HOME SERVE SECURITY BREACH PLUS

Home Serve sells service contracts for your heat and hot water.  You may have also seen their insurance solicitation to cover your gas pipes. That’s another story.  I turned my thermostat on and the heat didn’t come up.  Pilot light on or I would have smelled gas.  I concluded that the tech who last came must have not done a perfect job when he fiddled with the thermostat.  Different Tech comes to the house.  He is not wearing any identification either pinned to him or around his neck.   I ask to see his id and he seems a bit surprised.  He has trouble taking it out from his wallet saying, “Gee, I don’t even remember the last time I took this out”.  Are you kidding?  I asked why he doesn’t wear it around his neck and he tells me that it’s too annoying.  Wait…it’s gets better.

I told him what the issue was and even brought him directly over to the thermostat on the main floor of my home.  I even commented that it was the problem.  However, his eyes see a female senior citizen who has a mobility issue and concludes that I don’t know what I’m talking about.

He goes down to the basement and I can hear him from the top of the stairs doing all sorts of stuff.  I ask what’s happening and he says something about the gas not getting to some valve or whatever.  Then he asks where the circuit breakers are.  I am able to point from the top of the stairs and tell him that one of them is tripped and has nothing to do with the furnace.  He tries it anyway as it trips right after. 

 
He finally comes up the stairs after not finding the problem and says, “Well, now the last thing I’ll check is the thermostat.”  He removes the cover to find that a wire is loose and that is the problem.  Really?  Should I be surprised?   Although I spoke with his “supervisor”, I intend to file an official complaint for both breach of security and rudeness.