Reliance Home Comfort

Absolutely furious with Reliance Home Comfort right now. On the surface, this is a seller/renter of home heating/cooling products. But once they suck you in with a water heater or furnace, the real business begins: They will hound you every day for weeks to get you to sign up for service insurance for their products and whatever else you may have in your basement.

I bought a house with a water heater that was rented from Reliance. In all the details I had to deal with in buying a home, I figured the water heater was among the least of my worries. I was wrong.

From day one, even when I was just confirming the account had been put in my name, they started pushing their insurance plan. First, I wasn't entirely sure what they were trying to get me to sign up for, so I said I'd think about it. In subsequent phone calls, I firmly and specifically told them no. Multiple times I told them I don't have a furnace anyway (I have a boiler and radiators), and then after that I just refused to answer their hounding phone calls (sometimes up to 9:30 p.m.!).

They just sent me a bill for the insurance anyway, to see if they could slip it past me, I suppose. They are trying to bill me $19.84/month to insure a furnace and an air conditioning unit THAT I DON'T EVEN HAVE!

What's telling is that when I called them ready for a fight, the woman who answered the phone backed down immediately and said, "Okay, just ignore the bill." Simple as that. This suggests to me that she must answer calls like mine all day, every day. It was like, "Okay, you caught us."

Still, though, I'm afraid they won't back down so easily. Now I have to spend some time trying to find out what my rights are, if I can have their water heater removed from my house, where I can report them to, etc., and I certainly have more pleasant things to do with my free time.

Moral of the story? Never, ever use this scam company. If you're considering buying a house with any rented equipment from Reliance, ask if you can get it removed before you sign anything!

Update November 16, 2011: This company spokesperson is quick to respond to our complaints with platitudes (see the reply to my original review), but is certainly not quick to help. I sent him/her an email on November 7 with the details of my complaint, plus I asked how old my water heater is and how much it would cost me to buy it out and dissolve our rental agreement. I have not yet received a reply, but I have received automatic late payment reminders because this bill is still on my account, after the Reliance customer service rep told me to "ignore it."