Ontario Consumers Home Services

I watched the Energy Trap segment on W5 and my heart sank. I believe my 83 year old mother has fallen into this trap. My mother's downfall is that she is too trusting and becomes more and more lonely as time goes on. This leaves her very vulnerable to door to door knockers, etc. In 2011, she told me that she had purchased a water heater from a door to door salesperson who was ‘such a lovely lady. She came in and had tea and cookies with me and she’s going to come back again to visit with me.’ She thought she had made a new friend. I was surprised because her old water heater worked perfectly and wasn’t in need of replacement. After seeing the segment on W5, alarm bells went off and I called my mother to find out what company she had made her purchase with. Sure enough the contract was with Ontario Consumers Home Services Inc. She is renting her unit from this company and will end up paying over a 10 year period nearly 20,000$ for her water heater unit. After using a high pressure sales pitch to take advantage of an 83 year old widow, she now has a lien on her house and is paying astronomical monthly fees for this unit. I have no idea how this company can have good reviews unless they are paying people to write false reviews. This company is preying on the most vulnerable members of society and continue to get away with it.

This company is a fraud. DO NOT sign up with them because they're just screwing you over. Their products suck, my 30 year old furnace worked a 100 times better. Government needs to shut this company down. I tried selling my house and before I could do that I had to pay these scammers $15,000.00. A furnace does not cost $15,000. They came to my door few times and we refused and sent them away and they came back when my mother was home alone, and took advantage of the fact that she doesn't know English and got her to sign up for it. I hope the owners of this company ROT IN HELL!

Just another sales company full of lies and extremely pushy. DON'T LET THEM IN, DON'T SIGN ANYTHING. I just had a representative come to the door, continuously knocking and ringing the bell. They claimed that they were afflicated with Reliance and needed to check the efficiency rating of my hot water tank. I notified the representative, Ella, that it had been replaced 3 weeks ago and that there would be no need to check it. That was when she told me she was aware of this and that it still needed to be checked. I asked her 3 easy questions to verify whether or not she knew anything about the tank and my account and she could not answer any of them; this is when she became extremely irritated and rude. Once I told her to get off of my property she continued to be rude and disrespectful and eventually walked away. Obviously, if a person comes to my door claiming to know information about me and not even know my name, they are a sales person. Lying and being rude when you're a sales person is not only stupid but illegal and deceptive.

Two reps from Ontario Consumers Home Services attended at my home misinforming an elderly individual in my home as to who they precisely were and they precise intentions; leading the person in my home to believe they were reps sent on behalf of a condo corp. doing an inspection. Their 'inspection' of my water heater, led to leakage and damage to my unit which was previously functioning in a normal manner for a consistent time period with absolutely no issues prior to their attendance and manipulation to my unit. The person in my home became suspicious of their intentions and when noticing the issue of the leakage indicated they needed to fix it which they could not and it became necessary to call the local utility company. The best part comes at which time the representative, DESPITE the FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, attempted to negotiate with a representative of the utility company to obtain my info, contract and buy it out, despite the lack of my presence in the home. This goes beyond any grain of respectable business practice to which I have ever encountered. I came home and took over a telephone call with my utility rep to have to make arrangements to now fix a unit which YOUR representative caused damage to, attempted to SWINDLE MY CONTRACT DESPITE THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, AND THEN, attempt to speak to me as though I am a bumpkin from a pumpkin patch, once I got off the phone and demanded he provide me with a business card and get out of my home. No thank you for the damage, turned off gas, no hot water until a unit is repaired and now potentially additional costs in my home from a blatant moron representative of your company barging his way into my home when an elderly woman was home with my sick child. Compensation for the damage is the only response I would wish to consider and most certainly not your blatant, blathering responses as you have provided to others which I have already read. ANY company whose response on a BBB sight disclosing personal information of another client regarding an outstanding bill as what I read was your response to another complainant is not only poor company character compounded in addition to the foregoing, but should be a warning to anyone who comes to BBB to read reviews on such a reprehensible company with ill trained individuals lacking the skills to even walk a squirrel foraging for nuts in a bag of peanuts. The best advertisement is word of mouth. As an addendum - Your representative, according to his business card that I demanded - was Richard Englisch, Regional Manager, who 'knows how to talk to people' based on his bragging within my home. Unless you are offering me compensation for damages within my home, on this open forum for others to view on how you correct these instances, my further personal information will not be provided at this time.

