FIXITT - Swindlers and Scam Artists

A 1-star rating is too high for these con artists masquerading as a legitimate appliance repair company. Read and believe the bad reviews and don't get caught by these swindlers.

My first experience with FIXITT was more than 2 years ago in June 2020, after I had a friend replace the element in my stove. The element wasn't working properly and it turned out it had been wired incorrectly. I also had some plates not working, so decided to rather get a professional repair company to fix everything.

When we called FIXITT, the first thing they insisted on before anything else was their call-out fee of R395 which had to be paid in cash on arrival. This was re-iterated many times in our conversation and asked if we were sure we had the cash for the call-out fee. The call-out was higher than usual and it didn't cover anything other than the call-out. Unlike other companies which will assess the repair, based on whether parts are required or not, and then include labour as part of call-out fee.

These so-called technicians were not even inside my house when they asked --- no, correction --- DEMANDED their call-out fee. I then told them what the problem was with the wiring. They pulled out the oven, switched the 2 wires around. I then asked them if they could see why the plates weren't working. They checked and told me it was the switches that needed to be replaced. I asked them if they could do that. Thank GOODNESS they didn't have the parts with them and told me to get a quote from the office. Before leaving they then told me the labour for the "rewiring" was an additional R450. YIKES!! There weren't even there 20 minutes. They wouldn't let me pay the outstanding R450 via an EFT, I had to pay it via credit card immediately on their hand-held machine.

After all these red flags, I don't know what we were thinking and called their office to get a quote for the switches. The quote came back @ R665 per switch. By then I had had enough. I called Defy and asked them what the price of a switch for our stove was... Defy's price was R60 each. We called FIXITT back and asked them if they were sure about the quote and more than once said they were sure it was correct. They had quoted us more than 10 TIMES the price of the same part. We rejected their quote and that was our last dealings with FIXITT; or at least that's what we thought...

I later bought the switches myself and had them replaced (NOT by FIXITT). Turned out there was nothing wrong with the switches - so that was a waste of money but not as much as FIXITT would have charged me. It was a simple thing that any genuine repair technician would have spotted - a wire from the housing of the oven switch had burnt through cutting of the power supply to the other 3 switches.

2 days ago (November 2022), after more than 2 years, we received an e-mail from FIXITT saying they have an outstanding invoice of ours for R845. To say we were FURIOUS would be an understatement. We didn't reply to the e-mail but called them instead and gave them a piece of our mind. When we asked them why we should be resending proof of payment when we still had all our e-mails and proof that the account was paid --- their reply was that they had a bad accounting system back then... REALLY!!! I think that is a bunch of hogwash. I think having our details still on record they thought they could extort some more money out of us. Something I will be taking up with the National Credit Regulator and with Consumer Protection, as well as lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator with regards to POPIA.

I can't emphasise this enough... STAY WAY from FIXITT! Don't even get to the point where they ask for your details. Once they have your details, they will send incompetent people to your home with no intention of fixing anything just so they can demand a call-out fee. They will invoice you for work done and then most likely threaten you with blacklisting if you don't pay.