Jeff Gelles: Blocked drain was just the start of her problems

Anita Zager's headache began one Wednesday evening in early April, when she discovered a problem any homeowner would dread. Backed-up sewage was spilling from her washing machine onto the basement carpet in her Narberth home.

Her headache blossomed into a full-bore consumer nightmare the next day, after she called HomeServe USA under a service contract she buys for water and sewer emergencies. HomeServe sent a plumber the next morning to unblock her drain. Just as promptly things went awry.

Zager heard an enormous clatter, then discovered the reason: Trying to snake the drain pipe leading to the laundry room at the back of her home, the plumber had poked a hole in a bathroom pipe near the front. Then he had poked a three-inch hole in the bathroom wall itself.

Worst of all was this: While the plumber promised to fix the pipe and finish unblocking the drain, he disclaimed responsibility for the damage to her wall. And when a new crew returned later to finish the job, it refused to proceed until she signed paperwork saying it wasn't responsible for damage to the bathroom wall or tile - from the mishap itself or the excavation needed to repair it.

Zager said that was the same message she got when she called HomeServe repeatedly over the next two weeks. Each time, company reps advised her to make a claim for the damage against her homeowners policy.

To Zager, a Havertown dentist, something didn't smell right - and it wasn't just the lingering odor from the sewage backup.

"I can understand them having these forms for all the right reasons - because of people who sue all the time, or people who want everything done even though the company isn't responsible," she told me last week. "But they caused this."

Zager said the bathroom damage was just a small part of damage that may eventually cost $10,000 - twice the dollar limit in her homeowners policy for costs resulting from a drain blockage. But she said she was more concerned about the principle - and hardly mollified when HomeServe offered a 15 percent discount on her next year's coverage, and then upped the offer to a full year's coverage for free, worth more than $200.

No matter what she signed - or terms of service that say HomeServe isn't responsible for "consequential or incidental" damage - Zager didn't understand how it could deny responsibility for its contractor's mistake.

The good news? When I called HomeServe to inquire, that's what the company told me, too.

"I think there was a bit of confusion about what exactly was going on at that customer's home," senior vice president Myles Meehan told me Friday. "Fortunately, we sorted it out, and it's all going to be taken care of."

All's well that ends well? Perhaps. But it's worth asking what went wrong. If this was the outcome HomeServe says is proper, it shouldn't take a journalist's call to achieve it.

Meehan said HomeServe's satisfaction data show Zager's case to be unusual. Of customers who seek service under its contracts, which may also cover electric or gas lines, heating, or air-conditioning, 96 percent report satisfaction, he said.

Aqua Pennsylvania, which partners with HomeServe to offer the service to its water and sewer customers and gets a 7 percent commission, reports even better satisfaction, vice president Anthony J. Donatoni told me.

"In most cases, those who have taken the program and have used it find it very beneficial," he said.

And if not? Although HomeServe promotes and bills its service directly to Aqua's customers in this region, Donatoni said Aqua was willing to assist if something goes wrong. "We will certainly listen to their side of it, and work on their behalf with HomeServe. We think that's an appropriate role for us."

Meehan said HomeServe has its own escalation process - something he concedes failed in Zager's case. Customers are supposed to have ready access to supervisors. And if a supervisor can't help, customers can request aid from one of the company's own "customer advocates."

"There are times, of course, where something falls through the cracks, but thankfully that's the exception and not the rule," Meehan said.

Zager, who still has her costly mess to clean up, is just thankful someone finally listened.