Installed a whole house humidifier as an Angie's List deal. Technician was great and did an outstanding job. Mentioned their service contracts but wasn't interested. Got a call a few hours later asking how the install went and then mentioned service contracts again. Agreed to have them come back to perform their yearly furnace maintenance for a discounted price and scheduled for a week later. Service technician came and found a weak blower capacitor. Part replacement was $360. I questioned the high cost as these are online for $5.55 (60x markup). Stated this is cost to carry parts on their trucks. Since I recently broke my ankle and couldn't replace the capacitor myself for a few months, I had to accept the cost. Checked online afterwards and based on comments made on various forums, I see parts price scamming is a way of life for many furnace repair businesses. $360 is at the high end of those reporting capacitor replacement. Most are about $120. It is a shame that businesses feel the need to mark up inexpensive parts to this extreme. It's a scam in my opinion and I cannot recommend any business that would do this to their customers. I feel they have good technicians who are very courteous and thorough in their jobs, but scamming customers by marking up their replacement parts to this type of extreme is an unacceptable practice that will loose me for an future business with them.
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