We had a pipe burst. I called AHS and explained that we had a burst pipe.

After listening to music for 1/2 hour I reached a rep, explained very specifically that we had a catastrophic pipe burst and water thru the ceiling. The rep submitted and "expedited" service request and a plumber from a grade "c" company came to the house--by the way, AHS uses no good service companies, only marginal ones. The plumber informed us that AHS only pays for the repair of "leaky" pipes, not broken ones, so we had to pay him or get no repair. Ok, so it the warranty does not cover "broken" pipes, why did AHS take my $100 deductible and send a plumber?

I could not have been any more clear when I called that the problem was a BURST pipe. This my second and final bad experience with this useless company.

Buyer beware! They are crooks!

Product or Service Mentioned: American Home Shield Warranty.

Reason of review: Not as described/ advertised.

Location: Fairfax, Virginia

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Guess we know who the AHS employee is here


Nope not an AHS employee but have inside info on how it works, and why it is the way it is. The problem is there is no money in warranty work.

All the money you pay to AHs never makes it to the service people. It finds AHS at a tremendous profit level, because they aren’t spending it on the customers. They will tell you that they pay for whatever the contractor bills them for the services, but they fire the contractors that charge them above what your service fee amount is. That way, AHS is just a middleman, or a lead generation service which you are paying for.

The contractors can’t sell you anything and they can’t charge AHS anything. So how is the actual work supposed to get done?

And where are the parts and components supposed to come from? I know it’s not what you’d like to hear, but the truth will set you free.


The basic problem is that nobody wants to pay the plumber. Just own it.

Everyone hates plumbers. They think it is a necessary evil to need service people at your house. How did plumbers get such a bad rep? Do you know how hard it is to become a licensed plumber, and how expensive the liability insurance is?

Do you have any freaking clue how much bs regulations there are in any of the trades? The. To have to fight each and every customer over money because they don’t want to pay for a licensed plumber who works his tail off? Early death and broken bodies and no gratitude whatsoever to the plumbers who keep us al from swimming in our own waste.

People are great. They’d much rather pay a company $25,000 to have a new home theater installed than to keep the sewage and mold out of their homes, or to keep from freezing or roasting to death.

I get it. It’s no fun to need help but have a little respect for the dirty jobs that make life comfortable.


AHS sent you a plumber and took your money BECAUSE YOU MADE A SERVICE REQUEST. Not their fault that the condition required you to pay for the repair.

You asked for their help and you got it—they sent you a plumber, and it sounds like they arrived reasonably quickly. What did you want AHS to do—have the lady rep tell you NO, you can’t have a plumber? Would that have made you feel better? They have to send someone out in order to diagnose the failure and cause of failure.

It’s not their fault you don’t understand the terms and conditions of the contract. As for the plumber they sent being grade C, the reason for the low grade is they are under contract with AHS, and have to deal with 100% unhappy AHS clientele. AHS has their contractors in a stranglehold to keep AHS’ costs down to the customer’s service fee no matter how they have to accomplish that. That is their primary goal, absorbing the expense for AHS themselves, or passing it on to the AHS customer as they did in your case.

Mission accomplished. Now the plumber’s grade fell to a C- . And the lower his grade falls because of the disgruntled AHS customers, the more he becomes dependent upon AHS to send him more calls.

It runs off all his other, legitimate, organic, better customers. So the poor plumber is stuck with folks like you who put your money in a home warranty rather than calling an A grade or B grade plumber in the first place, like you should have done.

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