Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul has filed a lawsuit against an Arlington Heights-based home repair company for alleged deceptive business practices that targeted seniors, according to court documents.
The lawsuit accuses ABC Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Electric, Inc. of violating multiple state laws by having customers sign contracts for home repair work “at inflated prices by unlicensed technicians” that also waive the customers’ right to exit the contract, the office said in a statement.
The office is seeking a permanent injunction on the company’s work and a probe of all current contracts and monetary damages for customers who were allegedly harmed, the office said.
It’s also seeking the revocation, suspension, or forfeiture of the company’s licenses and other documents relating to its operations for home remodel and repair.
“ABC Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Electric’s deceptive business practices are not only illegal but also disheartening because those practices target senior citizens,” Raoul said. “[Consumers] trust the company will present honest prices for complete work. Instead, ABC took advantage of its customers.”
ABC said it would “respond at the appropriate time,” adding that it had not yet received the complaint or reviewed the allegations.
“For more than 70 years, ABC has served Chicago-area homeowners and earned their trust by operating with integrity,” the company said in a statement to the Sun-Times.
The lawsuit alleges the company’s repair technicians engage in “upselling” by going to parts of customers’ homes they aren’t authorized to access, and present other issues as “emergencies, or even life-threatening hazards that require immediate remedy,” the office said. This includes showing them pictures and videos purported to be taken during the inspection that weren’t.
The customers, often senior citizens, are then presented with paperwork they usually aren’t allowed to read, the lawsuit says. The work is then completed by technicians who are unlicensed plumbers or specialists in other areas. And in some cases, an invoice was only created after a customer demanded to see one.
One woman, who was charged nearly $50,000 for sewage pipe replacement work that lasted several months and eventually led technicians to rip out portions of the wall in her basement, was told that the company doesn’t provide itemized lists of services provided, according to the suit.
She paid another company $1,500 to fix the work done by ABC after her basement continued flooding.
ABC eventually compensated her for the repairs, though she still is paying down a loan to cover the initial work, the lawsuit said. In other instances presented in the lawsuit, an elderly Schaumburg man was charged upwards of $6,000 for repairs he was never shown an invoice for.
James F. Coyne, Business Manager of the Chicago Plumbers Union, Local 130 UA, praised the lawsuit in a statement released by the attorney general’s office.
“No homeowner should be taken advantage of when dealing with a plumbing emergency — especially the most vulnerable among us,” Coyne said. “Plumbers’ Local 130, UA, applauds Attorney General Kwame Raoul for enforcing the Illinois Plumbing License Law and protecting Illinois residents.”