Termax Hvac No Longer In Business

I'll be honest, Termax HVAC wasn't my first choice. I was going to go with another company for my cleaning needs because they were recommended to me by a trusted acquaintance. However, my wife felt strongly that the deal she found through Groupon was well worth taking a chance on. When I contacted my first choice, the company made an appointment instantly including a promotional discount for the cleaning. They provided all the information I needed to feel confident with the choice I made. My wife did some research on Termax HVAC and still felt it was a good choice based on the price. Suffice to say my wife won but she now sees the errs of her ways. She tried making an appointment with Termax which required her to call back a number of times, the receptionist was not professional and provided little knowledge on the process. The receptionist promised to call my wife back as she had to check with the technician about her questions but she did not call my wife back as she said she would. My wife called again the following day and repeated her request to clarify the process with Termax, to get a service date and again requested a technician call her, but she never got a call from Termax technicians at all. We finally got a date with a time slot a couple of weeks later but we wanted an earlier one because of the rising temperature - we wanted our air ducts cleaned before we turned on the a/c. It didn't happen. Finally, the day came when Termax was suppose to show up for our morning appointment. They didn't show up as arranged. In fact, I had to chase them down to find out what time they would arrive as oppose to a courtesy call to tell us that their technicians would be delayed at a previous job. They finally showed up mid-afternoon and reviewed what the Groupon covered - 14 vents, laundry vent and rotoscope cleaning. What it didn't cover was the cleaning of the furnace and a/c coil. The technicians showed us how dirty the furnace was from our renovation by taking a video through his iPhone. They said that the furnace needed to be cleaned first or the dust from the furnace would eventually be pushed back into the vents and ducts. They indicated that they would not do the vent and duct cleaning service and would only come back after the furnace was cleaned, should we want to select another company to do the furnace cleaning first. They then told us on the spot that they could clean it for $400 plus tax. (Cash grab company sound familiar?) This is the type of information I would have liked to have known in advance - if Termax had even bothered to ask a technician to call us so we could ask these questions, it would have been helpful and courteous. Not everyone has that a kind of money at home and no I would not want the technician to offer to drive me to the bank to get the money as courteous as it sounds (as I read from another customer's experience). At that point it's frustrating to say the least when we haven't compared what the going rate is for cleaning a furnace and a/c coil. Adding to the frustration of having to rebook Termax to come back weeks later for what they were initially to do, was not a preferred choice so we felt we had no option but to say yes. In the end we felt we had to get it done despite our displeasure. The bright side is that the guys were courteous and did a good job cleaning but I'm no expert and I haven't used anyone else to compare it to. The technician showed us images of the before and after and I was somewhat satisfied. Would I use Termax HVAC again? Maybe, if they trained the receptionist better and were better at providing more information on the process so that the customer actually has a choice. Maybe not, as it took too long to get an appointment as well as a simple call back. I'll probably call my first choice next time to see how their performance is just for comparison.