full expose: HF FURR’s fraudulent activity and price gouging is a lot worse than you think and I have the receipts. I’ve been dealing with them for a long time gathering facts and toying with them to verify. They push completely unnecessary work on good parts they claim are bad.  big time.  They have very aggressive sales and operations techniques that not only demand unnecessary work, but charge two or three times the average price in the area , confirmed. They’re literally ripping off grandmothers that don’t know any better. Please read on.

they’re owned by a massive private equity conglomerate Apex who are quietly buying up all the local Mom and pop operations in areas up and down the East Coast.  in this area they bought up Dwyer and other firms in this immediate area that have great reputations and have operated for decades.  take over targets. They all sold out. But Apex keeps the name and trucks of these smaller companies who are NOT the same after being swallowed and adding huge sales and training operations focused on fraudulent upsell methodologies. 

Apex ran a $2 billion fund recently to buy even more in the last 4 years. They operate the mom and pops secretly by keeping the same name same trucks same advertising same everything from the companies they buy. even HF Furr.  You may think you’re working with a small firm locally who you’re familiar with, but it’s actually Apex running the show from a true mothership network and they run it in a very evil way.

Dwyer was actually sold outright and extinguished and that’s how I got engaged with HF FURR. My air conditioner was installed by Dwyer. I knew the guys well did great work. I called in for emergency service over one year ago and the phone rang to HF FURR. They took over the company no problem. I invited them in to check my compressor and more importantly the capacator. . Air conditioner was out. I knew what it was. I do most of my appliance work myself. 

I have a friend that works at FH FURR and I asked for him specifically, but he was unavailable so I took whatever Bub they sent me. Guy shows up with his apprentice and their classic iPad weapon. They now use them with preloaded tiered numbers and recommendations based on gullibility, and stay on a microphone that is always on. They have an actual sales team and advisors on live on every operator in the field and they talk back-and-forth and they’re listening to your conversations. They are evaluating your knowledge and your questions discussed inside their truck and they are actively coaching with direct verbal feedback on conversations to technicians in the field how to upsell and talk you into stuff you do not need. what exactly to say to dramatically convince you.  Literally. This has been proven in many cases and the microphones are on. I have 12 cameras and microphones around my house and they did not know there were 2 of them high over overhead watching their entire operation at my AC condenser.

I suspected it was a very inexpensive part the capacitor easy to fix the part should be on the truck. I was busy at work and in a suit during this visit watching them quickly and I had to go soon.  I needed quick diagnosis for the part order for next install visit, it was hot no AC. He checked the capacitor and said that’s not it and immediately went to the compressor. I told him the unit is not even three years old. It should be under warranty. Better not be the compressor. he put his electrical probes in the wrong places and tried to show me on his meter that it was shorted out, the compressor blew and I need a replacement. I watched him actually touch the paint on the body of the compressor, which is not the proper contact terminal. I told him you’re not making a connection. he said hold on a minute to talk to somebody on the telephone. It was his laptop talking to him, he went to his truck for help.  i had busted him.  He came back and told me he prefers to make a better connection by scratching the paint off the body of the compressor and put his probe there instead of the actual contact to get a better reading. That’s bullshit he was just fed. He showed me the meter again that was dead and the compressor was bad. I knew exactly what he was doing. I knew it was the capacitor, i could see the swelling, and I could replace it after he leaves or Call my friend to do it the next day.

he went on and on about it needed a compressor. They’ll call the manufacture to confirm. I’m still under warranty. It’s not the cost of the part. Of course it’s the labor. After him going back-and-forth to his person on the phone in his truck, he showed some pre typed work scope and offer. I pretended I had to go to the bathroom and come back, and in the meantime, he was on his laptop, talking to the sales person trying to figure out the price. They knew the compressor was fine. They were selling me something I did not need. The price to replace the compressor was over $6000 with everything else included $8000. Completely unnecessary. The actual needed part is a $25 with $150 max labor. Just for fun I told them to go ahead and order the part. I signed off on ordering the part only knowing that the warranty will come back good and the part was free. I ordered them to call me when the part arrives, and I will sign the service order to have it installed then.

