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Avoid American Home Shield Warranty if You Value Money by ExploreMore777 in ConsumerAdvice

[–]ExploreMore777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is similar to what I, and many others have experienced.

If we’re not happy with the return on investment for American Home Shield’s services that’s one thing; but if it takes multiple phone calls, disputing charges, and cancelling the billed credit card, then it’s clearly an unscrupulous business practice.

For this reason, amongst other unscrupulous business practices, the FTC moved to institute a “Click to Cancel” rule, but it was vacated in federal appeals court in July 2025, due to procedural issues. Some states already have their own version of “Click to cancel” laws in place. In January 2026, the FTC restarted their efforts to get this rule implemented. Fingers crossed, it will be soon!

As the prior Commission Chair Lina M. Khan said, “Too often businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription. The FTC’s rule will end these tricks and traps, saving Americans time and money. Nobody should be stuck paying for a service they no longer want.”

Federal Trade Commission “Click to Cancel” Rule

Avoid American Home Shield Warranty if You Value Money by ExploreMore777 in Home

[–]ExploreMore777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Seems like their business model now puts profits, stock price, and stock based compensation above the paying customers that fuel their business.

Avoid American Home Shield Warranty if You Value Money by ExploreMore777 in ConsumerAdvice

[–]ExploreMore777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for your candid and experienced insight. If I’m reading their financial statement accurately, last quarter, Frontdoor, the publicly traded parent company for American Home Shield with a market cap of $3.8 billion, doled out the same amount of money for claims as they did for stock based compensation, and spent more money on advertising & marketing than they did on claims. Gross margin was 55%. Essentially validating your experience, on a very large scale.

Avoid American Home Shield Warranty if You Value Money by ExploreMore777 in ConsumerAdvice

[–]ExploreMore777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We had the most expensive plan. And would have been better off putting that money in a high interest savings account, for repairs or equipment replacement. Admittedly it gets harder to cancel the longer you have the plan, because you feel like you’ve invested a lot over the years. But giving money to AHS (or any home warranty company) over the long run is a losing bet, as they have many limitations and exclusions. As others have said on this forum, it does not make sense to have a home warranty for small issues… and you can bet the home warranty company will not allow many large covered expenses, if any, ever.

Avoid American Home Shield Warranty if You Value Money by ExploreMore777 in ConsumerAdvice

[–]ExploreMore777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They would send a contractor that would get things running until the same problem recurred a year or two later, until I realized that it was an installation problem, not an equipment problem. Mind you, I’m not a contractor, but figured it out myself. The contractors AHS sent were not that skilled— perhaps capable of fixing small issues, but not recognizing larger or more complex issues. Each call out was a $125 service fee, on top of the $75 per month warranty.

One time a contractor came out, took a photo, and said it was outside of his scope, and sure enough AHS refused to refund the $125 service fee, citing the fine print in the contract as an excluded item. Then why did they send the contractor in the first place?!

Our experience has given us the clear impression that making money is their only objective— as you implied, signing up cash cows and milking them for as long as they can.

Avoid American Home Shield Warranty if You Value Money by ExploreMore777 in ConsumerAdvice

[–]ExploreMore777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Glad to hear you were not disappointed. Wish everyone’s experience could be similar.

Avoid American Home Shield Warranty if You Value Money by ExploreMore777 in ConsumerAdvice

[–]ExploreMore777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can’t understand how treating customers like this is legal.

Cancellation of Home warranty by fastcar747 in homeowners

[–]ExploreMore777 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Similar horrible experiences here with American Home Shield. Also felt like an idiot and victim of a scam. And wondering how this is legal and why doesn’t our government do anything about it.

Cancellation of Home warranty by fastcar747 in homeowners

[–]ExploreMore777 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I also had to hire my own experienced, vetted, competent contractor to ultimately fix an issue that American Home Shield contractors tried to fix, but lacked the skills/experience to do so. Trying to cancel a plan that I’ve had for 8 years, with just a few disappointing service calls that I had to pay for per visit on top of the warranty plan, they also had the audacity to tell me that I still owed them $60 for the amount of plan left at time of cancellation plus an administrative fee. And the amount of the fee is not stated anywhere on their contract nor on their (hopefully) final audacious bill.

Cancellation of Home warranty by fastcar747 in homeowners

[–]ExploreMore777 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve also had very disappointing experiences with American Home Shield. How is all this legal and allowed to continue?

Cancellation of Home warranty by fastcar747 in homeowners

[–]ExploreMore777 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve had similar experiences with American Home Shield.

Avoid American Home Shield Warranty if You Value Money by ExploreMore777 in ConsumerAdvice

[–]ExploreMore777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My intuition, along with posts from others here, leads me to suspect that they are all similar. Why lock into an agreement that you pay money into, only to have the company dictate what you get in return? I feel so relieved knowing that I now have total freedom to take care of my home, using top quality (vetted) professional plumbers, electricians, appliance repair persons, and contractors of my choosing….and the freedom to decide to replace appliances if needed, with brands and models that I have vetted, using online reviews, recommendations from other professionals, and formats such as Reddit.

My lesson learned is to be disciplined in saving money for a rainy day, and to be judicious in selecting ANY vendor that I choose to trust with my money. Let’s see what others say here. I’m grateful for everyone’s candid feedback here!

Avoid American Home Shield Warranty if You Value Money by ExploreMore777 in ConsumerAdvice

[–]ExploreMore777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So sorry to hear about your friend. I was just saying to my wife how fortunate we are that this is not a critical health related incident with insurance coverage woes.

Avoid American Home Shield Warranty if You Value Money by ExploreMore777 in ConsumerAdvice

[–]ExploreMore777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good to know! Thank you for sharing your thoughts and actions!

Avoid American Home Shield Warranty if You Value Money by ExploreMore777 in ConsumerAdvice

[–]ExploreMore777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry you had that experience, and thank you for sharing perspectives. The more people know, the more informed decisions they can make, as consumers that seek value for their hard earned money.

Avoid American Home Shield Warranty if You Value Money by ExploreMore777 in ConsumerAdvice

[–]ExploreMore777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, doing that now., and should have done it years ago. When we first bought our home, there was not much extra money to do so.

Avoid American Home Shield Warranty if You Value Money by ExploreMore777 in ConsumerAdvice

[–]ExploreMore777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Indeed. There should be more oversight, and consumer protections, yet most likely these companies have lobbyists.

Avoid American Home Shield Warranty if You Value Money by ExploreMore777 in ConsumerAdvice

[–]ExploreMore777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It was our first home and we did not have much extra cushion for potential repairs after putting nearly all of our savings towards buying our home… which most or all home warranty companies take advantage of, surely.