Mike Williams Plumbing, Heating, Air Conditioning & Sewer

Mosbah K.

Don't be scammed, look for another company that gives you a fair price for an honest

This is the worst pluming company I have dealt with in my 30+ years of living in the Champaign, Urbana area. I called this company for a water leak in a bathroom. They send their Bloomington plumber who came in late with no moisture sensor. His suggestion was for me to tear the floor and find the source of the leak. So I did that and found that the source of the leak is a pinhole in a copper pipe in a very easy to reach area. I called to have the same guy come in and fix the leak. He looked at the problem, then went to his truck for nearly 30 minutes to come up with the cost of the repair. To my horror, his estimate for installing two 1.0 ft pieces of copper pipe 1/2"" and ¾"", four joints, and a T fittings was $1,536.00 (see the invoice). Yes, one thousand five hundred and thirty six dollars. The job would have taken an honest plumber about one hour. Total cost of the parts at a local hardware store is less than $30.00. The first visit and the work were done during week days at normal work hours. His response to this ridiculous charge is ""in a real world this is a very high charge.""
My recommendation to any of you not to call this company. What they will tell you is they charge $99.00 to send someone to look and the problem, but they charge by the job not by the hour. In my case, it would have taken about an hour to do the job, but that did not count since their motto is to rob you during daylight and much more at off hours. Also, do not fall for their membership fee scheme that gives you a discount. My job would still have cost $1,230.00.
I am submitting this review on their website as well that claims a five star reviews. I am certain they will not publish it and very likely they did they publish other negative reviews (so much for honesty.) Rating on Yelp put this company's services as very poor at a 1 star.

Mike W.

If I could give Mike Williams negative stars I would. I live in Panther Creek and 3 or 4 of my neighbors commented when they saw a Mike Williams van in front of my house. They conveyed that they believe these guys are crooks and after my experience with them I could not agree more. I signed up for their monthly service contract when I had 2 new water heaters installed to save money (at this point I cannot even tell you the amount). In any event, each time they came over (spring and fall) to do their check, they came up with literally thousands of dollars worth of stuff they claimed should be addressed. I know enough to know that most of this was bullshit and overpriced and did the work that really needed to be done on my own at a VERY SMALL fraction of what they quoted.

But, believe it or not, that is no the reason that I am posting this review. This morning I called to cancel my monthly service contracts. I was told that I had to provide a signature in order to do so, because they are registered with the Illinois Department of Insurance. That sounded very suspicious but more on that in a moment. I ate the complete inconvenience of driving over to the office on Clear Lake drive in Springfield. When I arrived I (probably a little heatedly) spoke about the ridiculousness of having to provide a signed document to cancel the contracts. The woman at the counter (don't know her name), just stuck with the mantra -- it is because we are registered with the Illinois Department of Insurance. When I pressed, she slid the window closed so she no longer had to talk to me. Wow, talk about poor customer service!

In any event, I just got off of the phone with the Illinois Department of Insurance and there is fact no such requirement. Oddly, I can't file a complaint with them because Mike Williams is not an insurance company. In fact, IDOI doesn't even understand why Mike Williams is registered with them. My supposition is so that they can give their customers the bullshit story they gave me in the hope that the inconvenience will cause them to delay or forget about cancelling.

I will also be filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau as there in fact are laws (mostly as a result of similar practice by health clubs) to prevent businesses from doing what they are doing. You should check out the writeup on Mike Williams on the BBB website. There you will find that they have a rating of 1.5 stars. They have also had 9 complaints (now 10 with mine) filed against them in the last 12 months.

Buyer BEWARE!!

Nick C.

Had Mike Williams Plumbing come out awhile back for a leak I had on the pipe connected in my shower. Was already paying on the year for the Membership. They said it was cost around 400 bucks due to it being cross threaded. Which was not true... I ended up fixing it myself. I called back in January to cancel the membership. The secretary/call center said they would put in the cancellation, but never did. They finally sent a text saying to send a hand written letter to cancel. I was charged an additional 100 dollars for the next 5 months of service. Do not recommend. You are better off finding a reliable local contractor or watching YouTube videos. Will NEVER use this company again. I beg you, please don't waste your money with this poor ran company.

Mary J A.

Mike Williams Plumbing overcharged me by hundreds of dollars. They came out 3 times for the same problem but for reasons that made no sense nothing was ever covered under the warranty. The plumbers were courteous but I asked for a phone call back from Shawn in their office regarding the boat load of money they were charging me. Was promised I would get a phone call from her but its been over a month and I never have received any phone call or communication. I will never use this company again. Very questionable business practices. Feel like they really took advantage.

JG F.

Hold onto your wallet! Every time one of their cologne drenched technicians comes out, it's going to cost you a bunch of money and they're going to try to sell you contracts in addition to the repairs you need. Every time they do one of their periodic, contracted maintenance checks, they are going to recommend $1000 or more of work that needs to be done. I had one technician tell me my furnace was on its last legs, and that was five or six years ago. I haven't had anything done to it and it is still working fine. and I don't know why the district attorney has not investigated this business for their questionable business practices. If you don't believe me, read a few of the reviews.

Tara H.

Called Wednesday to get service for my A/C, was told I would be put on the list for the same day in case something opened up and if nothing opened then would be contacted to reschedule for next day. Received a call later that night that they clearly could not fit me in same day but that they also could not fit me in for Thursday but could schedule me for Friday afternoon and that would call me before they came. It is now 7pm Friday evening and I never received a call and no one ever showed up. Def do not recommend. Very unprofessional!

Mary S.

This is the worst company to ever call. They're trying to charge me for a remodel that I did myself. I just needed them to come take PVC pipe out replace it with copper on a shower. Still dealing with him 8 months later trust me you don't want to call him

nathan j.

We have used mike williams for a couple of jobs in the past, always very expensive compared to competitors. Lest year, however, they defrauded us. They billed us for a service that was not performed, and when I had a second opinion on the topic, another company (Heartland) alerted us to this fact. The second company replaced the defective part, and I notified mike williams that I would not be paying the bill, to which they replied 'not should you'. Fast forward 8 months, and we get a letter from collections! We've discussed on the phone multiple times with their rude call center, and they take a harder and harder line on demanding payment each time. Well, I'm going to pay you to put an end to this time-wasting nonsense... and you'll reap what you sow as I happily tell everyone who will listen what a terrible company you are. Anyone interested in more completely factual detail can email me anytime at [email protected]. This is 100% true information, no libel or slander, just truth.

Robert C.

Good service from their technicians but suspicious business practices. They continued to charge me for a monthly filter plan after I cancelled the service. When I called to complain, they regarded it to be all my fault. After verbally requesting them to cancel the filter service, I sent a letter via email, as requested. This email reportedly was lost in spam. Still not resolved and more hoops to jump through.

Bruce H.

This is an update to my previous post. I will state that my original review for this company was done when I was most upset with them and I should have allowed the company to respond but I was upset and I got on board the only way I understood to get my feelings across. So with that said, a representative of Mike Williams Plumbing called me earlier today and told me that they would forward my concern (the letter I sent them) and that they would shred my check I sent them ($50) for the remainder of my contracted service with them to come out at designated times to verify my plumbing and HVAC are all running within expected guidelines. So Kudos to a company for stepping up and at least acknowledging a wrong and trying to mitigate the issue. I hope that they at least train their employees to not go for the jugular on day one and be honest with options.