumping these two wires.

(these are the hands of the tech trying to jump some cables.. notice the faulty wiring still in place) He tells me go stand by that vent and hot air will come out. I go there and same thing happens COLD air is coming out. I then immediately know that he is lying about the thermostat and my thermostat works fine. i told him look i'm not going to pay you 225 for you to install a new thermostat when this thermostat works fine. Just charge me for the service call and i'll install a new thermostat. i know how to do it i've done it before. If i install the same thermostat using the same wiring you have now and it should work fine and if it doesn't i will know you were lying about the thermostat. I got on the phone with the owner and i told him look i just want this fixed but if you aren't going to do it i'll do it myself and if i'm wrong i'll call back and apologize. But if i'm right about the wiring i will call back and ask for a refund of the $110 service call and an apology. He started laughing and told me i will be calling back to apologize. I was really mad at this point I went to the store and bought a brand new programmable thermostat for $70 dollars. DId i mention they wanted me to pay 115 for their BASIC thermostat that probably costed 25 bucks? anyways i drive home and install my brand new thermostat using the same wiring they used for the thermostat that was there before. take a new picture and guess what? my heater still blowing COLD air. SO now I KNOW is their faulty wiring. i called the tech not his boss because i dont want him to get in trouble.I called him and tell him - look i installed the new thermostat using your same wiring and is not working. I KNOW is your wiring and if you tell me how to fix it and give me a refund i wont make a big fuzz. He started throwing all this terms and stuff and got a little mad. didn't tell me how to fix it and didn't turn around to come back to fix it. i get paid hourly and i'm already extremely pissed because i already lost an entire day's of pay because of this fraudulent company. However, he did told me that i have a heat pump air conditioning which became useful later on If the wiring is done incorrectly is extremely harder to install a new thermostat because if the red cable was put in blue or black the color coded system does not longer work and installing the thermostat is almost a guessing game. identifying the cables is a lot easier for a tech specially if he is the one that installed it. So this took me hours to do because the Green cable didn't go into G like in the manual you can short your A/C i'm extremely pissed and i called the owner and i told him it was the wiring not the thermostat and they need to come back an fix it. the guy starts to tell me i'm wrong and he is sending no one. As a matter of fact they don't have records of me buying the unit from them so he can't help me and hangs up on me. So not only they stole my $110 dollars he is now practically saying i have no warranty for this 6 month AC Unit!!. After a little while i identify the problem . When they installed the AC unit there was a little cable uniting the W and the Y and it was never put back into place. I put the cable back and voila!! the HEAT and the COOL are now working.

I called the owner and i told them to send someone back to verify that the old thermostat is working just fine after i fixed their wiring. I also wanted a refund and an apology. The guy was extremely rude and started to throw out all these terms saying i had done it incorrectly.. I told him i had pictures of the wiring before, during the visit and after i fixed it proving his wiring is done incorrectly. He refused to refund me and told the tech to call me. The tech called me and screamed on the phone and hanged up on me for the second time!. I'm not an ahole. I work for a living so i wanted to work this out. I gave this company plenty of opportunities to get this resolved. i'm only writing this review because they left me no other option. So now this guy is not only refusing to refund me my $110 dollars but says he has no records of me purchasing this unit so i'm guessing i have no warranty on this unit or labor. Please don't use this company unless you want to get ripped off or end up without a warranty on your thousands of dollar purchase.

 UPDATE Looks like the BBB complaint i filled up finally got to the owner and he is very mad. Like i suspected he is voiding my warranty.. can he do that? is not like i want him to touch my A/C but isnt that warranty included in the price.. shouldn't i get a refund?

i don't know what rules he is suggesting i broke.. maybe he has a secret don't report me to the BBB rule.. i'm also guessing he wants to sue me? why is he suggesting i get a lawyer?