They did not like that idea wanted me to sign up on the whole operation. I said no I have to go. I’ll see you tomorrow. i was able to call my friend at the same company. He came out the next day while the mothership was calling me telling me the part is back ordered. It would be three more days. Perfect. My friend confirmed it was just a $20 capacitor. He had the universal part on his truck. He replaced it for me and cleaned my coil. He was out of there for $300. we talked about the compressor. He said it’s absolutely not bad, running fine.  and it’s IMPOSSIBLE to accidentally misdiagnos. He knew I was being ripped off by somebody he works with. He told me this most important part the next day.  He said he was back at the mothership in the work room and there’s a leaderboard on the wall to encourage sales. These technicians posts their sales for the day and they have a competition to see who can get the most. My fraudulent technician had posted on the board and skyrocketed to the top for the month. He had a incredible sale my $10,000 project that was not necessary and they were high-fiving laughing at me inside the break room. The sales person was celebrating they were literally celebrating my sale and he did not know it was me. He felt bad for that person. He realized it was me asked me what the hell are you doing, you know it was not a bad comp? I told him I’m setting them up. He said great job. He hates that guy. He’s a big fat ass and he hopes he gets fired. He confirmed i can canceled the order to have compressor replaced and went on his way and he is safe inside the company.

The company is so large they relay sales calls through a massive call center. I had a sequence of phone calls, from foreign countries it seemed, trying to arrange to get the part put in five days later when it finally showed up. When I told them I’ve already done the work with other people and I don’t need it, they freaked out and escellated it to another department. I receive calls for the next two days from different departments escalating higher trying to figure out what I’m doing not going ahead with unnecessary work. After all of the complaining, it was comical listening to them struggle to try to secure this project. Oddly enough a day later because they’re so disconnected the original technician called me saying he’s ready to come do the work as if he didn’t know anything going on. He probably did not, excited about the job and his commission he wanted to do the work and I told him you fraudulently diagnosed my equipment. I watched you do it. you’re on camera? I don’t need your work thank you very much. He never called back.

when my friend was out for the correct work fix, we signed me up for their “free”  home inspection services. Some of you have this, to come to your house and look for necessary work over the years. We laughed out loud, looking at what it includes and he encouraged me to do it just so I can get a discount on the work he was doing. I got a 20% discount for signing up. He told me cancel six months later . That’s the way you play their game. Good advice. But using that home inspection services leverage I allowed them to come look for work I actually needed as a test. I was doing it all myself and was just testing them to learn their prices and operations and see what the claims would be.

I do a lot of plumbing myself. I bought all the parts to install a backflow preventer for my new yard irrigation system installed last year. I don’t have time to do the work. I wanted them to sweat in my valves and test ports on my house main line. It’s a good amount of work but probably worth $1400 max. 

I have an old drain line that’s a little slow. I run my own auger frequently and I have my own camera and I know exactly what’s in there. It’s just kitchen grease. I wanted a Hydro jet, essentially a power washing on that line. I don’t have a jetter line or heads. I wanted them to do it and run a price for me. 

Then i have a gas line I need to install with a regulator for a new generator I’m installing. I have the lines already run to the exterior wall and  just need the regulator and the connection valve installed outside the house through the wall. Limited scope.

My tankless water heater needs annual cleaning which is simple. It’s a chemical or vinegar flush to get the calcium out of the lines normally is $150. Maybe 200 Max. Me being lazy and out of time I asked him to come estimate that. 

This is all plumbing work. It should be one guy one visit one estimate for multiple pieces of work. in the process of moving crap out of the way to get my water heater, I snapped the small pvc pipe, the condensate line, that comes off your air conditioner goes to the floor drain. It’s a three-quarter inch PVC pipe maybe 3 feet tall and 1 foot wide with 3 elbows. Very simple piece of work. i have all the pipes and fitting in stock here.  Just for fun I asked them to estimate that while you are here. 

for this list of work, I made it very clear in my phone call that I needed technicians to come out to estimate, I will take one day off work and go over all this work in one shot with one team please send out your best person to investigate this work and give me a solid price on each one. a real plumbers dream job.  easy, linear, in out done.  Dozens of calls started coming in from different departments. They cannot consolidate the work. They had three people show up on the day at different times and two departments did not show up. I got a plumber. he was overwhelmed trying to explain the scope to the mothership becaue the scope didn’t match any of his pre populated work scope and price packages on his pad.  he called in somebody else to do drains. I got a generator installation guy who had a hell of a story and had another plumber to come. Here’s how it worked out. 

