Well....school has been out for a week, and until yesterday, I was relaxing...feeling my mind and body unwind in the warm gulf (probably about 86 degrees), or lounging in the pool (which is still a few degrees cooler than the gulf).  Reality came crashing in on me yesterday afternoon.

It began as a simple call to redeem a coupon for a $49.95 air conditioner tune up. (Is it EVER REALLY $49.95??)  The technician began his work, only to come in a few minutes later to tell Nick that some part of our cooling unit/coils was melting, and would need to be replaced. (Nick did look at it, and it was melting) So the guy goes out by his truck, calls his boss, comes back in with 3 options, which as he explained it, sounded like we would be replacing the whole system.  Cheapest option was $2700...most expensive was $3600!!!  Thinking we were agreeing to a whole new system, we decided to go with the more expensive option, as it also had the longest warranty.  Even though this is supposedly their busy time, they just happened to have an opening for the next day. Because we agreed to purchase this, the duct sanitizing was going to be included, so the guy started on that.

So....I'm on the way out the door to go pick up Nick's son from work, when the guy (who has been out by his truck again talking to his boss), comes in with another paper.  His boss just happens to have 2 complete systems (hadn't we already agreed to the price of a complete system??) on a truck going to a housing sale or something.  But...he can sell one to us for...are you ready...$9600 !!!!!  But we had to let him know right then, or they would be shipped out!!!!  So we have now gone from $49.95 to $9600 in 1 hour and 3 phone calls!!!!  It was kind of questionable when he kept going out to his truck to talk to his boss...out of our earshot.  Never had a service person EVER do that before!!

Well....feeling like we were really getting messed with, we said no, just finish the sanitizing, to which he said his boss would want him to charge us for it.  Thinking maybe $100 (he had never given us a price for that, because it was to be included in the sale of what we thought was a complete system).  So I leave a check with Nick, and leave to pick up his son.  I get home an hour later to find that it has still cost us $434!!!  Then the guy had the nerve to call us later and say his boss said he could give us the whole system for $5000 without any warranty!!! 

We really felt like we had been taken advantage of....I likened it to a female going to an auto repair shop, and they just keep telling you more and more things need to be fixed on your car (sound familiar ladies?)  So....now we're out $434...the air conditioner still needs to be replaced....and we aren't running it anymore.  You can bet that Direct Heating and Cooling  will NOT be getting any business or references from us!!!!  Guess we should have checked BBB first!

So.......I'm trying to get back to that relaxed mindset.......real tough.