Nebraska Home Appliance came out recently to fix our broken ice maker, which had been broken before we moved into this house.
I had been working on this issue myself to cut costs, plus I like learning new things, but after doing lots of research, I had figured that the problem now was something called a Diode Kit. I had seen videos online about how to change it and it looked fairly simple, but it requires cutting wires and such, so I was a little leery on doing this myself. Thus, I called NE Home Appliance, thinking if that was the issue, it shouldn't be too expensive.
Two guys came out and took about 30 mins diagnosing the problem, which did end up being the diode kit.
Online, this kit costs $20.
They put the new kit in in 15 mins., so they were there and gone in under an hour. (I will add here that they were very quick and efficient and came the day after I called them).
So, I had heard some appliance repair places charge $100/hr. Thus, I'm figuring the cost at max should be $100 + $20 kit = $120
They quoted the job at $221.......they said they had a coupon that made it $197 and after I talked to their boss, they ended up coming down to $175 as the final price, still higher than I expected.
What was the most frustrating was that they couldn't tell me why they charged so much. All they could tell me was that they put what repair they were doing into a computer system and it gave them the amount they were to charge - they had no idea how much the part was by itself or any way to break down charges for me('they' being the repairmen and their boss I talked to on the phone).
I would've sent them off without repairing but then I was still out $70 just to have them come out and diagnose a problem I already knew, and I still was just a little worried about doing it myself.....I've learned my lesson.
All that being said, this is not a slam at anyone specifically, as I don't know who this falls on exactly anyway. I just hope the company reads this and maybe makes some adjustments to make sure everyone working there as well as the customer knows exactly what they are getting and why.
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