Find Nearby Plumbers In Binghamton, New York

Apex Plumbing presents a deeply mixed picture across all four dimensions. Professionalism scores are dragged down significantly by multiple explicit complaints about appointment changes, late arrivals, poor communication, and a contractor who failed to return calls during an active project — though several positive reviews do praise courteous and efficient technicians. Pricing is a serious concern: three separate reviews describe charges that reviewers found grossly excessive or deceptive, including a $300/hour implied rate, a $400 charge for 30 minutes of work, and disputed contract terms on a $12,000 renovation — these are specific, credible complaints that cannot be dismissed. Project completion is similarly split, with one detailed review describing abandoned work, missing drain line hookups, unprofessional installations, and a contractor sent to collections, while shorter positive reviews describe fast and complete jobs. Experience scores moderately, with positive reviews citing knowledgeable technicians who explained their work, but the detailed negative review raises legitimate concerns about workmanship quality on a large project.

• PRICING CONCERN: Three independent reviews with specific dollar figures describe pricing as excessive or deceptive. This is a consistent and credible pattern, not isolated complaints.
• PROJECT ABANDONMENT: One detailed 2015 review describes incomplete work on a $12,000 renovation, failure to return contractor calls, a disputed contract sent to collections, and multiple workmanship deficiencies including a missing drain line hookup. This is a high-severity flag.
• RECENCY NOTE: The most recent negative review is from May 2023 (pricing complaint). The most recent positive reviews are from 2022 and 2020. Several positive reviews are from 2016–2018, which are 5–8 years old and carry reduced weight.
• RECENCY NOTE: The detailed project abandonment review is from 2015 and the appointment/lateness complaint from 2014 — these are older but describe serious structural issues with business practices.
• FAKE REVIEW CHECK: No strong fake review patterns detected. Positive reviews vary in detail and phrasing. However, the 2016 review ('I have known the owner for years') reads as a personal endorsement rather than a service review and carries limited evidentiary weight.
• SCORE RELIABILITY: With only 10 reviews spanning nearly a decade, the sample size is small. The presence of multiple detailed, specific negative reviews alongside shorter positive reviews means the negative experiences carry proportionally high informational weight.

This WW Score is based on a small but informationally rich set of 10 reviews spanning 2014–2023; the score should be treated with caution given the limited sample size, but the recurring and specific nature of pricing and project completion complaints across multiple independent reviewers meaningfully reduces confidence in this contractor's reliability.

AJ Leto & Sons shows a split picture: older reviews from 2017–2020 paint a generally positive image of professional, friendly technicians who completed jobs well and offered fair pricing, while more recent reviews from 2021–2022 reveal serious failures in responsiveness, follow-through, and customer satisfaction. The 2022 toilet repair incident is a significant drag on project completion and professionalism scores, as the job was not resolved, communication broke down, and the customer ultimately cancelled service. The unanswered callback in 2021 further compounds concerns about responsiveness. Positive mentions of punctuality, cleanliness, and fair quotes from earlier reviews prevent the scores from falling further, but the recency of the negative experiences carries meaningful weight.

• RECENCY CONCERN: The two most recent reviews (2021, 2022) are both negative and reflect poor responsiveness and incomplete work. The positive reviews are all from 2017–2020, suggesting a possible decline in service quality over time.
• PROJECT COMPLETION CONCERN: The 2022 review describes an unresolved repair, no proactive follow-up from the contractor, and eventual customer cancellation — a clear project completion failure.
• RESPONSIVENESS CONCERN: Two separate reviews (2021 and 2022) explicitly cite failure to return calls or follow up, which is a recurring pattern that warrants attention.
• SAMPLE SIZE: Only 7 reviews total. Scores should be interpreted cautiously as a small number of reviews can disproportionately skew results in either direction.

This WW Score carries moderate reliability due to the small review pool of 7 and a notable quality divergence between older positive reviews and more recent negative ones — prospective customers should weight the 2021–2022 experiences heavily when making decisions.

