A Lehigh Valley HVAC company has agreed to pay $300,000 and revise its business practices as part of a settlement reached with the state Attorney General\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro in 2022 filed a lawsuit against Allentown-based Curtis Total Service Inc., which alleged the company used deceptive and high-pressure sales tactics that targeted vulnerable customers. Current AG Dave Sunday announced Thursday that the company has agreed to the payment and business revision as part of a settlement. The company did not admit any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurtis Total Service used fear and deception to pressure consumers into expensive and often unnecessary HVAC purchases,\u201d Sunday said in the news release. \u201cMany victims in this case were seniors or individuals living on fixed incomes who were misled about their rights, and intimidated when they attempted to cancel these contracts. This settlement holds the defendants accountable and puts in place strong protections to prevent these abusive practices from happening again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit alleged the company, including manager Richard Price and former HVAC field supervisor Matthew Price, used high-pressure sales tactics to convince people their systems needed a replacement immediately, and they had customers sign incomplete or blank contracts.<\/p>\n
The AG\u2019s office said they also misrepresented financing terms and the statutory right to rescission to prevent customers from using their right to cancel the contract within three days.\u00a0 They also threatened legal action or other consequences against those who tried to do so, the release states.<\/p>\n
The defendants settled the lawsuit after one week of trial, during which multiple alleged victims testified. One of them, an 85-year-old woman, said she called the company for a furnace repair at her mobile home. Matthew Price arrived at her house, scared her into thinking her heater would catch fire and blow up, and got her to sign a blank contract for the cheapest unit on the spot, the AG\u2019s office said. He told her she could not cancel and did not give her a copy of the paperwork, the release states.<\/p>\n
After talking to family members, she tried to cancel, but the company threatened legal action if she did not move forward with the installation, according to testimony. When she did get the paperwork for the installation, the total cost was three times the amount previously discussed, the release states.<\/p>\n
Another alleged victim, 90, testified that he asked the company about a cleaning special for his HVAC unit, and that the company removed the unit without his approval, according to the AG\u2019s office. He was allegedly forced to sign a contract for a new unit that cost $29,000.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Curtis Total Service attorney Jack Meyerson said the claims against the nearly 40-year-old company were \u201cspurious.\u201d He said that the AG\u2019s office brought in roughly a dozen witnesses to testify, most of whom had contacted the AG\u2019s office after the lawsuit went public. Those customers complained about the cost of their jobs after the fact, fueled by promises of the AG\u2019s office that they would get their money back, Meyerson said.<\/p>\n
Nearly every witness agreed they received high-quality HVAC equipment service, Meyerson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite what the Commonwealth now claims as a victory, the testimony the Attorney General\u2019s Office put forth at trial was so weak that the AG\u2019s Office agreed to settle claims it believed were worth millions of dollars for a much smaller amount, so they could try to claim some sort of victory and to offset the hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs and fees they incurred on behalf of Pennsylvania taxpayers in bringing the baseless suit against Curtis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Under the settlement, the company is prohibited from knowingly recommending unnecessary goods; using advertising with false or misleading statements, recommending replacement of a system without first making repair efforts, identifying a substance in a customer\u2019s home as mold without lab testing; having a customer sign incomplete documents; failing to provide copies of contracts when they are signed; and rejecting an effort to cancel a contract within three days.<\/p>\n
Meyerson said most of the changes had been implemented for years.<\/p>\n
The AG\u2019s office said Matthew price is banned for eight years from serving in any type of management or sales positions for any HVAC company in the state, and is permanently prohibited from handling financial applications or credit limit increases for non-familial Pennsylvania customers.<\/p>\n
Richard Price needs to provide notice in writing to his direct supervisor about business decisions involving customer purchases and cancellations, the AG\u2019s office said. Additionally, he is barred from holding any ownership interest in any HVAC-related company in the state for five years.<\/p>\n
Meyerson said Richard Price, Curtis\u2019 longtime general manager, did not admit liability and continues in his role to serve the company\u2019s current and future customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurtis is happy the matter is finally concluded, so that it may get back to its work of providing quality heating, air conditioning, plumbing, and other home improvement services to its customers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Peter Greiner, attorney for Richard and Matthew Price, said the statement issued by Meyerson applies to his clients as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Lehigh Valley HVAC company has agreed to pay $300,000 and revise its business practices as part of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,60,46,433,182,139,28,432],"class_list":["post-207571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-business","tag-courts","tag-lehigh-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}