WARNING: Long but interesting post.
I had American Home Shield for 3 years. The first year, they weren't really needed. I had a GFE outlet go bad and the one of the oven elements go bad. No problem, paid my $50 bucks and moved on. This was my first home and I thought it was an extra insurance just in case.
When the first year renewal came up, I decided to go ahead b/c I was renting one of the rooms then and thought the extra piece of mind was worth $350 or so a year. The second year there were great as well and came out w/in 1 hour when my refrigerator's motor blew. They had an option that said, press 1 for food spoilage, 2 otherwise. I counted my melted ice cream as spoilage and hit 1.
The third year was the major benefit/problem. At the start of summer, my A/C blower went out (inside the house) so even though the A/C produced cold air, it did not blow anything into the house. When the repair guy came, I was at work and my tenant let him in. The inspected the inside and said they needed to order a new blower. They then inspected the outside. While the tech was inspected the A/C unit outside, he broke off the freon valve! He said they could not just replace the valve and had to change the entire compressor b/c the old one now leaked freon. I was pissed, but I though, "oh well, they are going to replace the whole thing for $50 bucks anyway". They "ordered" the necessary parts and I waited. And I waited. And I waited. Mind you, I was now living in a house w/ a tenant in 110+ temperature (I sent them pictures of the thermostat). My tenant was feeling it. My cat was feeling it. After 3 weeks, they got the compressor and came and changed it out w/o telling anyone and while I was at work and my tenant was at school. I called and called for the next week to check on it only to be told someone would call me back. Then I got a call from the local company saying they came last week and what was wrong. Oh, thanks for telling me. Went home and still no cold air. Call them back, took two more days for someone to come out again. He worked on the compressor (while no one was home) and said all looked fine. I said when are you going to schedule a time to come inside and fix the blower. He said, what blower! Fast forward 2 more days and they come inside and do the whole inspection again. They had never bothered to order to blower motor. Now the blower is an A/C and hydro-heat combination thing so it has a motor that they do not keep on hand. They supplier now has run out in the past 4 weeks. So they have to order a new one and wait till it gets off backorder. They cannot use their own supplier and have to use AHS's for the warranty to cover it. I call and complain and write letters and call and complain and write more letters to AHS and they refuse to budge and use another supplier after 4 weeks. They refuse to do anything. Fast forward 2 weeks, and no blower. AHS said they sent it and the local rep says they didn't receive it. They find out that the supplier sent it via UPS to the billing address instead of the local rep. They also have run out again and cannot just send the one at the wrong address. It has to be shipped back and then shipped out again. This is via UPS ground and is expected to take 2 more weeks (1 week each way). This time AHS agreed to refund my $50 service fee and paid to buy a window A/C unit. So now, 6 weeks in, the tenant, the cat, and my all live in the my bedroom sleeping right next to the A/C b/c the rest of the house is 115+. Finally, the tenant moves out and a new one comes in w/ the expectation it will be fixed ASAP. Significant discounts there and discounts to the prev tenant. The guy and his poor parents had to move in the 115+ heat. It ended up taking a total of 16 weeks for them to fix everything.
I understood problems along the way and I was reasonable for the most part. I was unhappy about the problem at the local tech when they a) broke a piece off the compressor and b) forgot to order the part they actually came out to fix. I did not blame AHS for that but was unhappy that AHS did not stand behind the reps they hire and expedite my parts order. But the clincher was when it took 4 weeks for my part to come off backorder and they refused to use an alternate supplier. The local tech found a local supplier w/ the part and they were willing to match any price difference if the local supplier charged more than the contract AHS had w/ their supplier, but AHS would not budge. The local rep couldn't just install the local one and return the AHS one b/c both supplier's use serial #s before the unit is sent out or else no warranty and no returns.
BTW, I almost forgot. The above 16 weeks was b/c once the blower motor was installed, the compressor was not working. Apparently, all that time of trying to get it to work w/o the motor blew it out. So we had to wait another week for the inspection and 3 weeks for yet another replacement compressor. Good thing too b/c one of those 3 weeks was AHS's supplier arguing that they would not replace the compressor for free b/c the unit was 5 years old. The local rep had to show the documentation that they got it only a few weeks earlier. The f*ing supplier tried to sent me a old unit lying around somewhere. The new one that arrived was only 2 months old.
Needless to say, I was not renewing after that experience. Good thing though. For the next 3 years, only thing left was a leaky toilet and one of my tenants (this was after I moved out) dad replaced the leaky party for the whole $10 it cost him to get it at Home Depot.
