Vigilante Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning

I am disgusted with the service they did not provide my mom during this severe cold in NY. She is an elderly woman and they had the nerve to tell her they need a permit (which would cost $ 1800) to do work on replacing a pipe. Then they proceeded to her that the cost of the permit did not include the cost of the actually job. I can’t believe this company would try to rip off someone and anyone that thinks of using them should get another quote before they hire them to do the job.

Today, during an arctic blast, my client had her gas (heat) turned off due to a minor leak in a pipe discovered during a home inspection. My regular plumbers were not available so in an effort to get someone out quickly I recommended Vigilante Plumbing. They came out within a couple of hours and TRIED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF AN ELDERLY WOMAN by dilating the scope of a small job into a larger one. They wanted to charge $ 1,800 to pull permits and recommended moving and replacing several gas lines. Fortunately, my client sensed being she was being taken advantage of and chased him from her house. She called «Fast Repair Inc.» and within an hour a simple job of replacing a nipple and a coupling was done for $ 450, no permits needed. Something smells fishy Vigilante and it’s not gas. SHAME ON YOU!

Here we go!
Radiators not working again!
Just called, she said there is no one who can come out today. You keep your promises huh? Yea, right. Scammers.

We used them to install our split AC during our home renovation. Their workers were professional and cleaned up after themselves (a rarity). We had a leak in one of them after the initial install and they came straight away to fix. It has been 3 years and no problems. Since that is the only job we used them for I only gave a three.
We have dealt with numerous contractors, plumbers and electricians over the last few years and it amazes me how many never call back for work you are trying to give them. I guess they have more work than they can handle.

I got a window of 12 – 4 saturday from their dispatcher on friday. I was hoping they could install a new faucet in my kitchen and connect the installed sink to the plumbing. She said on the phone she could not give me a price quote but i assumed given it’s a local company it would be reasonable. The app handy had quoted me 170 for the job by a certified plumber and gave me a pinpointed time of arrival… i should have just gone with handy.
The plumber arrived at 5:35 and quoted me $ 290 for the half hour job. I mentioned the quote i had gotten from handy and that they were over an hour and a half late and unfortunately he would not budge on pricing. I invited him to leave and he did

I would give no stars if I can your not allowed to talk to the plumbers just a stressed out customer service girl. The plumbers do not come out to sites to evaluate before delivery of water heaters. Very unprofessional will never use them. I rather pay more for people with great customer service.

While the company receptionists were friendly, the HVAC service is crazy sketchy. Avoid.
I called about a dead central AC. Tech came and evaluated, gave me the issue and an estimate he said he would «play with.» He said the office would call with a final estimate the next day.
Took me two days to track him down again, then he said he’d left me a detailed message with the estimate. He had indeed left a message, in response to my calls, and had simply reiterated the first number he’d given me. Office was never involved. On our call, I asked for a breakdown of parts and labor and he flat out refused.
He refused to tell me how much parts cost!
He did tell me what compressor I would need to fix the A/​C. I knew his numbers were way out of line based on looking that up. He that the office gave him the fairest price, and he didn’t know the breakdown. I asked him to find out, and he again refused.
I had another company come in when I couldn’t get the promised estimate from Vigilante. The other company gave me an actual estimate, with costs, as a reputable company making any repairs would do.
The difference was OVER $ 3,000.00! And the other company’s labor cost was $ 15 more an hour. Vigilante wanted to charge me $ 4500 for a $ 1500 compressor. Same one. Exact same one.
EDIT: I heard from Vigilante after posting my original review. The owner was hugely apologetic about the process and what happened with the technician. While I had before asked to speak to the manager, and was send again to the technician, I appreciated the call. The owner further refunded my diagnostic fee as a showing of good faith, which I also appreciated. Based on his call, I would be happy to use Vigilante for plumbing.

We are longtime customers. They do respond to emergencies, I’ll give them that. Their plumbers and technicians are polite and seem competent. But that’s where the positives end. Their customer service is atrocious and will destroy your will to live.
You deal with them long enough and a few things becomes clear: They hold their customers in contempt, do not respect appointment times, do not respond to either phone calls or emails. You will make multiple appointments, take time off work /​move appointments, and they’ll never show up. Look carefully at all the one star reviews and ask if you want to get involved with this company. Ask yourself why the reviews are mostly one star with a few five stars peppered here and there. Ask if you trust the five star reviews.
Here’s a typical sequence of events: They’ll come out for a service call (inspection, fixing an issue not previously resolved, etc.), and will tell you you’ll hear back by the end of the week with a work plan /​follow-​up. They’ll never respond. You’ll call and email and call and email and be told nice things in pleasant voices, but it’s all complete bullshit because they never honor their commitments. I regret deeply having to ever work with this company.
Look elsewhere and spare yourself the frustration and the humiliation at being treated so poorly.

A horrendous experience. For a simple clogged drain, they offered a 4-​hour window with no guidelines on possible cost. In fact, they demanded $ 80 just to come and look (it would be waved if they did work). Being in a bit of a jam, I said ok. 2.5 hours into the wait time I called for a status check. They assured me I was next on the list. 4 hours in, I called back. I was still «next» apparently. 5 hours in and no one showed up. Not making a four-​hour window by over an hour is what these people were about. They offered no excuse or possible cost reduction to make up for their failure. What a joke of a «company».
In sum, if you like bait-​and-​switch, unreliable service, waiting and frustration, go for Vigilante.

