BACKGROUND

When I bought my new home the purchase agreement included a 2 year warranty policy on home appliances.  At that time I had a great home warranty policy at a very affordable price from Sears and ultimately whomever took over the warranty services.  Always excellent service and customer service.  But they did not cover my HVAC system.  Two years went by and I never used the home warranty that came with the house.  And in fact unfortunately I really was largely unaware of its existence.  At this point I started getting all kinds of scam mail and emails from various companies.  One day I got a call from Amanda of AWS regarding the lapse of my warranty service and the opportunity to re-instate it before it is too late.  I made the mistake of now verifying the company name, policy number, and contact information and bought into the scam.  I had paid about 4 months of premiums when problems with the heater began to surface.  We called the HWS company and found out that they do not have ANY  technicians not a department in the company for service.  They turn to the internet to try and find any service company without vetting them and the selection is based on the cheapest service rates.  They found a HVA service company and provided our contact information to the service company without informing them that they were a Home Warranty Service.  The technician contact me about the repair and I am always flooded with scammers trying to offer all kinds of products and services.  So I asked are you being sent to me from “HWS Home Warranty Services” and he replied “No”.  That ended that conversation.  I called HWS back and they acknowledged that that was the company they contacted. So the next part of the scam was to try to get me to pay for the repair and then inform me that if I paid according to the service contract I would not be re-imbursed.  But during the numerous conversations back and forth with HWS I was often transferred from one person to another or a department to another upwards of 6 times in several conversation and held on the phone for upwards of 45 minutes each time.  

CONCLUSION

In the end I contract my realtor and found out that this was not the original home warranty company and that they would never refer a client to this shady company.  The realtor gave me a name of a strongly recommended master HVAC technician who did a great job first identifying the problem and fixing it for less money than I paid in premiums for the 4 months.  I then contacted the credit card company and got back all the money I paid to this AWS scam company.

LESSONS

When contacted by phone, email, or conventional mail verify all details about the service provider.  Look for reviews.  Look at Better Business for their rating.

Contact your realtor about any questions about your home and services that you might have.

HOW TO IDENTIFY HWS

Look for the following telephone numbers associated with these scammers:

888-743-0255

800-599-9557

Also note that their contract all begin with HWS-