Pinellas County Electric

I'll start this review with a high level summary and then provide details for those who are interested. I would certainly NOT recommend this company. Knowing that I was in a desperate situation, they took my $169 for the initial inspection (which actually turned out to be $182 after fees), promising that they would apply it to the invoice for any work performed, then failed to follow up with a written quotation after multiple reminders, emails, calls, etc. In fact, they dropped the ball 5 times between the initial visit to the actual receipt of the quotation. After reviewing some of the other reviews, this seems to be a pattern. I could not imagine what it would be like if I actually contracted with them to do any real work.

My initial call was the first week in July. After hearing about my situation, (garage fire resulting in Duke Energy pulling the meter), the female answering the phones put Dave on speaker phone so that he could better understand the situation. My mother had just perished in the fire so it was a little sensitive. After telling Dave what happened and what needed to be done, he said he understood but that they were very busy and the best he could do was later in the following week (this was on a Friday). A week came and went so I called back 10 days later. The same female that I originally spoke to answered the call again and had no record of my original call or any request for an appointment. I had to tell the whole story all over again and when I was nearly finished, she said, "Oh yeah, now I remember!" and then blamed Dave for dropping the ball. She was able to squeeze me in with another technician either the same day or next day. I think his name was Rob but not positive on the name. When he arrived onsite, the first thing he said was, "Good little fire you had here!". What an inappropriate thing to lead with when my mother had died in the fire. I couldn't believe he would say that but he said no one had prepared him before he arrived. In any case, he was a nice enough fellow and completed the inspection. He walked me through the items that would need to be addressed in order to pass the inspection and have the power restored by Duke. He commented that it was not a big job in terms of expense or labor and could be completed relatively quickly. He said that he would write it up and send over the estimate to my email address the next day.

Nearly two weeks passed and I never received an estimate/quotation that included any dollar amounts, only a recap of the items that needed to be completed. I called the office again and spoke with Dave. Dave apologized and said he would check with the project manager and get back to me quickly. When Dave called back he said the costs weren't included because the work would be covered under service. I said I didn't understand what that meant and that for insurance purposes, I needed a quotation that included the estimate cost for repairs. He said he would get with the project manager and have something over to me the next day. I never received anything after a few days so I called Dave again. He apologized and again said it would just be covered under service. I reminded him about our previous conversation and he said he would get something over to me ASAP. When the quotation arrive a few hours later I was shocked! It was over $3,300. So much for being covered under service. In his quote he included a full replacement of the electric panel which "Rob" said was not necessary. "Rob" had removed the panel cover and confirmed all internal components were OK and that it only needed a front panel. Dave said this was not possible and would talk to "Rob". Miraculously, after discussing with "Rob", I received a new quote for $1,585 which still includes parts that are outside of "service".

I sent a message to the Executive Director, "Kevin B." letting him know about my very bad experience and asked that he give me a call. He never responded.

If you chose to TRY to do business with this company, good luck to you!