Price scam. They charge you $ 80 just for the plumber to enter your door, and then he tells you it’s going to cost $ 240 + tax to snake the pipe in the bathtub, to get some built-​up hair from the pipe, which is a 20 min job. Called vigilante, asking about this ridiculous price for the small job, and the best that they could do is charge us $ 210 instead. So what do you do, loose $ 80 for nothing because the plumber came to your place or pay the price of a round trip ticket to Florida to get some hair out of your pipe? Will never use this service again.

Update: I was done with this company until today when they were the only ones who would show up after a week of not getting other plumbers to show up or show up with, um, tools. The issue was a $ 79 fix but they did manage to upsell a $ 800 additional fix which had never been mentioned the other times they have come to fix the sump pump…
From last time: I am done with this company. We have used Vigilante in our Coop for probably 15 services over the past couple of years. One would think that this would incite some sort of loyalty or incentive to be straightforward with us and to foster a long standing relationship but that has not been the case.
After about 4 services on our Sump Pump, we still had the same issue of it clogging and flooding the basement regularly (gross). Every visit they recommended a different solution with no continuity or reference to the past solutions they had attempted. Their pricing structure is very opaque and there was no sense of «Ok, you are good customers so we will do what we can to fix this in a permanent way for you.» I always felt it was a «well, lets try this and if it works it works and if it doesn’t, we’ll get paid and they will call us the next time because what do they know about this stuff?»
We used them LAST WEEK to replace our burnt out hot water heaters and then today when our heat went out, the dispatcher made it seem like we should be so lucky that they would arrive sometime in the evening and that it would be $ 125 just for the service call. This is after we just spent $ 6000 with them last week for an issue in the same room that was likely related. I called a different plumber who arrived in 2 hours, fixed our boiler issue in 2 minutes (someone flipped a switch on the way out the door that cut power to the boiler. Perhaps related to the hot water heater repair work?) AND said he would have been happy to replace the heaters for $ 4000.
I am hesitant to write bad reviews as a business owner myself. But I gotta say, after the amount of business we have given this company, they have really alienated me.

They redid the water heater system for my 16 unit condo two years ago.
It has been two winters with ongoing heating issues. Yes, they do come by some times to ‘fix it’ but it is still not resolved. This Monday we waited 5 hours with confirmation that the plumbers will be there. Just to find out he wasn’t coming.
I understand the complexity of an pre war buildings undocumented heating setup but this is unexceptionable. Don’t use them.

I am a long-​time Vigilante customer. I have used them personally as well as at my job. I have found them to be very reliable, knowledgeable and prices may seem a bit high but you get what you pay for. :)
Michele P. and his crew changed an old and broken pump. The service they provided was excellent! I would highly recommend Vigilante to anyone who asks me for a «good» Plumbing and HVAC company!

Too bad you couldn’t give zero stars, I got the exact same work done for less than half of what they were asking. I just don’t get it, I understand you have to make a buck but to charge these prices is ridiculous.

Very pricey and bad service!
A plumber came to take care of my heat in my house and made it too hot for us to use it! They would NOT come back to fix it with out paying them extra fee and even when i agree to pay they will give me a week window for coming. We cannot use the heat now and have to open and close it each time it gets too hot. I will never use them again. Had to call a different company to come and fix it. Bad service. They are super nice and ask for a feedback until you have a problem!!!

We are long-​time Vigilante customers, given that we’ve got a house form 1925 and stuff just wears out. Anyway, today it was about a boiler visit and a sink drain pipe repair.
What I love about Vigilante is that their plumbers are so incredibly competent and professional. Michele was our technician today, and once again I was totally impressed.
Yes, plumbing repairs are expensive. Yes, it’s not something we *like* spending money on. But when it’s got to be done, Vigilante is who we will call… again.

Vigilante is incredibly organized (which is hard to find). They went out of their way to accomodate my need for an early morning meeting. Papa Michele was very respectful of my home. In addition to accomplishing the task I requested (snaking my tub), he also provided great consultation on other ways to improve the drainage in my entire house. He taught me how to fix my sink and prevent future clogging around the house. I HIGHLY recommend hiring this company and requesting Papa Michele!

No star they tried to ripoff my daughter quoted 900‑1200 to repair the shower plus
fixing the wall they needed to break that would cost about 300.
I repaired the shower for $ 8.00 All it needed was a new tub spout the diverter was broken

We had a gas leak and I called several plumbers to come and fix it. Vigilante called first and I had them come over. They charged me $ 594 for less than 1 hour of work! the work was very simple and involved replacing a very small section of easily accessible pipe. My husband was home and we really had no choice but to use them since we had tenants as well. I feel totally robbed and taken advantage of! I will never use them again and hope you all will not use them either.

Vigilante? Should be Highway Robbery!
I needed to have a dryer hooked up. One gas line, one vent. I had all the parts. The dryer was in position. All they had to do was provide the hook up.
When I called the office (and the office staff is great), they said that they couldn’t give me an estimate, but that they’d send a plumber. They also said that$ 79.00 evaluation fee.
The plumber arrived (on time!), looked at the dryer, looked through his book, and said, «$ 339.00.» To hook up one gas line and one vent.
That, my friends, is INSANE! I refused the service, and the evaluation fee, and sent them on their way.