This company has definitely reached a new low for me. They called my home and after claiming to be from Enbridge, my wife hesitantly agreed for a free estimation. They show up the next morning and tried to convince me that our newly installed furnace needed to be replaced and that they would need to drill holes for new piping. Their staff were extremely pushy and wanted to start working immediately. To make matters worse, they seemed uneducated in the field as basic questions about the functionality and purpose of a new furnace, could not be answered. I have never seen such deceiving sales tactics being implemented in a Canadian company and it is really disappointing to see companies executing such a dishonest and unethical business plan. Instead of replying to the negative reviews on Google, the company should allocate their time on retraining their staff. I'm dumbfounded to see that they would continuously execute a flawed business plan, despite acknowledging their poor brand image amongst consumers. I really hope that the company's upper management understand their problems, and imposes change to their company. Their current operational tactics will continue to hinder the company's ability to develop a positive customer experience and will definitely affect the long-term sustainability of the company.

We recently bought our home this year. When we moved in we called Ontario Consumers to fix the tank this was since June 2014. They kept sending people to fix the tank until they sent the same person twice. I have had it with them. Its now November and our hot water tank is giving a vibrating noise when ever the hot water is turned on. Two guys came and checked it out and we were told the technician will fix the problem the next day. We still have not heard nor got a phone call as to who will be fixing our tank. It was installed incorrectly and instead of fixing the issue they just keep procrastinating. They are unprofessional and unreliable. I am now looking into other companies.

You have to be aware of this company about their business practices, their misrepresentation, and discrimination. I first contacted to look into options to buy out. They said I am not on the contract since I took over the water heater from prior property owner and I have to change the title through my lawyer. 2nd time I contacted them to schedule free annual maintenance check. They said they are busy and I have to call back in 4 days. After I told them many times the maintenance check is part of contract and I can call any time between Jan and August, they asked me to find someone in the household who can better understand English. After 12 days, still nobody bothers to return my call.

Two young men come to my door saying that they are checking the efficiency of my water heater. I told them that our water heater is perfect. They said it's not about that, it's to see how efficient it is. I said that I was not aware of this initiative, but was told that it was included in my energy bill back in January. So I said that I would go back to that bill and look for it and if I found it, I would call and set up a time that was convenient for me. They said that they were already in the neighbourhood today so should they take off their shoes before coming in? I said that I would not be letting them in, and that I don't just let anybody in my house without an appointment. They said, but sir, we're not selling anything. Bull! At any rate, they were not coming in. I asked them for a business card at which they said that they were not sales people. Then, I asked them for a pamphlet regarding this initiative for which they didn't even answer. I asked a few more questions basically I acted like a confused owner, to which they got frustrated enough and said that they didn't have time to deal with this and left. I don't know how this company exists...These tactics are borderline harassment, and almost came close to calling the police.

They showed up at my door with a clipboard and an empty vial saying they worked for my water heater rental and wanted to check the water quality. After I let them in, they switched to salesman mode and tried to talk me in to installing a gas heater and duct work. After I showed some interest, they called their manager to come by and talk with me. When he came by, I guess they had no other work to do because they sat around in my house the whole time their boss was there. I agreed to let them come by for an assessment, since they claimed their work would add $30 000 of value to my house though my real estate agent later told me it would only add $15 000. They would only book 4-hour windows, and wouldn't give me any indication to what time during that window they would come. After confirming the appointment the day before, I sat around the whole 4-hours without hearing a word from them and they haven't followed up since. They get one star for lying their way in to my house, lying about the value their work would add, wasting my time on their sales pitch, wasting my time waiting for them to come, and not showing without any cancellation notice.