Midwid Maintenance Repair

BUYER BEWARE WITH THIS COMPANY!!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!! My issue with my simple double door fridge started before Mother's Day. I called MidWid Maintenance the day before Mother's Day to set up and appointment for a technician to come out. Steven told me that the service charge to come out was $175 and that if I got my system repaired with him, the charge would be applied to the repair. Steven was supposed to come out on mother's day between 12 and 2 pm. Steven called me at 1:04 pm to tell me that he had a "family" emergency and he would have to come out first thing the next day and drop the service charge to $125. I needed my fridge fixed so I agreed. I should have ran then. but hindsight is always 20/20. Steven didn't come until almost noon. He then stated that the damper needed to be changed and ordered the part. He said that the repairs would be $400. He also said that the coils needed to be cleaned. He ordered the part which he said would take 2 days. He was supposed to install the part on Wednesday, but he stated we had to wait until Thursday because he was stuck in Sandy Springs. He installed the damper and left like everything was ok. The fridge was still giving the code and not cooling. He came back again that Saturday (5/20/2023) and had us take everything out of the freezer and he checked the inner workings and still couldn't figure it out. He stated that the thermistor needed to be changed and he should of known and changed it the first time. He also stated that they are supposed to be changed together, but he was trying to save us money, as though we told him we needed to save money. Steve ordered the thermistor and came out on 5/24/2023. He insisted that was the last thing that needed to be fixed and we should be all set. Steven left my home after taking another $150 for the thermistor knowing full and well that the fridge was not working because the air was not blowing in the back out of the damper door. He told my husband that we have to give it 24 hours to cool. Common sense says that 24 hours of no cool air blowing into the fridge will still result in a hot fridge. I called Steve and explained this to him and stated that he will be back first thing the next morning to fix it. I texted him that morning and I have not heard anything back. I called up another company and the tech asked whether the sensor was changed. I was able to call All Major Appliance out of McDonough and was given a time slot of 9 to 1 pm. The tech arrived at 5 and all within 5 minutes knew what was wrong with my fridge and fixed it within 30 minutes. He said that was the first thing that should have been checked instead of going directly to purchasing parts. He said that it was a mistake he made in his first year of repairing fridges 35 years ago. The charge was only $229 and the other repairs were unnecessary. I would not recommend allowing Steve or any of his affiliates in your home.

REVIEW OF MIDWID REPAIR: I'll preface this by saying I've never negatively reviewed any person or business before. But I feel I need to warn others about this scam artist. If you don't have time to read the full review (it’s lengthy due to the multiple problems with this business), the summary is that he will upcharge the cost of parts to a ridiculous degree (over 7,000%!) and will do extremely poor work just to get the job done and get out the door with your money. Do yourself a favor and find another repair company to work with; this one is dishonest and a sham. FULL REVIEW: I contacted Steve, the owner of MidWid Repair (www.midwidrepair.com), to fix my refrigerator that was still cooling the fridge and freezer, but was getting very hot in certain places on the outside of the fridge. He came to the house, diagnosed the problem, replaced the part (a condenser fan motor), and cleaned the condenser coils. The whole repair/cleaning took less than an hour. It was just under $400, which was more expensive than I was expecting. I had asked him to let me know the cost before moving forward; he didn’t and went ahead with the repair. But the overheating problem was fixed, so I was OK with it. A day or two later, the fridge began making a very loud grinding and clunking noise. I called Steve to see if he could take a look. He couldn’t make it over for a few weeks. In the meantime, a friend of mine who is fairly handy took a look to see what was making this awful noise. What he found was astounding. Steve had broken the bracket that secures the fan motor during the repair and instead of doing the honest thing and replacing the broken bracket, he used electrical tape in an attempt to hold the fan motor in place (see attached picture). Needless to say, this bubblegum patch didn’t last long, so the fan was jiggling around making all that racket. I called Steve to ask him to fix this. He said he would be happy to fix it- the bracket would be $189.38 and labor would be a flat rate of $175, amounting to $364.38 + tax. This seemed outrageous to me; $189 for a bracket? And a labor charge for a problem that he created? So I called the manufacturer of the fridge and was shocked to learn that the bracket cost $2.38. At this point I was also curious about the cost of the condenser fan motor, and was told that it cost $37.66. Doing the math, this means that the first “repair” he did earned him approximately $350 in labor for less than an hour of work. I need to get into this business! In addition, my friend also saw that Steve had actually used a cheap third-party fan motor, not the original equipment motor he told me he had used; this might have contributed to the bracket issues. After learning of these dishonest practices, I was all set with Steve’s services and just wanted a refund so I could get this done by a reputable, honest technician. When I asked for a refund, Steve wrote (this is a direct quote, including capitals and misspellings): “NO REFUNDS FOR PARTS OR LABOR, I DONT WORK FOR FREE! ALSO LETS BE CLEAR JOSH, THIS IS MY COMPANY AND I SET THE PRICE FOR ALL PARTS AND LABOR, THE HAVE THE RIGHT TO SAY YES OR NO FOR MY SERVICE, ITS REAL SIMPLE. THANK YOU!” Picture of the text message is attached. It is true that he can set the prices how he likes. So if you enjoy being upcharged 7,857% (seriously, that’s the percentage increase from $2.38 to $189.38), then by all means get in touch with Steve! I’d also like to correct Steve on something: I was NEVER given an option of accepting or declining his service, even though I specifically asked for this option. He just went ahead and did the repair without consulting me, then charged me a ludicrous amount of money for shoddy work. To date, there has been no resolution to this, and I don’t expect one at this point. My only recourse is to help others not fall into the same trap I did. So if you value your hard earned money and time, find another repair technician who is honest and trustworthy, there are plenty out there.