Beacon Plumbing

I have a condo in Seattle that my daughter lives in. We had a need to have a toilet reinstalled along with a washer & Dryer that needed to be hooked back up.

I live in California and she was unable to do this work herself. I told her to call a plumber and Id take care of the charges. My daughter had my permission to use my card to pay for the service. She was in a nearby town doing an opening of a new restaurant and was unable to be there and called Beacon to do the work.

The tech sent over a docusign which she filled out and provided payment. Afterwards, my daughter sent me a copy of their invoice. It mention the need for some newer parts (hammer arrestors, braided hoses, wax ring and bolts for the toilet. Cost of parts when I priced them out through Lowes was roughly $120.

They charged my card (my daughter approved it because she didnt know any better). $2772 for the work. That equates to roughly $2300 in labor for something that should have been fixed in an hour. A very expensive lesson learned for my daughter and myself.

This company should be ashamed of themselves. Obviously, had I seen the quote, I would have refused the job.

Their response-

Jeff, It is actually a contract.

Beacon does not offer unearned discounts when the proper prices are charged. Even when reviews are left that is clearly trying to damage the company, are untrue.

We are declining to offer an unearned discount at this time.

Mark J

Sr Mgr

Beacon Plumbing, Heating, Electrical & Mech. Inc

My response-

Well, I never disputed whether it was a contract.

My daughter did sign the contract. When I first contacted you I acknowledged such, and my review clearly stated that she signed for it. What your company calls proper prices are outrageous. If you have children or grandchildren, I hope theyre never taken advantage of the way my daughter was.

I have the money and means to cover the cost, again that was never the issue. Your company is lying if you think I wasnt truthful in my review. It happened 100% the way I listed. Was the review meant to get your attention, and if it were to damage your reputation, thats solely based on your companys ethics, because nothing was untrue.

Comment from the Business-

As the review states someone else called Beacon, someone else signed a contract and someone else offered payment.

When there is a signature on the contract that would be the customer.

This is very basic contract information. I am not sure how following a contract makes someone reprehensible.

Doing the right thing is to charge a fair amount, this is the same amount anyone else would be charged and the right thing does not include giving a refund because an unreasonable person 3 states away thinks it is the moral thing to do.

My reply-

Yet, here I am, still the customer. I believe you took advantage of a young lady in need of work she couldnt do herself and she blindly signed your contract. She knows better now.

But to say that the price was fair is ridiculous and that makes your company reprehensible. Better yet, from two states (not three) away, I can recognize immoral behavior.

Ive said several times, my daughter signed the agreement, Im not disputing that. I just want to warn others before they have to learn the same lesson we did.

I had a clogged toilet on a Saturday afternoon. Having only one bathroom, and three teenagers, this was indeed an emergency.

So I called Beacon. The tech (Mario) arrived within 20 minutes (that part was great). Everything else about this was not great. I reminded him we only have one bathroom and I need service, I need him to clear the clog.

His exact words were "Oh, we'll clear it today. He had me sign a "quote" stating the total cost TO CLEAR THE CLOG would be $1065 plus tax. Ridiculous, but I needed plumbing stat so I signed. He removed the toilet to access the line (there is a cleanout in the backyard he could have accessed quite easily), ran his camera down the line, told me there were too many roots and the pipes were in terrible shape and he could do nothing more, I would need to replace a 4 foot section of pipe running under mine and my neighbor's yard.

This was a quote of $10,600 plus tax. For 4 feet! I was panicking, told him I could not do that. He then stated there was nothing more he could do and asked me for payment for the "cleanout" (which he admitted was not cleared.) I told him I was not going to pay for a service I did not receive, he went in a huff back to his truck and retrieved the quote I "signed".

He had very clearly added "attempt to clear" after I signed, and he pointed this out to me like I was a child.

He ran my card (I felt no choice but to give it to him after his bullying) and was paid. (My card deducts the payment immediately and I received a notification of such.) He then argued with me for several minutes saying the payment did not go through so he needed to run it again, and proceeded to without my consent! So now I have been charged a total of $1322 TWICE for no work.

As he was leaving I asked if we could use the plumbing in the interim. He angrily set the toilet back in place and said "No, it's broken," tossed my copy of the receipt on my table, and walked out the door.

THEN he had the nerve to call me the next day to schedule the $10K plus repair that I in no way was going to let him near.

Long story short, I had a sewer company come out and hydrojet the line and everything is working fine. No replacement needed.

They charged $600 just to come out and give a diagnosis for a yearly maintenance checkup, and the tech barely even touched our boiler (furnace)! Then they wanted $2000 to replace the small pump!!

When we had a different company come out, they stated the pump would be between $200-300, but the pump didn't need replacing. In fact nothing needed to be done at all. Beacon's tech spent most of his time writing out a new estimate for a whole new system, which we DID NOT NEED TO DO! We even got a followup call from Beacon re our system.

We asked the other company that came out, how much it would be to replace the entire system, just out of curiousity, and they estimated half of what Beacon wanted. We would NEVER use Beacon in a million years!

This was the worst experience I ever had with a repair company. It started off terribly.

