I have a senior friend that was taken advantage of when she had replaced her hot water tank and paid more than double what she should have. Any advice?

BBB. They do not like when senior citizens are taken advantage of.

What kind of ratings does the company have from.BBB?

You can also do a Google review, an option when you Google the company.

My husband has been in HVAC business for 43 years. The past two, three years equipment has been going up, we get price increases about every three months.
There is a very large company that is buying up all the small companies and they are charging $17,000 for a full system. We can’t even touch that price, because that company has the name, a million dollar advertising allowance they get away with it.
Your friend should have gotten at least two other estimates.

I would see if any similar complaints were put in by people. Try Better Business to see what their rating is. Like I said to Dupidwife, if all that was done was putting in the heater I think 4k is a lot. But if they had to bring her up to code and re-route like me, it may have cost that much. Home repairs are costing a lot with materials being so high. And plumbers know you need them. Because by the time u do, its an emergency.

OP, if this bothers you that much post feedback on the company's website.

Your friend was not taken advantage of.

Move on.

I don’t understand why you are complaining. I think your friend had a good deal from this company and your friend was not taken advantage of. The going rate for this kind of service is much higher than what your friend paid.

I just went thru this. I used a plumber we have used before. My fault, I did not want to shop around. Customer Service is lousy where I live. You call and no one gets back to you or they are backed up. Because my husband can't talk on the phone, it leaves me making the calls. And I was tired of going thru what I needed to go thru. It was a leak in the tank so we had to get it fixed. We paid 6k. Yes, we got over charged. The next time we got a plumber it wasn't them. This plumber would have done it for 3k. Funny thing was, we were talked into one of those fan tanks. Guy got everything done and then asked where was the outlet. There was none. Then they wanted us to pay to have one put in. We had other work we needed done and got an estimate, 7k. Not major stuff. We got a retired electrician to do the work, $700 and it passed inspection.

I have to agree, if she did not want to pay the price, then don't use that plumber. But if it was a leak, it had to get done. There is a State
Agency that does handle this type of thing. There was a local plumber that got brought up on charges for gouging. He was found guilty.

I would suggest when looking for any electrician or plumber, get one that he is the only employee, maybe has a helper. The one I had has lots of employees and trucks. They work on commission. So the more problems they find, and the bigger the bill the more money they make. They also have to bring in a certain amount of revenue a week, say 5k, and if they don't they are let go. The 7k estimate for electrical work included a new electrical box. My box looks brand new even though its 40 yrs old. No rust. No water sitting in it. The electrician we got said there was nothing wrong with the box and so did the inspector.

My DH worked for rotorooter. They’d charge about 5k.

Have you seen the itemized bill from this company? Did she sign an estimate? Did she pay cash or check or did she charge it? Did "all your research" include other customers of this same company?

Once she has proof that she was price gouged, then you can start a conversation with this company. After that, she will need to argue it in small claims court, if the amount makes the minimum for her state. In my state it is $5K.

FYI you should remove the name of this company from your post because you can be sued for libel and slander since they haven't been proven guilty of anything so far.

What recourse do YOU have? Are you the "friend"?