This contractor shows highly inconsistent performance across reviews spanning 13 years. Professionalism is a significant weakness, with multiple reports of rude behavior, offensive language, unprofessional appearance (smoking smell, not removing shoes), and poor communication about pricing. Pricing practices are concerning, with evidence of misleading quotes and disputed credit applications. Project completion and technical experience are stronger areas, with several reviews praising quality workmanship and timely completion. However, the oldest positive reviews (2007–2009) may not reflect current operations, while the most recent detailed review (2020) is severely negative.

• Two reviews contain only a period (.) with 5-star ratings from 2014–2015; these appear to be placeholder or fake reviews with no substantive content and should be disregarded.
• Significant recency concern: most positive reviews are 8–16 years old (2007–2009), while the most recent detailed review (June 2020) is highly negative, suggesting possible service quality decline.
• Pricing transparency is a red flag: explicit complaint about misrepresented credit application and sudden cost escalation ($70 diagnostic fee claimed as credit, then disputed).
• Professionalism complaints are consistent across multiple reviews: offensive language, poor hygiene standards, rudeness, and difficult communication.
• One review (2011) appears to reference a different service (apartment removal/storage) and may not be plumbing-related; included in analysis but context is unclear.

This score should be treated with caution due to limited recent data, fake reviews, and a 13-year span with apparent service degradation; the most recent substantive review is severely negative, contradicting older positive reviews, making current reliability questionable.

Auchinachie Services presents a deeply split profile: a large cluster of recent 5-star reviews (predominantly from May–June 2025) praise individual technicians as professional, friendly, knowledgeable, and timely, driving the professionalism and experience scores upward. However, a substantial body of older and some recent negative reviews — spanning 2013 through 2025 — consistently and explicitly describes extreme price gouging, misleading fee structures, hidden charges, and quotes that were 3–10x competitor prices, which devastates the pricing dimension. Project completion is also significantly impacted by multiple credible accounts of abandoned or incomplete work, no-shows, cancelled appointments, and jobs that required multiple return visits to fix errors. The experience dimension is mixed: while many recent reviewers praise technician skill, numerous detailed negative reviews describe misdiagnoses, incorrect parts installed, and work that created new hazards — including a near gas explosion and a sewage backup caused by improper installation.

• STRONG FAKE REVIEW PATTERN DETECTED: At least 6 reviews appear to be exact duplicates posted on different dates (e.g., 'Great work as always.', 'Jonathan Diaz was very informative...', 'Naeem was knowledgeable, friendly and effective...', 'He was very helpful thank you for coming out', 'He was amazing.' — each appears verbatim on 2025-06-09, 2025-06-07, and 2025-06-06). The refund/Zach review also appears verbatim on both 2025-06-09 and 2025-06-06. This is a clear indicator of review manipulation or artificial inflation.
• 30 reviews contained no text (blank body with only a star rating) and were excluded from dimensional scoring but counted in total reviews analyzed.
• The review corpus shows a sharp temporal split: recent reviews (2025) are overwhelmingly positive and brief, while reviews from 2013–2024 are overwhelmingly negative and highly detailed. This pattern is consistent with either a change in business practices or an organized effort to bury older negative reviews with new positive ones.
• Multiple independent reviewers across different years explicitly allege price gouging, with competitor quotes ranging from 10% to 33% of Auchinachie's quoted prices. This is a systemic pricing concern, not isolated incidents.
• Several reviews allege deceptive business practices including: unauthorized credit card charges, misrepresentation of service fees, pressure to sign same-day contracts, false diagnoses to upsell new equipment, and staff misrepresenting their job titles.
• At least two reviews describe safety incidents directly attributable to technician error: a near gas explosion from an opened propane valve, and a furnace left with a wrong-size nozzle that risked a chimney fire.
• One review (1-star, 2025-05-07) describes being charged $5,000 for a job that another company resolved by simply turning on a switch — suggesting ongoing misdiagnosis or predatory pricing practices persist into 2025.
• The duplicate reviews significantly inflate the apparent volume of positive feedback. Confidence in the positive signals is reduced accordingly.