How to get back at companies that ripped you off

Ok I'm sick and tired of companies taking advantage of consumers and practically stealing our hard earned money. I haven't posted to this blog in a long time because like many of you i been consumed by work, business and life. I been getting ripped off here and there by big and small companies but i haven't had time to post such events in this blog. However, i'm sick of seeing me and countless other Americans getting ripped off hundreds of dollars at the time and i decided that i need to make time to help you and other fight back against these companies. In the many years social media, search engine optimization, viral media etc. has given use countless of tools to fight back against companies who fucked us and left us without any other options. The problem with stuff like this is that it takes time and for us working class is a very precious commodity. However, you need to make time to make your voice be heard not just for you but for countless others that can't or don't have time. I remember one of my worse experiences was when Brighthouse from Orlando came to my house to repair my cable. They went to the attic and damaged my Air ducts. These guys cost me hundreds of dollars in higher electric bills and thousands of dollars in damages. The manager refused to take responsibility and put the burden on me to proof their damages. I didn't have time nor money to pursue this in the courts and once again this huge corporation got away with thousands of dollars of my hard earned money. This happened because we didn't have social media nor i possessed the information that i'm about to share with you guys now. Don't get me wrong huge corporations are not the only problem. Small mom and pop shops like your local mechanic, A/C company, or restaurant can cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars too. The same tools apply and some work better with small or large business. The point is that you need to make time so you either get made whole or you help other not get ripped off. So what can the small guys like us do to huge corporations like Brighthouse, LG, alltech, etc? or small companies who refuse to take your call? Well we got to find out how business work and acquire their new costumers. The old phrase "i will never do business with you again!!" is powerless in today's economy. They already got your money and they don't care what you do.. There is countless other suckers ready to get ripped off just like they did to you!! In today's new economy business are made and broken in the internet everyday. This is where most companies get their new costumers and where costumers get their new services. Most people will do a quick google for A/C companies, mechanic, etc. They will read 1 or two reviews and pick the one with the best reviews. This is where companies spend a lot of the money. They pay for a website, maybe (SEO) search engine optimization, to get on Angie's list, yelp, foursquare, twitter, instagram, facebook, etc.. Companies will pay for companies to monitor the social media in order to avoid viral negative press. So this is where we need to attack them if you want to get a refund or you want to help others not get ripped off like you just did. A lot of people don't want to get into social media to get a refund. that's why i will touch on that last. In the 1st couple of steps i will be touching up on the basics that a lot of people forget. The Consumer Protection advocates These guys are the basic line of defense. Please try to work something out with the owner or company before going to this stage. I usually call them at least two times to try to work something out. i try to do it calm and try very hard to keep my cool. If the owner or company refuse to work with you then is open season in my opinion. You need to ESCALATE this.. if you don't you are pretty much guaranteeing that you will never get a refund and you are sentencing for someone else to get ripped off in the future. The Better Business Bureau aka BBB go here fill up your complaint and submit it (copy and paste your complaint into a word doc since you don't want to re-type it later on) http://www.bbb.org/ These guys do great work but not always get stuff resolved thats why you need to keep going!! These guys helped me get from a maze of robots to a Manager with Verizon. The RIPOFFREPORT.com These guys pretty much help you with the thing i touched on before. Search engine optimization (SEO) business uses it to get higher in the search area. You want your complaint to pop up on top right under or above their company when people search for it. Ripoffreport.com pretty much gives you a mini website for your complaint and the ability for the company to respond. These guys are amazing and if you want to get a company's attention just copy and paste your complaint here. http://www.ripoffreport.com/ The Consumerist.com This website is amazing and i been a huge fan for years. They practically shame the company into doing the right thing by shinning a light over it. They have saved millions of costumer from scammers and rip off companies. I honestly been trying to get on this website for years but i haven't been able to. However, if you get on their website is almost guarantee that you will be refunded or made whole again.. Consumerist.com Your State Attorney General Your state has a lawyer that is in charge of protecting their state consumers. You are paying for this guy or girl with your tax dollars and most of the time they will help you with your case small or big. They have plenty of staffers and people who suppose to help you out. Just google your state attorney general and fill up their forms. Yelp if available copy and paste your review of the business. forusquare if available copy and paste your review of the business. google maps if available copy and paste your review of the business. https://www.google.com/maps/ ------------------------------- Those 4 places can be all done with the same copy and pasted complaint you typed in the 1st place. So it shouldn't take you that long and will yield some kind of results. At the very least your complaint should show up when people google that company that ripped you off and it will cost them costumers. If you cost them costumers it will add up little by little and before you know it the company that ripped you off will be wishing they didn't rip you off in the 1st place. So those are the four that usually work pretty good. However, they are not the only tools you have at your disposal. Now we will be touching up on social media and viral complaints Twitter, facebook, youtube, instagram, etc are all extremely powerful. I have a friend who used twitter to get a refund on a pet store boarding who made her dog lay on his own piss for days. Or how tiwtter made a stubborn home depot manager replace a mold filled refrigerator he sold me as new. Twitter If you don't have an account create one.. if you don't want to make it permanent you can make throw away account like @PetlandSucks or @homedepotisdirty etc.. the title can be funny and catchy.. anyways start twettinng stuff about your experience with such company.. Pictures or videos are extremely easy to make and catchier. I remember taking a picture of the mold filled freezer i got at home depot and hashtagging #homedepot.. before you knew it i was getting an apology from the manager who was being a dick a couple of hours before. I'm guessing their social media called and scaled him over my experience. You might not get as much attention as you would like or necessary to push for a response. So get your friends to retweet your tweet and make it a bit more viral.. This helped a lot when my friend was getting ignored with the petstore who boarded her dog. Facebook Companies usually have a facebook page and sometimes it will allow you to post reviews or just add a comment on their wall so other people can see it. Youtube This one is tricky.. you need to make something people will want to watch and at the same time ridicule or expose the company that ripped you off. This one was one of my last resorts when dealing with LG. This company was selling a defective sounds system that keep on breaking and of course the company refused to fix it. So i made a video where i showed how to fix your piece of shit LG surround system. this surround system cost me about 60 bucks to fix. LG wanted hundreds on labor, shipping, and parts.. So i said fuck them i'll fix it myself. It pisses me off because my buddy has the same exact unit that is broken!! just like mine is.. This video has been watched almost 3,000 times.. if this video prevented 10% of those people to buy something LG thats 300 people.. How much do you think this video cost them? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrx_VKnjLSs ANyways i hope these links help you get your money back or help you get revenge on the business that ripped you off.. i'll be uploading samples of ways these steps have helped me in the past thanks and keep on checking my posts