Fortisbc has rejected multiple requests for heat pump reimbursements of $ 10,000 due to a temporary period in the necessary certification of an important low continent contractor.
The CBC has learned reimbursements of up to 200 customers from Moore and Russell, have been endangered by a situation that has resulted in complaints and a small demand for claims of people who claim that they were guaranteed that would qualify for money that was later refused.
“I’m not excited about that, that’s safe. I’m definitely angry,” said Jeff Thompson, a North Vancouver man who has spent the last four months trying to discover who to blame for the rejection of the reimbursement of his new heat bomb.
“I would say it is distrustful of Fortis’s refunds and with whom you hire. It turns out that it is not a direct process.”
“It was horrified,” says the client
Thompson is one of the thousands of British Colombians who have taken advantage of the reimbursements offered by Fortisbc and the province in recent years to encourage owners to replace their old heating and cooling systems with high performance electric heat pumps.
The program has become so popular that the province announced plans this week to expand the program this summer to include individual suites in residential buildings of multiple units.
But to qualify for a refund, customers need their heat pump to be installed by a certified contractor with the BC domestic performance contractors network (HPCN), a database of modernization contractors that comply with the specific commercial designation and training qualifications.
Moore and Russell were certified with the HPCN at the time Thompson agreed to pay the company $ 20,000 to install its double fuel pump. And they are certified today.
But the HPCN stopped the company’s certification from May 5 to 31, something that Thompson says he only learned after submitting his refund application.
“He was horrified,” said Thompson, who told CBC that the offer of a refund was the main reason why he had decided to go with a heat bomb in the first place.
“It was a large part because it is half of the value of what the installation was.”
The contractor says he never received HPCN email
The general manager of Moore and Russell, Jeremy Slater, says he only learned that the company’s certification had been arrested in May after the complaints began to find their desk.
He says the problem goes back to the departure of an employee at the end of last year. HPCN requires that all technicians are up to date with four courses involving the basic principles of HVAC technology.
“When that person left, we needed to qualify someone else with those courses with them, and the deadline for them to do it,” Slater said.
He says that the home contractors network sent an email saying that the company’s account had pause, but states that email arrived at a firewall. Anyway, Slater says he never received it.
“And HPCN does not have a process, even, to track or confirm with a contractor when they put them on hold. They just expect us to receive email.”
Despite the change of state, Slater says that the company still appeared as a qualified contractor in the Fortisbc refund applications menu, so clients like Thompson could even request a refund first.
“Therefore, there was no way that a client could have known that they put us in pause, and there is no way we could have known that we paused, unless we had received the email,” he said.
“Which is worrying for us in Moore and Russell because this could still be with other contractors and other owners who buy Fortis heat pump equipment and any of the reimbursement programs, since HPCN really provides governance for all reimbursement programs in BC” “
‘He will turn me off in the future’: Owner
Slater says that reimbursements worth a total of up to $ 1.5 million could be at stake for up to 200 of its customers.
One of those clients filed a small demand for claims against Moore and Russell earlier this month, looking for a compensation of $ 10,000 for the refund of the heat pump that were denied.
“After the installation, Fortisbc rejected my refund request, stating that Moore & Russell was not a certified HPCN contractor, which was an eligibility requirement,” says the demand.
“If I had known this, I would have chosen a different contractor.”
The owner of Coquitlam, Desmond Saisithidej, says that Fortisbc also denied its reimbursement due to the HPCN certification of Moore and Russell.
“I think it’s really frustrating,” he said.
“I think that many of us did this in good faith, knowing that the reimbursement was available, knowing that Moore and Russell had done this previously and that Fortis had previously paid, and then be trapped in the quagmire between the two … he will turn off in the future.”
Fortisbc ‘reviewing the matter’
Fortisbc says that the company is dedicated to providing reimbursements and incentives to adopt more efficiency technology.
“We are aware of the concerns raised by customers regarding their reimbursement requests due to the position of the Moore and Russell membership with the Network of Performance Contractors Home of Home,” said Corporate Communications Advisor Lauren Beckett.
“We appreciate the understanding of our clients and we are reviewing the matter. “
In a statement, the HPCN said members must assign an administrator of the company as only contact to obtain information related to membership.
“The administrators of the company are notified by email if there is a concern with their status of membership and are provided with instructions and a deadline to rectify the situation as appropriate; this includes multiple emails of monitoring,” the statement said.
“You can also see their membership status at any time on the HPCN portal.”
Saisithidej and Thompson say they expect Fortisbc to pay reimbursement to customers who feel they are paying for another person’s mistake.
Slater says he has been in conversations with HPCN and Fortisbc.
“I would expect that, in the spirit of the program in general, they honor those refunds for our clients,” he said.
Slater says that he has made changes to avoid repetition of the problems prior to the period in the certification of Moore and Russell, but also feels that Fortisbc and HPCN need to address the communications problems that saw the clients who remained in the dark about their state.
“I would like to know what we are going to do differently so that this never happens again,” he said.
“If a consumer goes to his website and sees a contractor on the list, he must know when to click and request the reimbursement that they are in good position and that it did not happen this time. So how are we going to change that and ensure that checks and balances are in their place to protect consumers?”