The generator guy refused to do only gas work at the end of run.  he would include it with installation of an entire new generator for $18,000. I told him I’m already ordering the generator to be here in a month.  5.9k$.  I’ve got everything set up including the foundation pad and switch.  I just need to do the E work. He said he’d give me some kind of great package after talking to HQ and would call me the next day. these guys cannot give any prices for any work in the field no matter what it is without checking with the sales directors at the mothership. They’re not even in the state. His estimate came in at $15,000 including generator . they “can’t “ install the same generator if i purchase it at a lower cost.  Of course I refused it. I’ll do it myself.  15-18 not a bad price but i don’t need any of that to get a gen in. 

The broken plastic pipe was the most sickening part. The plumber after talking to his iPad to headquarters sales people came back and said I’m working with all these prices individually and I will send them to you the next day. The team worked on it together. That tiny PVC pipe, I already had the pipes in the garage. I showed them to him. I said use my stock just do the work. The written estimate said they cannot use my pipe. It might be inferior they have to buy their own. i asked why so big they said they’re “using the very high quality Cpvc pipe not normal PVC.  and much better glue than normal…..” , which is a lie that it cost more. Their price was $750 for that one piece of pipe ridiculous. most of it need to be UNGLUED.  aggressive sales lady had no clue.  That’s more than 7 times the actual price it should be. One week later the sales person called saying why did I not accept that work. I told her it’s not worth it. She said oh don’t worry we’re the best we have warranties on our work. We use the good quality glue good quality PVC. It’s guaranteed to work for years. You need to hire us.  They struggled desperately to make the sale on that 750 piece of pipe. Their sales team was pitiful. She could barely speak English and went on and on and called me three times trying to sell me that one piece of work. A completely separate department.  The same lady called me back, not knowing it was me trying to get the compressor installed on the air conditioner that they were stuck holding. it’s free to them because it was under warranty.

The generator chain followed up with sales people telling me you should do the work. They’re the best. I usually don’t hang up, but I did on that. 

A plumbing dept sales person called back on the backflow preventer and cut off valves on my waterline for my sprinkler. I have all the parts there, every elbow every fitting every valve everything laid up side-by-side in a dry fit table. All I have to do is do the solder cut the pipes put it in and test it. They refused to use my parts claiming it’s illegal and not a warranty and they do not provide just labor. They provide full services. This price is 3000 dollars to do that work. That’s way more than it’s worth, at best. it’s $1100. I said no to that. Once again, a follow up disjointed sales team called me pushing the work on me.

The tankless hot water heater flush. I already had a tankless water heater company expert scheduled to come by for $180 plus real inspection confirmed. They’re very good at what they do. I love those guys. A separate HF FURR sales team called following up on the flushing of my system, wanted $650. Literally 3x++ what it’s worth. Yet again they proclaimed is extremely difficult work delicate needs to be done by an absolute expert, they are the best, they use only the best parts offer warranty and they’ll come inspect it for free next year. …. but It’s just vinegar.

altogether there was other small pieces of work, but this circus was just from me asking them to come look at some work comprehensively. it was real work. I would’ve hired them same day they were first out. They do not have to be this involved with the telephone game and layers and departmentalization.  Every single piece of the work was 2-10 times more than what it should be and all of it was unnecessary. I have the parts I have the pieces I have things set up and they still made it incredibly expensive. 

For Hydro jetting my line it was less expensive for me to buy the tool, the hydrojet heads and a hose on a spool for less than $120 and use my power washer to blast it. I eventually did the work in 45 minutes. It’s never clean it’s not fun but I wasn’t paying a couple thousand dollars for that. I just did it myself no problem messy but affordable. DIY is a nightmare for me at my age due to time constraints. I don’t have time that’s why I’m trying to hire these guys to do the work.

so I kept the home inspection services to see what happens and as most of you probably already know different departments tend to call every now and then the email starts showing up that they recommended they visit you to help you save money and prevent disasters.  I was going to entertain myself by following them around the house to try to find stuff that needed work.  I’ve renovated and built most of the house myself. I know the status of absolutely everything, including every sink that drips every pipe that creeks every duct that is  very clean, every fan motor i replace, etc. I’ve had two of their people over to look at stuff just to document their desperation. only on saturdays i’m not taking off work for this crap.  they really don’t like that bit.  good. . It’s ridiculous. The plumber goes to your house and claims that Every sink faucet is faulty and needs replacement and they can replace the cut off valves while we’re at it too. They check the drains and say they’re dangeroulsy “almost” clogged they can’t be cleaned. Need to be replaced on and on. not knowing i have new pvc in some older bathrooms replaced already from below.  The mechanical is even worse claiming ducts are clogged and causing disease, although some trunks are new from renovation and the furnace is almost new. They want to set up all kinds of maintenance schedules. I don’t need; good for some people just not for me.

