WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. — A Winter Springs woman claims she paid hundreds of dollars to have the ducts cleaned in her home, but later found out she may not have actually received the service.
Becky Mulligan was interested in hiring a company to clean her ducts after getting a coupon in the mail.
“They had a special for $99 you know, whole-home air duct cleaning. So, I was intrigued by the price,” Mulligan told Action 9 consumer Investigator Jeff Deal.
When someone from that company, ABC Air Duct Services LLC out of Orlando, showed up at her home they told her the situation was much worse than she thought.
Mulligan said, “I needed a much more extensive cleaning, including sanitation, disinfectant, and it would cost $800 rather than the $99.”
She negotiated--and agreed to pay $600. She believed she had received service at first, but later after she didn’t receive a receipt she tried to call the company she believed she had hired.
“And they had no record of me and said that they hadn’t been here. So, I was like, ‘That’s not good,’” She said.
It turns out the company she called has a similar name to the company with the coupon. ABC Cleaning Inc out of Oviedo is the company she thought she hired. It has been around for years and has good online reviews. So, Mulligan asked ABC Cleaning Inc to give her a second opinion on her ducts.
A worker from the second company showed her dirty vents that had still been stuck to her ceiling with paint. The worker told her cleaning the registers or vents would be part of any duct cleaning and after checking the ducts said it was clear no cleaning had been done by the first company.
The worker told her on a recorded video, “Typically we’ll hook up through the unit to put everything, the whole system under negative pressure. And then we use different air tools to kind of mechanically agitate everything to start to loosen it, to suck it all out into the truck.”
Mulligan claims the first company sprayed a silver substance inside the air handler, but she doesn’t know what it is.
Under state law, a license is required to clean ducts if any part of the HVAC system is opened. Action 9 searched state records and couldn’t find a license to work on air conditioning systems for the original company, ABC Air Duct Services LLC.
When Deal showed up at the business address for ABC Air Duct Services LLC, a woman at the door said, Nate Simon, a man in charge of running it was there, but couldn’t talk about it.
Deal asked, “You haven’t had any complaints about this kind of thing?”
The woman answered, “No. "
Deal asked, “Does he have a license to work on air conditioning?”
She didn’t answer, but followed up by saying, “Tell her to call us, rather than call you guys. Thank you.” She then closed the door.
Mulligan was speaking out because she wants others to be aware.
“Irate about it, it’s just ridiculous that you have to be so careful,” she said.
After Action 9 stopped by the business, called and emailed, the company did reach back out to Mulligan and refunded her $600.
So, far it has not responded to the questions submitted by Action 9.
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