Rhett

May 20, 2024

How can they charge over $1,000 per hour

Be very very careful of this company. I’ve never come across such an overpriced company. Seriously who charges over $1,000+ per hour in labour – Metropolitan Plumbing and Gas does! They advertise on Google Ads ‘same price for after hours’, so I rang up and thought, finally a company that doesn’t charge extra for after hours. The customer service person on the phone is very well trained. They charge you a $141.90 booking fee which I guess to cover their customer acquisition costs in Google and customer service. Throughout the call I never picked up the multiple mentions of a ‘fixed price quote’ however I now know why. I had to get a pressure release valve replaced on my hot water system. The plumber, a nice guy, showed up at just after 6pm for the quote which I hoped would also lead to the replacement of the pressure release valve. He took his photos on his iPad and looked up the part and then provided me with my fixed price quote. From here I nearly fell over. The fixed price quote was $1,249 which includes a $59 compliance fee. The exact same part sells at Bunning and Reece for $84, therefore their labour on a job that takes 40 minutes max to complete is $1,106. And it can’t be travel as the plumber lives under 20 minutes away. Obviously my answer was no and the pressure release valve was fixed the next day for under $100. How can they sleep at night charging over $1,000 per hour! Absolutely disgusting. They try and justify their insane pricing via hiding under the term ‘emergency plumbing’ but all you need to do is have a look at their website and you can clearly see how misleading it is. For anyone reading this, please, please, please don’t waste your time by being ripped off by this company. There are much better honest plumbers out there. I would imagine it is only a matter of time (if they haven’t already) until they are on A Current Affair.