While walking the plumber to the area that needed repair, he says out loud, "I can not believe that these idiots try to work on their own plumbing. Then he did not do the job right. He was repairing an outside faucet and left the faucet an inch and a half away from the wall. I called the company to see if I could get the job done correctly.

The manager calls the plumber, who claims that my daughter gave him permission to do the job that way. This was a blatant lie. When the job was completed, he told my daughter that this was the only way he could do it and it would cost hundreds more for him to correct it. The manager asked for pictures which I sent, but he never got back to me.

It cost me $891 to have the job done incorrectly. They replaced the galvanized pipe with plex. Any complainant plumber could have done this job correctly. No matter the price, the job should have been done correctly.

Worst of all.

After the job was done, my 10-year-old granddaughter came out of her room crying and said the plumber had shoved her against the wall. I talked with the manager about the plumber calling me an idiot and bumping my granddaughter into the wall, but he dismissed it.

I can't believe this company!! If you want a company that doesn't care about their employees at all then this is the one for you.

My husband worked for this company. He would put in 70 hours a week going in at 7 am and some times not getting home till 10pm. The other day our 13 year old had a seizure and hurt herself really bad and was in the ER all night and part of the next morning. My husband called the night it happened and let them know he could not come in the next day because we needed to take care of our child.......

Well what did they do...... they fired him. How can a company that says they do so much good let an employee go because their daughter was in the ER with a broken eye socket and a first time seizure. This company is a poor excuse for humans.

We are a family that work hard and just try to make it by and now we are left with out anything because of them. I didn't want to believe others that work there that said they fire and rehire employees ALL THE TIME.

What kind of people act like that? What kind of people but a business before a medical emergency.

YOU WILL BE LEAKIN and FREAKIN IF YOU CALL BEACON PLUMBING-
1st visit - 02-5-20 Job #218
My first encounter with Beacon plumbing was in September 2018 for $2814 when they replaced my sump pump which I later found out from local plumbing competitors could have been replaced for half the cost. Beacon informed me after the completion of work Ned informed me that the sump pump had a 5-year warranty.

Fastr forward to Feb 5, 2020. I was out fo town on a business trip when I received a call from my tenant that there was water coming out of the laundry room. I immediately called Beacon plumbing and they sent Santos to identify the problem. My neighbor had the keys to my house and greeted Santos regarding the plumbing issue.

Santos was ill informed and believed my 2-year old pump was 4-years old. Santos then waived the fee of $524 for less than 2 hours of onsite service.
2nd visit 03-03-20 - 1:00AM Job# No paperwork provided - service tech: unknown
The night before on 03-02-20, I was doing laundry and I noticed that the water was starting to back up from the sump pump causing flooding in the laundry room. I called Beacon Plumbing and a tech came out within the hour. When he arrived I could tell that he was not able to confidently diagnose the problem.

He unplugged the sump pump and plugged it back in saying it was working properly and that I should call in the morning for a more experienced tech to diagnose the problem.
I then asked the tech to vacuum up the sewage water and he refused. I vacuumed the sewage water as packed up his tools and he departed thereafter. The next morning I call
3nd visit 03-03-20 11:00AM Job# 220156 service tech: Robert
After several hours it seemed Beacon could not diagnose the problem clearly and informed me that the sewer lines needed to be scoped and cleaned from root intrusions and the cost was $2000. Being a single woman and feeling intimidated after my 3rd meeting with Beacon, my tech Robert assured me that this would solve my basement flooding problem and I agreed to the scope of work.
Robert informed me that it would be in my best interest to purchase 2 cans of root treatment for $350 and he would give me a $50 discount.

I was later informed by a Beacon competitor that I could get the same result with $10 worth of live yeast at the super market.
4th visit 03-06-20 08:30 Job# 220285 service tech: Ned
On the morning of 3-6-20 I received another call from my tenant that there was massive flooding of sewage water coming from the laundry room where the sump pump is located. I immediately called Beacon and they informed me that they could be there within 90 minutes. As the sewage water was spewing into my basement unit, I decided to call the city because Beacon offered no immediate solution. The city came to the house to shut off the main water line.

Beacon later arrived to diagnose that the flapper valve had malfunctioned. They replaced it without charge. When I asked Ned, the head tech, if it was necessary to have spent the $2536 on the root cleaning, his response was, I cant answer that question. I knew at that moment that I was being taken advantage of as a single woman.
On the morning 03-09-20, I called Beacon requesting an in-person meeting to discuss the charges of $2536 for root intrusion clean up.

I was met at my home by Ned and a lead foreman. I expressed my dismay at the magnitude of the problem that had resulted. Beacon representatives responded with bullying tactics, condescending language, a lack of empathy and zero remorse for damages which are still under construction 90 days after the incident occurred.
My basement was flooded with sewage.

I lost rental income and I have spent 120+ hours managing the repairs which are still ongoing.
In conclusion: Dont use Beacon Cuz youll be Leakin and then Freakin BTW THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE REP KASEN LACKS ANY MORAL COMPASS AND WILL NOT DO THE RIGHT THING!! MAKES EXCUSES FOR THEIR PRICE GOUGING!!