72 Degrees Heating and Air Conditioning

We have a contract with this company since they installed out HVAC system in Feb 2012. It included a 10 year warranty of all parts and labor. Recently it malfunctioned and the 72 Degrees technician indicated that the Zone Board needed to be replaced. He told me the Zone Board would cost approximately $1200 which seemed extremely high. The next day I talked to a lady at their office in Raleigh and she agreed the work would be under warranty. When the tech arrived to do the work he told us that the Zone Board was NOT covered by the warranty! I called the manager who told me that he had no record of them doing the original installation of the Zone Board. He said that the Zone Board is not considered part of the HVAC “system” and they just used the Zone Board that was already on the system they were replacing. I knew this to be untrue since I have a record of a repair they did “UNDER WARRANTY” on one of the Zone Board Sensors two years after they installed the system. I explained to him that if they knew the Zone Board was NOT theirs, why would they have done WARRANTY work on it previosly? He told me regardless of the paperwork I had on file, they would NOT do the work under warranty. What is worse is that while we were on the phone, I went online and found numerous Zone Boards for 2X and 4X systems; the prices ranged from ~$99 to $200. I asked him why the huge difference in price? He stated that that have a mark-up on the cost in order to make money. A mark-up is understandable but a 500% mark-up is unethical. He said labor is included in that price. I asked him what the labor charge was and he said they have a standard labor rate; so I asked him to tell me how much of the $1200 would be labor. At that point he hung up. This company engages in disreputable business practices and the community should be warned not to do business with them. They do not honor warranties and price gouging.

I would caution anyone financing through this company. They opened up 3 credit cards in my name because they did not properly verify my name before hitting submit. I had to call and close the additional accounts because it was clear that 72 degrees was not going to be much help, they treated it as if it was no big deal and that the accounts would close themselves when there was no activity. I have used them in the past and they used to be pretty good but something in the office staff has changed and I would not recommend 72 degrees to anyone. Do yourself a favor and save you credit score by looking for a different HVAC contractor.