Rachelle T.
06/06/2021 12:00:00 SA
I used RC Pros's services during the winter storm earlier this year. First off, this review is mostly directed towards the management of RC Plumbing, not the plumbers and technicians who came and did the work.
The workers were professional and courteous. The work they did was decent, but they were obviously stressed for time and overworked. They did not completely patch one of the pipe leaks during their first attempt, but did come back quickly the next day to finish the job. I just hoped they could wear the plastic booties more often, because a few of them tracked mud all over the house.
Now regarding the management, they were very unprofessional, dishonest, and uncommunicative. The biggest issues we had with them were with (1) what services they could provide, (2) billing, and (3) communications/scheduling.
1. I had two pipes that burst because of the winter storm: a regular pipe and a fire sprinkler pipe. I found out that not all plumbers are licensed to repair fire sprinkler pipes and we would need to hire somebody who could do that. When I called and asked RC Pros if they were licensed, they assured us that they were licensed to do these repairs and they even provided email confirmation from their management regarding their licenses. However, I still had to wait before they were ready to start on the fire sprinkler repair - over the next couple months, the receptionists over the phone justified the long wait with different reasons, alternating between that they had the license, but needed a Texas state fire marshal to authorize the repair, and that they were still trying to be licensed for the fire sprinkler repair.
In the end, after waiting for months, we were told that they did not have the license and could only offer a refund. By then other licensed local plumbers had extensive waiting lists on fire sprinkler repair, ranging from 3 to 10 months.
2. Billing seemed business as usual until my husband had to submit the invoices/receipts to my insurance agents for claims. The management initially refused to send the itemized receipts, claiming that they can simply forward it to the insurance agents directly. This was all sorts of shady, and they only relented when my husband pulled out an earlier copy of itemized invoice that they had emailed us. It was only then that we found out they've double billed us for the initial estimate on the fire sprinkler repair - over $1k charged twice, which they offered to take off one entry as refund. Had we not insisted to at least view an itemized receipt, we'd be charged an extra $1,150, which was horrendously overpriced, because the subsequent licensed plumber was able to do the repair for $260.
3. The management was responsive initially - when I or my husband called, they called back within a day or two, and scheduled workers who arrived on time. But once they completed repairs to the regular pipe leak and had no progress on the license for the fire sprinkler repair, it took multiple calls in a week with emails to get an update.
At one point we started getting residual leaks from the broken fire sprinkler head - water dripped throughout the night sporadically, when we called to scheduled for them to send someone to take a look, the management first refused, and then upon scheduling for someone to check the residual leak, the person never showed up. We called the next week and was assured that it was just a scheduling error, and the person will make another attempt to visit. It was another no show.
The sad part was that when I called their office, the receptionist was so surprised that she asked, over the phone, that if we were -sure- it was their company who missed two appointments in a row. And since my husband was calling them initially, they've stopped responding to his cell number - he'd call, got into voice mail, then I'd call, and it was picked up right away. This was a regular occurrence for the last month and half before them giving up and offered a refund.
So to sum it up - honest, hard working plumbers and workers who did their best with the time and resources they had, but the management was rife with errors and obvious miscommunication, if not outright intentional neglect.