American Home Services offer... Think twice and then think some more before jumping in with AHS !

[MartinS300962]

 My immediate response to opening an AARP Member Offers email and seeing an offering for American Home Shield was: Oh my God, NO!

AHS is a nightmare that never ends! Their sales people will promise you the world but all you'll get is frustration, aggravation, and you'll spend weeks (or, as in the case of my first repair, MONTHS) waiting for someone to show up to actually fix whatever is broken.

American Home Shield is at the top my "List of WORST COMPANIES I've EVER had to deal with".

On paper, AHS' service look great. You call them when an appliance needs to be fixed. AHS contacts one of its subcontractors, an appliance repair company to come look at your appliance, assess what needs to be fixed, order the part, etc., etc. This looks like a reasonably workable way to get your broken appliance fixed, right?  Well, read on...

On November 26, 2022 I requested service for my GE washing machine.

On December 6th, 2022 a repairman arrived to assess the issue and identify what part(s) to replace. This was Visit 1. Part(s) were ordered on Dec 7th.

Visit 2, on December 15th, was to replace the control board (the brain). When I heard the repairman say "It's all fixed", I got up from my desk in the living room, walked through the kitchen and into the laundry room so I could verify the machine had been fixed. It only took me 16 seconds (I timed it) to walk from my desk to the laundry room, but in those same 16 seconds the repairman and his tools had bolted from the laundry room through the garage and out to the street, hopped into his vehicle and was pulling away from the curb. I was utterly amazed at the speed of his exit!

Did the washer work? Sorta... The drain and spin cycle worked correctly. Unfortunately, the washer then performed abnormally for everything else. The washer performed cycles I'd never seen before. Then it performed cycles I didn't select. The washer began turning on option indicators that I could not be turned off, and then it stubbornly would NOT perform the options that it had lit up!

The remainder of the 8.5 weeks were spent waiting for a supervisor to show up (Visit 3) to identify the CORRECT part, and then order it. Then on...

- Dec 19th we were notified the part had been ordered.

- Dec 28th AHS' Escalation Dept called at 6:51 a.m. to say someone would arrive on January 6th to fix the washer.

- Jan 4th AHS called AGAIN at 6:51 a.m. to say someone would arrive on January 6th to fix the washer.

- Well, January 6th came and went and no one showed up!

And then we waited some more.

Finally, on January 18, 2023, a repairman ACTUALLY SHOWED UP (Visit 4) and installed something akin to the correct control board. Unfortunately, it took a while to realize the spin cycle was way too short--it left too much water in the clothes! Did I call AHS to come back and fix it?

To subject myself to that same maddening agony again so soon would have been the equivalent of ripping off the scab from a wound and then pounding a nail into the wound! So NO, I did not call AHS

Bear in mind, that During the preceding 8 weeks I had NOT been silently sitting idle while all of the above was occurring. I had been very active--on a near daily basis I had been calling, emailing and texting AHS regarding what was and what was not happening. I tracked down and spoke with the salesman who sold me the policy and made sure he was aware that AHS Operations was making him look bad. It was during this conversation I learned what the official behind-the-scene repair process steps were.

Later, I followed up with Customer Service and because I was now aware of the repair process steps, I asked pointed questions. What I discovered was that the official repair process steps were not being consistently followed. Each step of the process requires communication between the subcontractor and AHS. For example: When the subcontractor goes to the customer's home and assesses what needs to be repaired, the subcontractor has to report his findings electronically to AHS, what parts need to be replaced, etc. AHS Customer Service is supposed to read the communications sent to them, take the appropriate action(s), and respond back to the subcontractor, etc., and keep the customer apprised of the status of the repair.

Unfortunately, what I found was that AHS Customer Service was very lax in keeping up with the subcontractor communications. The AHS Customer Service people were not reading the communications and responding in a timely manner--and this was causing delays in repair approvals, in parts ordering, in scheduling customer site visits, you name it...! This lack of consistency in reading and responding to subcontractor communications and the lack of continuity in the flow of information  between AHS and their subcontractors, which are critical to ensuring expedient repairs, seemed to be a non-issue to AHS Customer Service--even though AHS prides itself on their documented repair process. This is a no-win situation for any AHS customer!

Even if you doubled, tripled or quadrupled the dollar amount of the discount in the offer, I would STILL advise anyone who was remotely considering a service like this to avoid AHS. Two months of having no means to do one's laundry IS NOT REASONABLE !

And then, on July 4th, 2023 the built-in microwave died. AHS told me, "You're in luck! We have the part in stock in our warehouse." I'm not sure on which planet they've parked their warehouse, but I was "lucky" because the repair only took 4 weeks...