Find Nearby Plumbers In Lee's Summit, Missouri

Liles demonstrates strong technical expertise and problem-solving ability, with customers praising diagnostic accuracy and willingness to save money rather than upsell. Pricing is fair and transparent based on available feedback. However, professionalism is significantly undermined by two critical failures: standing up a prepaid customer without follow-up apology, and declining a residential job without proper callback. Project completion is generally solid when jobs are accepted, though one service required multiple visits due to equipment oversight. The company shows inconsistency in customer commitment and responsiveness.

• CRITICAL: Two 1-star reviews (2024 and 2022) document serious professionalism failures—no-show appointment with no apology, and refusal to service with broken callback promise. These are recent and explicit.
• Recency concern: Most positive reviews are from 2021-2023; most recent review (2024) is highly negative, suggesting potential service quality decline.
• Inconsistent service standards: Owner Steve personally handles some calls/estimates but appears unavailable for others, creating unpredictable customer experience.
• One 4-star review mentions technician arrived without correct equipment despite prior verification call, requiring additional staff and visits.

This score should be treated with caution due to small sample size (6 reviews) and high volatility between 1-star and 5-star ratings. The most recent review is damaging and unaddressed, suggesting current reliability issues. Positive reviews are older and may not reflect current operations.

Two substantive reviews from 2024 and 2003 provide evidence across all four dimensions. The 2024 review explicitly praises professionalism (kindness, friendliness, meticulous cleanup), project completion (4-day job finished despite extreme difficulty), and experience (complex pipe bursting with specialized techniques). Pricing is described as 'extremely reasonable' for the scope. The 2003 review highlights responsiveness, good information, service quality, and free camera inspection, though pricing assessment is ambiguous ('a lot of money'). However, both reviews are sparse in detail and the 2003 review is over 20 years old, significantly limiting confidence. The 1.0-star 'Phone not in service' review from 2011 is unusable data.

• Only 2 usable reviews; WW Score reliability is severely limited
• One review is from 2003 (21 years old) and one from 2024; significant recency gap raises questions about current operations
• The 2011 'Phone not in service' review suggests possible business disruption or contact issues, but is too old and vague to score
• Both positive reviews lack granular detail on specific technical outcomes or measurable quality metrics
• No negative reviews present; cannot assess how company handles complaints or problems

This WW Score should be treated with extreme caution due to insufficient review volume (only 2 usable reviews) and a 21-year gap between the oldest and newest data, making it impossible to assess current operational standards reliably.

Benjamin Franklin Plumbing receives consistently strong marks for professionalism, punctuality, and technical competence from a large volume of reviewers, with many customers praising courteous, knowledgeable technicians who arrive on time and explain their work clearly. However, pricing is the single most dominant negative theme across thousands of reviews, with an extraordinary number of customers reporting charges that are two to five times higher than competing plumbers for identical work — a pattern so consistent and widespread it significantly drags down the overall score. Project completion is mixed: while most jobs are finished correctly, a meaningful minority of reviews describe incomplete work, warranty disputes, no-shows, and situations where problems were not resolved on the first visit. Experience scores are moderate-to-good, with many technicians demonstrating genuine expertise, but offset by recurring reports of misdiagnosis, unnecessary upselling, and technicians who appeared to lack knowledge for the specific job at hand.

• PRICING CONCERN — Extreme and consistent overpricing is the single most reported issue across this review set, spanning thousands of individual reviews across multiple years and franchise locations. Customers routinely report paying 2x–5x the market rate for standard jobs. This is not isolated; it appears to be a systemic franchise pricing model.
• UPSELLING PATTERN — A very large number of reviews describe aggressive or misleading upselling tactics, including recommending unnecessary full replacements instead of repairs, inflated estimates that drop significantly when the customer pushes back, and high-pressure sales pitches for service contracts.
• FRANCHISE INCONSISTENCY — Reviews span many different franchise locations operating under the Benjamin Franklin Plumbing brand. Quality, pricing, and professionalism vary significantly by location, making aggregate scores less reliable for any single location.
• FAKE REVIEW RISK — A significant portion of reviews (estimated 15–20%) contain no text and only a 5-star rating. These blank 5-star reviews are a known pattern associated with review padding. Confidence in the positive score distribution is reduced accordingly.
• DUPLICATE REVIEWS DETECTED — Multiple reviews appear to be exact duplicates (identical text, same or adjacent dates), suggesting possible review manipulation or system errors in the data set.
• WARRANTY AND FOLLOW-THROUGH ISSUES — Dozens of reviews describe warranty disputes, failure to honor service agreements, no-call no-shows on scheduled return visits, and management that was unresponsive to complaints — indicating systemic customer service failures beyond individual technician performance.
• ELDERLY AND VULNERABLE CUSTOMER EXPLOITATION — Multiple reviews explicitly describe situations where elderly or vulnerable customers were quoted prices far above market rate, with some reviewers alleging deliberate targeting of people who lacked knowledge to push back.
• RECENCY NOTE — Reviews span from approximately 2004 to June 2025. The most recent reviews (2025) continue to show the same pricing complaints and mixed service quality as older reviews, suggesting no meaningful improvement over time.

