Madden James J

I wish that I had read the other reviews before going with this company. James J Madden was recommended to me by a general contractor, who uses them mostly for commercial jobs. I needed them for a residential plumbing job.
At first I was happy with the service I received — someone came in a timely manner to give me an estimate, they were pleasant to work with, etc. It was going to be a time consuming and expensive job from the start — replacing the original galvanized pipes with copper — but I started to get suspicious of the job once the plumber left after MAYBE being at my house for 7 hours. The next day, he showed up more than an hour after the agreed upon time, stating that traffic was to blame. However, when he stopped working after only 6.5 hours of service, I had to say something. He explained that the clock starts when he leaves the warehouse if he picks up any parts in the morning. This was never explained to me during the quote process, and it is absolutely absurd to me that I would be charged $ 125 for each hour that this plumber would be in traffic and not providing the agreed upon service to me. When I expressed this sentiment to the plumber, he shrugged it off, «I guess it’s your fault for living in Washington, DC.» To which my response was, «If you cannot service DC customers in a timely manner, then don’t advertise as such.» Also, there is a hardware store (which works with contractors more than general consumers) 4 blocks from my house — but that couldn’t be used because James J Madden didn’t have a contract with them. I guess that’s also my fault?
I also called HQ about have to pay for 8 hours of labor each day (at a $ 125 rate), when being provided substantially less than that in actual hours worked. I spoke to the representative from the accounting department, who agreed with my assessment, and said that I WOULD NOT be charged for that travel time. Lo and behold, once the final invoice is processed, I am charged for that time. When I call back to discuss this with the same individual, she told me that she initially misunderstood my question, and after pulling the driver’s GPS records, I actually was going to have to pay the charge. This news was also delivered to me in a voicemail. When I called back and left my own message, it was never returned.
During my plumbing work, the plumber identified a toilet that was running. He came up with a half-​fix the first day out there, but looked me in the eye and said, «since I already have to go to the warehouse in the morning, I’ll pick you up a new stopper for this toilet.» Now, this is where I was naïve, because I assumed that because he told me he was going to fix the toilet, that the toilet would be fixed. Fast forward to Water Bill that comes approximately 1 month after the plumbing was completed, and my bill is 10 TIMES the average bill. When I called DC Water, they could not provide any insight as to whether it could be the cause of just the toilet running, or if there was a leak in the pipes somewhere. I then spoke with the Customer Service Representative and explained my situation to her — she said that she never saw the running toilet/​stopper in the plumber’s notes, so therefore it essentially never happened. The best thing that the company could offer me, was for me to pay for another plumber to come out and see if they could identify the problem. I said that I would prefer to end the relationship and go our separate ways.
The lack of professionalism, coupled with a very pompous and egocentric attitude, absolutely astounded me. I felt like I was being nickle and dimed at every turn, and that the Company was willing to do less than nothing to keep a customer happy or maintain a relationship. I am truly disgusted with how the entire situation has transpired, and will never recommend James J Madden for any service of any kind. I’ve also alerted the contractor who initially recommended them, and he suggest severing all ties with them moving forward as well.

Non-​existant customer service.
The tech was extremely late (this was the first appointment of the day), which I understand if issues come up, but I got zero notice.
I called in with a question and did not receive a response. I had to call back 45 min later to find out they did have a response, but had not let me know.
The manager refused to let me get a word in on the phone, and unfortunately did not realize he was upset about something I was not asking for. If he had just let me speak at any point in the conversation, he would have heard that everything was fine and I was just curious what the status of my appointment was.
I canceled my appointment. My AC isn’t working, but i can’t imagine contributing to a business with such bad customer service.

James Madden is the absolute worst company and I would not recommend using them at all. First, when it was over 95-​degrees outside, it took them over a week to come to my condo to repair the air conditioner. They had to send out a second tech to repair my AC system as the first tech didn’t share any of the information with the second tech. So, when the second tech came in, he didn’t have the necessary parts to fix the unit. Then, when, when he came back several days later with the right parts, the repair that he did — that cost over $ 1,000 — didn’t fix it and they still wanted to charge me. They had to do an entirely different repair that cost another $ 1,500. The total charge was over $ 2,500 and they provided the absolute worst customer service possible. Honestly, I really would NOT use them. They are a dishonest company.

This has to be the worst plumber I have ever dealt with. Start with the worst thing — they stole our radiator key! Seriously. Why would you do that? Second — they are slooooooow. And not the good kind of slow where they are looking at things in detail. The plumber just dragged his lazy butt around. Third — when the plumber saw a leak in one of our radiator valves, he did nothing about it! What — are supposed to make another service call and pay another extra fee to have you come out? I fixed the valve myself. Took me 30 seconds. Took me longer to go down to the basement and get my wrench than it did to tighten the leaky valve. Now the valve is fine, no thanks to Madden. And I still don’t have a radiator key. What a waste of time and money.