I feel like Reliance must be playing a really elaborate prank on me, because I can't imagine a company actually treating customers like this. This is a long one, so I apologize in advance.
I've had a service contract with Reliance for about 7 years, and previously had good experiences with them. Earlier this week I had my gas furnace stop working in the middle of the night, and booked a service call with Reliance for the following day. I have had Reliance technicians assist with similar issues in the past, but in this case the technician turned up promptly mid-afternoon and proceeded to take one look at my furnace and then contacted the gas company to cite a code infraction relating to clearance around the furnace. Then he left without fixing anything, because obviously being short 8 inches of clearance around the furnace is a greater safety concern than my 5 year-old being in a house in winter without heat. So not only is my furnace not working, but now I have to knock down a wall in my basement or else the gas company will shut off my gas altogether in 90 days. And Reliance won't help get the heat working again until the wall is down, so their promise to "always act in the customer's best interest" means potentially a few days without heat until I can get it sorted out.
I do commend them on their response times, however. Not an hour and half after sending an angry email describing my predicament did a service manager (who is friends with the CEO no less, as he informed me) called. Unfortunately, all he had to say was:
(a) that code violations are important because their technicians can lose their licenses,
(b) that they had no recollection of any previous service calls on my furnace and that their system is super-awesome at tracking this kind of stuff, (FYI, most recent before this was Oct 28, 2013 - no mention of the furnace clearance by that guy or any of the others)
(c) that the code infraction prevents service of the furnace, and any other furnace technician will tell us the same thing.
At this point in the conversation I was so angry that I had to end the call. God, I really regret calling them in the first place.
The individual who actually ended up fixing the problem (in about 10 minutes) agreed that Reliance's response in this situation was pretty ridiculous. I'm happy to again be with heat, no thanks to Reliance. But I do still have to knock down a wall in my basement before Feb or my gas gets shut off in the middle of winter, so I guess I can thank them for that.
Doubtful I'll be using them again. Wouldn't recommend to others.
