Duct Cleaning Comes With High Pressure Sales Pitch

You think you're getting a deal, but instead you're harassed in your own home.

That’s what some customers of a Seattle duct cleaning business claim.

Laura Adamson and Connie Shorr both regret they ever hired Evergreen Fresh Air, or EFA Duct Cleaning, to clean the heating ducts in their homes. Both received a good price, thanks to a coupon.

WATCH IT: Air Duct Deals, Or High-Pressure Sales?

Adamson says, when she saw the coupon she thought, “Wow. $59. That seems reasonable.” But what wasn't reasonable? What both women call the high pressure sales that accompanied the cleaning.

Shorr claims, as soon as the two service technicians from Evergreen Fresh Air entered her Renton home, one started cleaning the ducts, and the other started selling other services. “It was immediate,” she tells KIRO 7 Consumer Investigator Amy Clancy.

After about an hour's pitch, Shorr agreed to the same-day installation of two ultra violet lights in her furnace, meant to clean the air. It was a nearly $3,000 expense.

“I was royally sucked-in, OK?” Shorr tells Clancy. “That night, I went, ‘Oh, my God.’ This is the foolish part about me. What have I done?’”

Adamson says her sales pitch was for a lifetime filter, ongoing maintenance, and an extensive furnace cleaning --- which she says had actually been done just six months prior.

“There’s even a date on there when it was serviced,” Adamson says, while showing Clancy a service sticker on the furnace in her Olympia home.

Adamson claims the salesman from EFA made her so uncomfortable she texted her husband at work, and asked him to come home immediately.

“I don’t recall a time ever that I’ve been up against a hard sell situation that intense,” says Adamson. “I mean, every time I said ‘no,’ there was a different answer.”

Adamson and Shorr both filed complaints with the Washington State Attorney General's Office claiming Evergreen Fresh Air engaged in "high pressure tactics," "deceptive and inflated charges," and the old "bait and switch."

In three other AG complaints, EFA is accused of "aggressive sales pressure." One consumer claims the company puts, "the elder community at financial risk." Another says Evergreen Fresh Air's owner Shimi Atias "put the fear in" her mother and, "repeatedly got in our face."

Dough Walsh, head of the AG’s Consumer Protection Division says a high pressure sale is any that “makes you feel uncomfortable.” Walsh won't comment on whether EFA definitively engages in high pressure sales. But he does say, any time a consumer feels uncomfortable, especially in his or her own home, that's a red flag. And if a business is in your home because of a bargain coupon, consumers should be especially on guard.

“The bait was a cheap duct cleaning service. The switch was to a high-priced filtration system or UV lamp system, which you don’t want in the first place,” Walsh tells Clancy. “That is part of the high pressure pitch. That’s a part of accosting you in your own home. But it’s really bait and switch. It’s classic bait and switch.”

KIRO 7 Consumer Investigators wanted to experience EFA’s sales pitch. So, at Clancy’s request, a volunteer hired Evergreen Fresh Air for a $59 duct cleaning, which KIRO 7 paid for.

While Clancy and her photographer shot surveillance video and listened, one EFA technician cleaned the ducts, the other immediately started selling.

Volunteer: “He wanted to sell me the, what’s it called? Ultra Violet thing.”

Clancy: “Did he mention Ultra Violet to you?”

“Yes, he did” the volunteer tells Clancy, then added, “it was an immediate package. We had to have the deep cleaning. We had to have the intake cleaning. ‘This needs to be done immediately, this is critical,’” the volunteer quotes the EFA technician as saying.

But just days earlier, another Seattle duct cleaning business with no Attorney General complaints and an A-plus Better Business Bureau rating examined the same system.

And while the technician from Top Hatter Duct Cleaning also determined the furnace should be cleaned and a few minor repairs made, Amanda Smith of Top Hatter says no UV lights are needed. Smith characterized anyone saying that UV lights were necessary “would be trying to get money from someone because it’s completely unnecessary and very expensive,” Smith tells Clancy.

KIRO 7 confronted the EFA technician, who says his name is Leo Perry. Perry denied pitching anything to the volunteer that her home didn’t need.

Perry: “I didn’t talk to her about the UV. I don’t think she needs to put in the UV.”

Perry also denied any high pressure sales. “I didn’t do any pressure to you, I didn’t tell you, ‘OK, pay it right now.’”

But according to the volunteer, Perry did mention UV lights, offered an extensive cleaning package -- a deal only if she purchased it that day, and offered to put her on a payment plan if the price up front was too much.

More red flags, according to Assistant Attorney General Doug Walsh.

“I would be very nervous about time payments, where you’re being asked to sign loan documents to pay for services that you don’t want in the first place.”

KIRO 7’s Amy Clancy asked Evergreen Fresh Air's owner, Shimi Atias, to address the complaints she found in Attorney General documents. Atias declined to speak on-camera but did say his company does not engage in high pressure sales.

The Better Business Bureau disagrees.

“There’s some pretty extreme behavior going on with this company,” BBB Vice President Niki Horace tells Clancy.

She says the local organization has received 16 complaints against Evergreen Fresh Air, including one where a consumer, dissatisfied with the quality of the duct cleaning, refused payment.

“The company actually called the cops because the consumer would not give them money,” Horace says. “So it’s very high pressured.”

Both the BBB and the AG's office say, any time a consumer is uncomfortable with a sales pitch, ask the salespeople to leave material you can review later.

Then ask them to leave.

Clancy asked EFA customer Shorr if she ever asked the technicians to leave.

Shorr: “No. Do I wish I would have? Yes. Have I learned a valuable lesson? Yes.”

Shorr tells Clancy, the day after the UV lights were installed she called EFA and asked the company to remove them. After what she calls a lot of argument, EFA technicians did remove them. But Shorr was still charged $1,400. After taking Evergreen Fresh Air to small claims court and agreeing to arbitration, Shorr got all but about $700 back. But that was still $700 more than she was planning to spend on a $69 duct cleaning.

Clancy also spoke with the co-founder of Angie's List to learn more about the duct cleaning business. Angie Hicks says her online consumer feedback company has researched duct cleaning in the Seattle area, and found the average cost runs around $500, depending on the size of the house.

Hicks also says it takes several hours to complete a job, not the 45 minutes EFA took the day KIRO 7 shot surveillance video.

Hicks, too, warns consumers to be wary of coupon offers that are too good to be true.

“If you find you’re getting quoted prices that are much lower than that, you really want to step back and ask some questions,” Hick said during a satellite interview with Clancy from Angie’s List headquarters in Indianapolis. “Find out exactly what they’re going to do, because the last thing you want to do is think you’ve gotten your air ducts cleaned and you didn’t actually get the complete job done.”

Hicks, along with the Attorney General's Office and the Better Business Bureau all suggest, even if you can get a great deal because of a coupon, you should still get more than one estimate and also check out any business online before you invite its technicians into your home.