This WW Score carries HIGH data confidence due to the large review volume, but the score itself should be interpreted cautiously given strong evidence of duplicate/fake positive reviews artificially inflating recent ratings, a systemic pattern of pricing complaints spanning over a decade, and documented safety and workmanship failures — the true customer experience is likely worse than the calculated score suggests.

Action Plumbing and Heating presents a deeply mixed picture across all four dimensions. Positive reviews praise friendly staff, responsive scheduling, and skilled problem-solving, while negative reviews describe serious failures including a boiler explosion attributed to faulty work, repeated no-shows, incomplete repairs, and alleged overcharging with inferior equipment. Project completion is a particular concern, with multiple reviewers reporting that work was left unfinished, problems recurred shortly after service, or follow-up estimates were never delivered. Pricing feedback is similarly split — some customers found costs fair and competitive, while others felt charged top dollar for substandard or ineffective work. The most recent reviews (2023–2024) skew negative, which is a meaningful signal about current service quality.

• RECENCY CONCERN: The two most recent reviews (2024 and 2023) are both 1-star and describe serious failures including a boiler explosion and a discriminatory hang-up. Positive reviews are predominantly from 2015–2020, suggesting possible decline in service quality over time.
• FAKE REVIEW SUSPICION — LOW LEVEL: The 5-star reviews from 2015 and 2016 use somewhat generic praise with limited specifics, though they are not identical in phrasing. No strong fake review pattern detected, but older positive reviews should be weighted less due to age.
• SERIOUS SAFETY CONCERN: One reviewer (2024) alleges the technician's work caused a boiler explosion resulting in approximately $5,000 in damages, tenant complaints, and municipal inspector involvement. This is a significant red flag for workmanship and accountability.
• NO-SHOW PATTERN: One reviewer explicitly reports two consecutive no-shows with only a voicemail left after the appointment window, indicating a reliability issue.
• FOLLOW-THROUGH FAILURE: One reviewer reports calling daily for over a week and never receiving a promised estimate, ultimately abandoning the company after paying $150 for an ineffective repair.
• DISCRIMINATION ALLEGATION: One 2023 reviewer alleges they were hung up on and suspects racial discrimination based on their last name. This is noted as a flag but cannot be verified from review data alone.

This WW Score is based on 11 reviews spanning 2015–2024 with usable data across all dimensions; while mention counts are sufficient for HIGH confidence labels on individual dimensions, the wide date range and sharp divergence between older positive and newer negative reviews means the score should be treated with caution — current service quality appears materially worse than historical performance suggests.

Vestal Plumbing and Heating shows highly inconsistent performance across reviews. One recent 1-star review (2023) documents serious project completion failures: a disconnected duct, missing thermostat wire installation, and complete non-responsiveness to callback requests for repairs. Two older positive reviews (2020, 2015) praise responsiveness, fair pricing, and personal service, but lack detail and predate the documented failures by years. The critical 2023 review explicitly describes incomplete work and abandoned callbacks, which directly contradicts the professionalism and project completion dimensions. The WW Score is heavily depressed by the severe project completion failure and non-responsiveness documented in the most recent review.

• CRITICAL: Most recent review (2023) documents serious project failures including disconnected ductwork, incomplete thermostat installation, and complete non-responsiveness to multiple callback requests. This represents a major red flag for reliability.
• Significant recency gap: Two positive reviews are from 2020 and 2015 (3-8 years old), while the negative review is from 2023. Recent performance appears substantially worse than historical reviews.
• Only 3 total reviews analyzed — sample size is very small and limits confidence in overall assessment.
• Positive reviews lack specific technical detail and may reflect general satisfaction rather than thorough evaluation of workmanship quality.

This WW Score should be treated with caution due to the small sample size (3 reviews) and significant recency concerns. However, the detailed 2023 failure documentation is credible and recent enough to warrant serious consideration; the contractor's non-responsiveness to callbacks is a critical integrity issue that outweighs older positive reviews.