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CB Appliances Review of MCC Home
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MCC Home review: False representation, false information

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3:24 pm EDT
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An individual who only identified himself as Alex came to our door on Monday, September 24 and said that he came to check our equipment, which is a tankless water-heater for hot water and for the heating of our radiators. This equipment was installed and is maintained by Ontario Energy Group, so we assumed that he was from OEG. OEG tells us that he was not authorized by them to come to our house and to check our equipment. He actually went downstairs and was doing something around the equipment. Later MCC staff told us his name is Alex Majarskii, which he confirmed in a more recent phone conversation.
He was selling an air conditioning unit on a rental basis from MCC Home Services. He convinced us that this will not cost us anything, because of supposed savings we would get on our Toronto Hydro electric bill. He claimed that once our 13 year old air conditioning unit is replaced with a new efficient one, and because our heating and hot water heater are already modern and efficient, we will no longer have to pay the on-peak and mid-peak charges on our Toronto Hydro electricity bill. He actually showed as savings the total amount for these two items, rather than just the reduction in charge if they were actually all charged at the Off-Peak “lowest price” rate. In fact, Toronto Hydro tells me that our electricity charges would not change at all because of updating the air conditioning equipment. (I did not check whether the $250 rebate from the government would be available to us.)
Alex also said that the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit will end at the end of this year, after which it would only continue to us if we replaced the air conditioner. Therefore, he added that credit also as part of the savings. Both Toronto Hydro and the Ontario Energy representative at the phone number shown on our Hydro bill, stated that the OCEB will be ended for everyone at the end of the year, whether we replace the air conditioner or not. It will be substituted by a benefit for low income people only, which will not help us.
Alex actually wrote on our Mar 13, 2014 Toronto Hydro Bill ( which is the one I showed him) a supposed saving of $173:
• a total of $55 for the mid-peak charges, not just the savings we would have if it would be charged at the Off-peak rates
• $69 for the total of the On-peak charges,
• and $49 for the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit.
Toronto Hydro tells me that none of these savings would be available to us.
Alex then compared this $179 number with the $89 monthly rental charge for the air conditioner. He neglecting to add the HST, which would make that figure be over $100. Actually that bill was for a two month period, as shown at the bottom of the bill, which is usual for Toronto Hydro. He suggested an almost $100 a month saving, not allowing for the fact that it would have been for two months. So, the imaginary saving he mentioned, would have been only about $50 a month, against a $100 a month charge.. This made false his statement that the new air conditioner would cost us nothing after the supposed savings. In fact, according to Toronto Hydro, none of those savings would exist. (Possibly, a new system might use less electricity.) And our current air conditioner is working fine, so we don’t need to replace it at this time.
Both I and my wife the owner of the house, signed the MCC Home Services HVAC Rental Agreement Form No HV 07231. Alex did not put his name or Agent ID on the form, and never showed us any identification. The form does not disclose the sales price of the air conditioner, the cost of installing it, or the interest rate used. In contrast, all of these were fully disclosed to us by OEG for our equipment lease contract with them. . Only the $89 monthly rent was shown. This seems a high cost, based on the value of the air conditioner being about $6, 500, according to Alex when I asked him about it. He also added the installation costs, without giving us an opportunity to pay those in advance as a one-time charge, and not financing them. Nor did he give us the option of purchasing the air conditioner plus an annual service contract. At the back of the form, it does state that we would have a buyout privilege for $250 at the end of 10 years. By that time we would have paid about $12, 000.
We were both called by phone by MCC staff to verify that we agreed to the contract, and we knew what we were signing. But there were no questions asked of us about the basis on which we were persuaded to buy, with what incentives, or what financial details of the deal were we informed.
We cancelled the contract by phone well before the 10 day cooling off period, and also sent a letter to that effect to MCC.

We are drawing this to your attention in the hope that you can find a way to prevent such high pressure sales tactics involving impersonation and false information by unscrupulous sales agents selling these products.

Resolved

The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer's satisfaction.

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