Horizon Services Nightmare and Warning
This story begins Christmas Day 2022. I'd seen the signs before. My furnace was on the fritz. The blinking light that I've come to hate on my Beckett Oil burner was flashing. I tried to soft and hard reset it and that was not working. So I called around. One of the leading HVAC companies that I have used in the past was not available until Thursday, so I chose Horizon, who had an appointment for the next day according to their online booking system, which they tout heavily.
So I booked an appointment online on Monday for a Tuesday 8am-12pm window. Nobody came. I called at 12:15. I was told the appointment never made it to the dispatch people. So they told me definitely they would have someone out that night 8pm-12am. Nobody came. Called at 12:15am. Was told that someone was finishing up a job and they would get to me next. It's now 4am and... Nobody came. Finally got the dispatch to send someone at 9am Wednesday. That's a full 24 hours I waited, without sleep for them to show up.
My oil furnace needed a new blast tube cap ($15 part) and the burner needed routine maintenance, They quoted me $600. Fine. It's the middle of the winter and I have no heat, so I'll take a bit of a shake. I was told if I needed a whole new "blast tube assembly", it would be $1600, or an additional $1000. The issue here is that the technician told me it would have been easier to replace the whole tube assembly than it would have been to just replace the cap. This raises the massive question: Why does a service on a $15 part cost $300 and an "easier" service on a $50 part cost $1600? That is $1000 for a $50 part.
On top of all of this, after receiving my invoice via email, I noticed that I had been auto-enrolled in their service program for $300. After calling and stating that I had not agreed to this, I was refunded $218.
So I initially paid $300 for a "tune up" and $300 for a $15 part replace (all good), and after questioning the membership charge, ended up paying about $382 for the service. I would have been fine with that from the start. Let me show you how you can get taken advantage of:
Here is the invoice if the retention head ($15 part) had to be replaced (which I paid for):
Horizon oil burner service with $15 replacement part.
Here is the invoice if the blast tube assembly ($50 part) needed to be replaced, same labor:
Horizon oil burner service with $50 "blast tube" replacement.
UPDATE 01/10/2023:
Got a response on Yelp from the owner. Said they would be in touch. Got a VM from their customer service department yesterday. Called today at 3:30 at the number left in the VM. Asked to be transferred to the person who left the voicemail. Instead I got forwarded to dispatch, who then had to forward me to customer service (without even telling me, just silence then ringing) and the person who left me the message was on a call according to the person who answered. Guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow. Sounds familiar.
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