Thread: Air conditioning service call........need opinions

When I got home from vaca recently my AC had frozen up. Just had an inspection in November, couldn't figure out what would cause it. Called around to several local companies, all of which said "$70 service call charge, and $16/lb of freon". One company could come that day, which was a plus since it was 85 degrees in my house. Here's what he did:

Checked my freon levels - came in and told me (and my mom who was visiting) that it was only half a lb low and that he added half a pound but was surprised because that shouldn't cause freezing up. He then said he had to wait 10 min or so to check and see if air was cooling. (A total of maybe 20 minutes of his time thus far). In the meanwhile, he checked my air filter which was fine. Once he checked the temp, he was basically done. I then said "Are you not going to check under the house (where the rest of the unit "workings" are), I thought that was all part of the service call, especially since you couldn't really diagnose a problem just based on the outside unit?" He said "Yeah I can check under there". 10 more minutes at the most pass and then he comes back out, saw nothing. Then he began telling me about his dog, showed me pics, telling me about various things regarding his dog, etc. Talked about AC stuff like what to do what not to do, and then was ready to leave. As he left, I said "Do I not get an invoice?" and he said "Umm...well it's my first day but I don't think so, let me call and check." He came back in and said "no, they'll bill you."

When he left, I said to my mom, "So I'll owe them $78" and she said "yep". I got a bill today for $129. Stating that he worked 1.5 hours at a rate of $70 per hour, and added 1.5 lbs of freon at a rate of $16 per lb.

Basically I'm going to send them a check for $78 as I (and my witness) know he was not here for 1.5 hrs and for the hour (that's a big stretch) he was here, he did quite a bit of socializing. Also, he said more than once he added half a lb of freon, not 1.5 lbs.

So I'm wondering, what does a typical service call include? And I thought the $70 was a service call charge for a diagnostic...not an hourly fee for goodness sake. And if I'm being charged $70 an hour, and he can't identify a distinct problem with the unit, shouldn't he go under the house to check?