This WW Score is based on an exceptionally large review dataset and carries HIGH statistical confidence in its directional accuracy; however, the score should be interpreted with caution because it aggregates multiple franchise locations under one brand, a significant volume of blank 5-star reviews artificially inflates the raw rating, and the pricing dimension — which is overwhelmingly negative — is the most reliable and consistent signal in the entire dataset.

The review set is extremely small (3 reviews) and contains a severe negative experience that significantly drags down multiple dimensions. The 1-star review describes a serious allegation of charging for work not performed, a deceptive 'free estimate' policy, and a grossly inflated quote ($13,000 vs a competitor's $2,500), which heavily penalizes both pricing and project completion scores. The two positive reviews speak to responsiveness, courtesy, and timeliness, which partially support professionalism but are insufficient to offset the documented misconduct. No reviews provided meaningful commentary on technical skill or workmanship quality, leaving the experience dimension entirely unscored.

• SERIOUS MISCONDUCT ALLEGATION: One reviewer explicitly states they were charged $1,050 for work that was never performed, with only a partial refund of $880 issued — this is a significant red flag for business integrity.
• DECEPTIVE PRICING CONCERN: The negative review alleges the company advertises 'free estimates' on their website but charged $89 for a bid, suggesting misleading marketing practices.
• EXTREME PRICE DISCREPANCY: The quoted price of ~$13,000 was reportedly replaced by a competitor's quote of $2,500 for the same job — a 5x markup that suggests predatory pricing toward a customer in a vulnerable situation.
• VERY LOW REVIEW VOLUME: Only 3 reviews total. This is insufficient to draw reliable conclusions about consistent business behavior. The WW Score should be treated with extreme caution.
• RECENCY NOTE: All three reviews are from 2019–2020, meaning no data exists from the past 4+ years. Current business quality is entirely unknown.
• NO EXPERIENCE/WORKMANSHIP DATA: Not a single review commented on technical skill, quality of work completed, or problem-solving ability, leaving that dimension completely unscored.

This WW Score is based on only 3 reviews spanning 2019–2020 and should be considered highly unreliable — the small sample size, age of reviews, and presence of a serious misconduct allegation make it impossible to draw confident conclusions about this contractor's current quality or trustworthiness.

This contractor demonstrates severe deficiencies across all measured dimensions. Professionalism is critically weak, with multiple reviews citing rudeness, disrespect, poor communication, and failure to respond to appointment inquiries. Project completion is compromised by incomplete repairs (shower leak recurring immediately) and no-shows despite customer availability. The single positive review (5-star, July 2024) acknowledges initial responsiveness and politeness but stands isolated against four 1-star reviews documenting systemic failures. Pricing concerns are minimal in mentions but the one reference describes the service as a 'total waste of money.' The contractor's overall reliability and trustworthiness are severely compromised.

• Severe polarization: 4 of 5 reviews are 1-star with detailed complaints; only 1 five-star review. This pattern suggests consistent operational failures rather than isolated incidents.
• Communication breakdown: Multiple reviews cite non-responsiveness to customer inquiries and warranty company coordination failures.
• Quality of work concerns: Shower leak repair failed within a short timeframe, indicating inadequate technical execution.
• Credibility issue: Discrepancy between what contractor told customer versus what was reported to warranty company suggests dishonesty or poor documentation.
• Recent pattern: Three of the four negative reviews are from 2024 (October, August, February), indicating ongoing problems rather than historical issues.

This WW Score of 32.8 is highly reliable and should be trusted as a strong indicator of poor contractor performance; the consistency of negative feedback across multiple dimensions and recent dates provides substantial confidence in this assessment.

The review set is extremely small (3 reviews) and spans nearly a decade, making reliable scoring difficult. Two of the three reviews are strongly negative, citing failure to return calls, refusal to honor written warranties, no communication about service area changes, and non-refunded prepaid contracts — all of which severely drag down professionalism and project completion scores. The single positive review (2020) describes a responsive, professional visit with proper attire and timely service, providing the only upward pressure on scores. Pricing concerns are raised in two reviews, with one customer losing $100 to a non-refunded contract and another facing $500+ in costs due to a dishonored warranty. Experience scores are mixed: the 2020 reviewer was satisfied with the repair, but a 2016 reviewer discovered incorrect wiring from a prior installation, indicating quality control issues.

• Only 3 reviews total — WW Score is statistically unreliable and should be treated with extreme caution.
• Reviews span from 2016 to 2023, suggesting the business may have changed ownership or management multiple times; scores may not reflect current operations.
• The single 5-star review (2020) explicitly references 'new management,' suggesting it may reflect a different operational period than the negative reviews.
• Two reviews explicitly mention the business being sold or changing hands, which raises concerns about continuity of service commitments and warranty obligations.
• No fake review patterns detected, but the small sample size means no meaningful pattern analysis is possible.

This WW Score is based on only 3 reviews spanning 7 years and should not be considered a reliable representation of current or consistent business quality.