[Resolved]  Urban Company — Cheating by Urban Company (formerly Urbanclap), AC Servicing

Never ever call Urban Company (formerly Urban Clap) for servicing your air conditioners. The air conditioning service scam o[censored]rban Company is going to rob you off your hard earned money and precious time apart for giving you sleepless nights in the summer.
I have four Daikin ACs fitted in my house. They are running absolutely fine for last seven years. Fortunately no maintenance requirement has arose for any of these units except for the annual servicing, basically a thorough cleaning. The cooling has been absolutely fine. At 27 deg C setting they are able to make the rooms absolutely comfortable.
This year I made the mistake of calling Urban Company for AC servicing, primarily driven by their highly publicized advertisement claiming professional service. This single mistake has made my life miserable since a week as the AC servicing by the scam company turned in to a disaster for me.
On the fateful day 8th April, me and my husband took a day off so that the AC servicing is done properly. Urban Company had assigned a certain Faizal and one assistant for this job. To my surprise the Faizal guy started the work without bothering to ask for the OTP. First he struggled to take out the cover of the AC. At one point of time my husband had to caution him as it looked like he might break the cover in his struggle to remove it. After removing the cover instead of going ahead with the cleaning he removed the plastic cover on U bends of the condenser tubes and switched on the AC without any rhyme or reason. When my husband asked what he is doing he simply said he is checking the AC functioning. We were wondering when we have not complained of any issue why is he opening and fiddling with the AC. If he wanted to check the functioning he could have run it before opening. When my husband was showing the outdoor unit to his assistant, Faizal was doing something in the indoor unit and I heard a fizz/ hiss sound, indicative of some air leak. When I asked him he said that Madam there is no gas in the AC, gas has become empty and compressor is tripping. I called my husband and he confronted him saying that till yesterday it was running whole day and cooling fine, how the gas became empty and compressor treated tripping after your fiddling with the AC. Then Faizal started arguing telling how we can accuse him of causing the gas leak and started showing a puncture in the u bend of the condenser tube whose cover he had removed without any reason. It is a mystery that without a pressure testing how he discovered that micro sized puncture within seconds. He never admitted that he has purposefully or accidentally punctured the tube. Then he started offering to fill the gas at Rs 2500/- saying that through Daikin it will cost Rs 3500/-. We have no doubt in our mind that the Faizal guy did the puncture and leaked the gas on purpose. May be Urban Company has discovered that through this kind of business strategy they can drain more money from the customers.
Anyway, after this my husband was very furious and he told the Faizal guy to stop servicing then and there and asked him to put back the things. He was also annoyed with me for calling Urban Company as he wanted that the servicing should be done by Daikin only. But the misery was not over. Faizal who was certainly not a trained professional and was less skilled than a bicycle repair man was now struggling more to put back the cover. During this I do not know what he did but I heard a crackling sound. When I asked him without answering he was trying to put the cover back. With my insistence he said that the drain pipe has broken and he could repair with m seal. When I asked how did you break it initially he said it was already broken and later said that possibly it might got broken by me. I am certain he broke it on purpose as we stopped the servicing and asked him to go. Anyway, my husband asked him to leave immediately. He was requesting us to cancel the booking from our end telling that service guy did not come. If he did not come, how can he be blamed for all that he did wrong ?
We immediately reported it to Urban Company. One Towseef Ahmadmir was assigned for resolution of this issue. We explained him the whole episode. he spoke to Faizal and responded by saying that the gas leak is not the fault of Faizal as he is denying purposefully leaking the gas. For Towseef whatever Faizal says is gospel truth. If one asks a thief whether he has committed a theft, what would be the answer? Towseef promised to return the amount paid and the bill incurred by repair of drain pipe from Daikin limited to Rs 500. We later discovered that he has refunded paid amount, transferred Rs 500 to my account and has cancelled the booking closing the channel of communication. Further he does not take calls and does not call back even when message is left.
I had called Daikin technicians. They say the drain pipe fitting has broken from the drain tray and the entire drain tray will be replaced, Rs 1800/-+GST. Leak detection through nitrogen charging, brazing to arrest leak, further leak testing, gas filling operation to cost Rs 3500/-+GST, visiting charges Rs 590+GST. Hopefully in next two-three days the ordeal of not having your AC functional in hot summer will be over.
The purpose of penning down the incident with all these details is not to express my anguish, disappointment and frustration. It is warn fellow AC users looking to get their ACs serviced in this hot summer about possible cheating and getting ripped off by Urban Company and their fake technicians.
Anyone thinking to get ACs serviced by Urban Company please read very carefully:
(i) Never call Urban Company, call directly the Manufacturer's authorized service center even if it is more expensive
(ii) My experience shows Urban Company technicians/ partners are fake, have little training and no knowledge of AC. They are going to spoil your AC by default if not by design.
(iii) Even if you decide to engage them, be very watchful. At the first opportunity they will leak the gas from AC by punching a micro hole through the gas tube. It is difficult to catch if you are not carefully observing. then they will offer to fill the gas and extort money.
(iv) If you do not play to their plan, they will break something, drain pipe, cover or anything that is easy to break. Again to replace it and extort money.
(v) If you approach the customer service they will not get to the root of the problem or how to avoid repetition in future. They will transfer Rs 500 to your wallet and close the booking so that further communication is not possible.
(vi) Further they do not pick the phone