Reliance Home Comfort

Bought a house with a Reliance high efficiency furnace rental agreement in place. The rental agreement includes maintenance and repairs, but you must go through them for anything and everything. Seems pretty clear that when you call them, you're talking to a sales person, not a technician or customer service rep.

We had a technician come out for the annual maintenance, and he quickly said the diameter of the vertical return duct was too small and the furnace was overheating. This is preventing the furnace fan from operating at higher flow levels and is putting undue wear and tear on it. Shouldn't be a problem he said, just call Reliance and they'll come replace it. Quick and easy job. Weeks later, and only after several phone calls, they send another technician out to give a second opinion. This one immediately agreed but then tried to sell us a ductless AC unit as well. We said thanks but we'll wait until this is fixed before considering anything additional. Contact Reliance again, and they immediately just try and sell us a ductless unit. They claimed both technicians recommend a ductless unit, which is false! The first technician never mentioned anything about it, and we have copies of both service reports! The second technician recommended fixing the return duct which will improve heating & cooling efficiency by 15-20% and then if that's not good enough we should consider a ductless unit. Then they say we have to get our own duct specialist in to replace the duct and then they will send someone to connect it to the furnace (not allowed to have anyone not sent by them touch the furnace). Both technicians said the return duct is installed as part of the original installation to fit the furnace and Reliance should just send someone out to fix it. Again...should be quick, cheap, and easy. Instead they want us to pay someone to fix their mess up (won't be a lot of money, just a massive annoyance) and then wait around with a disconnected furnace (which obviously also circulates the cold air from AC) until they finally get someone out to connect it, which based on past experiences will be over a month! If they had just said after the first contact that we can just pay someone to come fix it for us, that would have been fine, but we have to go through them and be messed around for months on end while they try and find ways to sell us on more stuff and never fix the simple issue. The technicians were all very nice and knowledgable, (they don't work directly for reliance but are subcontracted) but the customer service is absolutely aweful!

Getting out of a contract with them is ridiculous (you pay all remaining rental payments at once and you're left without the equipment), which we knew, but the service is absolutely terrible once they've got you on a contract. This could have been a simple and quick interaction that would have earned them goodwill, but cusomer satisfaction is obviously of no interest to them at all.

We will likely end up with a ductless unit and will be replacing the main AC unit soon, but will absolutely never consider Reliance for anything, and hope many read this and follow suit! Cant wait for this furnace rental agreement to end so we can just buy a new one and pay someone competent for maintenance and repairs.