so I canceled that home inspection maintenance crap quickly after my first test run to confirm what we all knew would happen, obviously just a sales technique and that is their biggest most aggressive criminal operation. They climb in peoples houses. I imagine the elderly people don’t know their systems and they’re being told that they absolutely must do these emergency things or else everyone’s gonna die. I have proof of that but I’ve heard many stories also. They’re pushing stuff through that program. Disguised as helpful, free inspections, and their prices on everything already high whether it unnecessary or not.  I would never.

so I did not hire them for any of their work after all their efforts of trying to win the work and I’ve canceled this home inspection crap. I’ve got all the phone numbers and names of all the different sales departments that have called me. It’s ridiculous and I’ve got the recordings of them in the yard talking to their laptoos to tech, then off to thier truck for sales people trying to coaching them to sell me harder.

The most frustrating part was the air conditioner compressor. My wife was furious. Even my kids told me I should sue them or at least find out where they live and go have some aggressive discussions, face-to-face, like men. The guy that tested my compressor right in front of me doing it wrong and I told him I knew it was wrong went on and on telling me I’m wrong. Then he gloated and celebrated his assumed victory in his break room with the friends, and he was on top if the leaderboard that week. My friend called me later and told me he was happy to report that they pulled the guy off leaderboard and had a stern conversation with his boss about selling people who know what they’re doing. Don’t try to trick the people that are watching you and you should not have pushed that system on me.  He still works for the company I am told, but he was very angry that I figured out what they were doing, and he was embarrassed, and everybody laughed at him when he fell down the leaderboard ranking. My friend said he never found out that my simple AC part was replaced by my friend, so they’re still on speaking terms, but that was a close one.

Half of this I would not have kniwn for certain without my friend telling me the inside scoop on how they operate. But I saw their laptop. I saw their iPads I saw the communications and it is easy on Google to find out how they operate and who they really are and how big. massive!. Most of this is publicly available. They’re known for talking directly to their sales team who are very aggressive. They are senior technicians, some are not a sales people and they go through days and weeks and months of sales training. Each technician is taught how to sell to the homeowner on their aggressive service calls.

this large company Apex works around the east buying small operations and most often keep their name so you don’t know who it is. They are all given mandatory sales training. They’re all given those iPads and they’re all told to keep their microphone running during the entire service call. They’re listening to you and recording you during the entire service call. their sales people and senior technicians immediately jump on the opportunities if they hear a weakness in your discussions and they ask their people to take a break and go to the truck “for parts”. As they sit in the truck talking to themselves, that’s when they have a longer sales and scope manipulation discussions and directives. They’re told what to do. My guy went back-and-forth the truck three or four times while i was refusing to sign off the full scope,  I was not able to record those more detailed conversations. I stood and watched knowing what he was going try to tell me. It was kind of a game kind of funny, to most unaware people it would be a financial disaster.

i’m so busy I can’t pursue these things. I don’t have time to file claims on cases. I just know enough to protect my friends and family to stay away from these guys and I know the names of other companies they bought up that are under the Apex umbrella, stay away from them also. yes, all the small companies you guys have listed here on this post are not Apex companies and they operate normally, honestly and with integrity. I’ve used HF FURR 10 years ago. They weren’t like this. It was a small job for some drainage issues. They got a little too big for themselves even before they sold out to Apex. The head guy, Mr. Furr is retired. He sold it to Apex. He’s done working. There was a comment on the thread that he owns a lot of houses in Europe, but he’s still in the business. No, He sold out well, I kinda don’t blame him.

sorry for so long it’s been sitting on me for over a year. I have not told anybody except a couple neighbors, what i know about them weighs on me heavily and I wanted to get it out. Believe me it’s all true. I don’t care if HF FURR reads all this and wants to give me a call, bring it on brother. I offer this as advise to you all against using them. I completely agree with everyone here that says stay away far away. So that’s a lot of detail, use it for your benefit. It’s all true. I have the receipts. Honestly, the price that shocked me the most with the $750 plastic pipe while i had the PVC pipe in my hand from my garage, and asked him just please glue it together for me today. Unbelievable