Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
4,693 refunds unclaimed after closure of company
Home warranty provider Service America, which went out of business late last year, said hundreds of refund checks it sent customers for unused contract periods were not cashed.
Now the company has turned that money over to the state Division of Unclaimed Property.
The company is no longer responding directly to former customers who say they are owed money for whatever was left of their prepaid warranty policy terms when it ceased operations last December.
Devin Galetta, spokesman for the state division, said Service America turned over $878,000, along with names and last known addresses of 4,693 account holders. That’s an average unclaimed refund of $187.
Former Service America customers who believe they are owed money can look up their names at FLTreasure Hunt.org. Instructions for filing a claim can be found on the website.
Customers whose names aren’t on the list and haven’t already received a refund are out of luck. Service America’s chief operating officer Ken Stoll said this week that the company thoroughly scrubbed its account files to locate all customers who were owed money.
Stoll said he has fielded inquiries from customers who mistakenly thought they were owed money, including people who were paying month to month, as well as one person who hadn’t been a customer for 30 years.
The Fort Lauderdale-based company had been in business for 43 years when it notified the state in November that it was ceasing operations and laying off 161 employees from offices in Fort Lauderdale and Clearwater.
Service America sold yearlong and multi-year warranty contracts covering repair or replacement of household appliances and major components such as air conditioners and water heaters.
The company had about 23,000 active subscribers when it closed — down from about 65,000 in 2006.
Refund checks that weren’t cashed may have been sent to the wrong address, mistakenly thrown away or never opened, Stoll said in January.