If you were to hear something like, “I would estimate that we won’t bring the car home from the shop for under $500;” or “My best estimate is that I will gain no less than five pounds over the holidays,” most of you would understand that I am giving an approximation of a figure that may be lower or higher when all is said and done and the task is finished. Time will tell, eh?
In a previous column I wrote about the broken ice machine in our refrigerator. Well, the estimate I signed for repair was exorbitant but compared to a new refrigerator, it seemed the more frugal of our immediate options. The labor estimate was equal to the parts portion of the job. But, for all we knew it may have taken the technician an hour or hours to install the parts and re-calibrate the freezer panel; so, we’ll see, I thought.
A week hence, two dinged-up boxes of parts arrived and the technician was scheduled to install the hopefully undamaged parts. Matthew, the no-nonsense technician seemed unfazed by the nasty boxes which contained several hundred dollars’ worth of parts.
Matthew worked for twenty-two minutes and we trusted the shiny new panel would say it enjoyed producing ice cubes and crushing said cubes upon our request, in twenty-four hours or so. When I asked Matthew if they would adjust the labor costs of the estimate since it ended up being pretty much what I I would describe as a “plug-and-play” job, he said it wasn’t within his purview to deal with that, but I should call billing; he just tells “them” what parts are needed.
So, we were happy with that, and enthralled with our fancy new-like ice-maker and freezer display panel. Who was it who first said, everything is temporary? Our happiness waned when we got the bill.
It appears that the Service Center felt that their Estimate was the bill, whether the labor time took three hours or five minutes, the labor cost was “estimated” by job code not time spent working. It was their argument that since I signed the Estimate, I am bound to pay the amount estimated.
More than once and to more than four folks on the “help-line,” I wanted to shout, “don’t you understand the definition of the word, estimate?” “But you signed it,” they repeated like automatons. Honestly, I could have been saying in Swahili, “I love dandelions and there is a meteor coming toward my house,” and they would have said, “but you signed the estimate,” in response.
I learned a new word, presented as word of the day on Dictionary.com. It’s inspissate, and means to thicken or make or become dense. I like this word; I think mostly because it has spiss in the middle and somehow that sounds like a venomous but neutral retort fitting for a telephone help-line representative who helps you not.
I can satisfactorily envision myself saying to one and all, “must you be so inspissate about this whole estimate-thing; IT’S AN ESTIMATE, an APPROXIMATION based on the unknown, until you KNOW, then you can adjust the price accordingly!” I know that using that word that way, stretches its connotation, but they don’t know that and my fantasy vent helps me to cope with the injustice of it all.
My age has mellowed me as to arguing about customer-service type rip-offs, to an extent. I still retain a little bit of fight in me as to “the principal of the thing.”
So, my calm and final effort to help this “service” company see sense as to their misinterpretation of the word, estimate, was to send an email with my argument laid out in plain, English, step by obvious step. By the way, it took me about three calls, not counting several transfers from one department to another, to get the correct email in which to send my dispute.
Approximately three weeks, hence, after receiving no reply to my well-thought-out, reasoned dispute, what I did receive was a new bill from the billing department with the expectation that I pay the estimate in its entirety. After all, I “signed the estimate.”
I suppose I could retain an attorney, but the principal of the thing can be quite expensive. In fact, a friend and colleague who was owed an amount in the six figures was advised by his attorney not to pursue it because legal fees would obfuscate the amount owed. Wowzer.
So, as the due date approached, I had to come up with a few justifications in my brain for how to be okay, dealing with the injustice that seems to be the outcome of this repair cost. But once it’s paid, I’ll probably forget about it, until the next time something major breaks in my house.
The next time, will I remember the lesson? And what was the lesson in all of this?
DIY and eBay or YouTube videos? A different service company? I think I’ll go with option number three, my son-in-law. He’s brilliant at everything to do with remodel and repair, but I don’t like taking his time and we refuse to do “family rates.” I don’t know for sure what I’ll do, but I’m telling myself, “Better luck next time.”