Enercare Home Services

Want to share my experience of renting water heater from Direct Energy in view of July 2013 flood.

We have been renting the water heater for 3,5 years. In July like many others we got water in the basement from the sewer backup.
After the flood my husband called Direct Energy and a service man arrived to remedy situation. He did his ‘magic’ by unplugging the water heater and wrote us a bill of $1047+HST to buy out the rental water heater – this translates to 3.5 years of rentals. Brand new water heaters of the same capacity are below $1000.We understand that
the rental agreement has buy-out condition in case of flood damage. But the buy-out price does not have to be outrageous.
One would think that depreciation and loss of warranty need to be factored in when determining the buy-out price.

We cleaned off the dirt and plugged the water heater back in and it works since mid July till now. However, we are forced to buy it out because of the unspecified ”flood damage”. I cannot see any damage because the water heater works and I offered to continue paying monthly rental fees. Direct Energy sent another service man (don’t know why). He saw the water heater working but in his inspection report wrote that water heater was off and he left it that way. He explained to us that he cannot write the truth because he would lose his job.

The fun part is that Direct Energy continues billing us for rental and buy-out price every month plus late fee. I paid all my monthly water heater rental fees on time and payments were accepted.

I called Direct Energy numerous times asking to lower the buy-out price if they consider the unit damaged or continue to rent to me with no service obligations on their part or let me pay in installments and not charge me late fees. Agents promise to call back with decision when they get one from their supervisor but never do.
On the latest bill I finally got credit for my 3 last monthly payments but they still charged us again for the current month. Called again today and, as always, they will call me back. Will they ever?

Customer care – there is none, communication – there is none, effectiveness –non-existing. Is there anyone in this company who can make a decision?
Another very troublesome thing is if employees are not objective on their inspection report not to lose their job what kind of company is this?
Case references given to me by Direct Energy Customer Care agents #2486500 and #20290523. This may help Direct Energy to identify anonymous customers.