Some people are taking advantage of your "ignorance" and saying, "The air conditioning needs to be fluorinated."

This summer, with the continuous high temperatures, air conditioning has become a "life-saving tool". After several months of high-frequency use, many people have found that air conditioning is starting to go on strike. Once it is found that the air conditioner is not cooling, many people will directly contact the repairman.

However, in reality, the repairman's statement "we need to add fluorine" may make your tears fall down

Adding fluorine once, charging 1280 yuan

"Adding fluorine cost over 1000 yuan, and I feel like I'm a big loser," said consumer Yang Yang.

This summer, because the air conditioner was not cooling, Yang Yang made an appointment to add fluorine to the air conditioner on a certain platform. At that time, the repairman measured it and told her that there was almost no fluorine left. "As it is a rented house, I originally only wanted to add a little more to make it enough, but the master said it's not cool to not fill it up. When we asked how much it would cost to fill it up, he said it would be around 1000 yuan, which would give us a cheaper price."

But what Yang Yang didn't expect was that in the end, the master told her that a total of 16 pressures were added, each pressure was 80 yuan, and she needed to pay 1280 yuan in the end.

Yang Yang, who had paid, felt even more that something was wrong. When she contacted the master again, the fluorine adding master had already blacklisted her. After communicating with the platform, Yang Yang was refunded 200 yuan.

In daily life, many people are still trapped due to the addition of fluorine to air conditioning. On the consumer service platform Black Cat Complaints, searching for "adding fluorine" can find over 400 related complaints.

A consumer claimed that in June 2022, adding fluorine and replacing pipes to three air conditioners at home cost 1700 yuan. "At that time, the repairman said that adding fluorine could last for 3-5 years. One of the air conditioners had not been used before, and after turning it on in June this year, it no longer cooled. When we found the Woodpecker platform again, the repairman said it was due to a lack of fluorine and asked us to add fluorine at our own expense."

Press to charge, some people are taking advantage of your "ignorance"

Spending thousands of yuan to add fluorine once is enough to buy a small air conditioner. Is adding fluorine to an air conditioner really so expensive?

A staff member of a Gree store in Beijing told reporters that if the air conditioner is within the warranty period and not damaged by human factors, adding fluorine will not be charged; Outside the warranty period, adding fluorine will be charged per horsepower. A unit of air conditioner with a horsepower of 1 to 1.5 will be charged 100 yuan for adding fluorine alone, and 240 yuan for repairing "fluorine leakage".

How did the "Yangyang people" charge thousands of yuan for fluorination? The reporter consulted air conditioning maintenance personnel on multiple platforms as consumers, and according to feedback, they all charge for pressing, with an additional pressing cost ranging from 40 to 80 yuan. The maintenance personnel will adjust the price appropriately based on the air conditioning model and other factors.

As for how much pressure does an air conditioner need to add? Several maintenance personnel have indicated that they need to go to their homes for measurements before they can determine. And once you come to your doorstep, there will be doorstep fees incurred.

Consumer Mang Mang told the reporter that he had previously felt that the air conditioner at home was running out of fluorine. After seeing a small advertisement stuffed in from the door, he contacted a repairman, but the repairman did not inform him of the price. He only said after coming to the door that it was a variable frequency air conditioner and could only add refrigerant, which cost 80 yuan per pressure. "Finally, 11.5 were added, including the doorstep fee, and 1180 yuan was charged."

For the pricing method of press calculation on the market, the staff of the Gree store mentioned above stated that official repair services are charged per unit. She also mentioned that using a 1.5 horsepower air conditioner as an example, the total pressure is only 8 to 8.5. "If the maintenance personnel claim to need to add more than ten compressions, it's all a lie."

A professional after-sales service representative also told the media that air conditioning refrigerant is calculated based on weight, and on the market, it is usually around 60 yuan per kilogram of refrigerant. A 1.5 horsepower engine with one kilogram of refrigerant is enough. "Refrigerant is liquid in low temperature environments, with relatively low pressure; at high temperatures, it is gaseous, and the pressure will increase. Therefore, charging air conditioners based on pressure is not professional."

How should consumers protect their rights when encountering maintenance scams?

Originally, it could be done for one or two hundred yuan, but under the persuasion of maintenance personnel, many people, like Yang Yang, spend hundreds or even thousands of yuan to add fluorine.

For this situation, Yan Bing, senior partner of Jiuhe Law Firm, told reporters that if the repairman does indeed add fluorine beyond the repair standard, this behavior is suspected of forced buying and selling, infringing on the consumer's right to know and fair trading, and is considered illegal. Consumers have the right to demand price adjustments or even refusal to pay according to industry objective standards.

In daily life, the low air output and poor cooling effect of air conditioning are related to various factors, such as high external temperature, low power supply voltage, too much dust accumulation in the air filter, improper adjustment of the temperature controller, etc. However, many informal air conditioning maintenance personnel take advantage of consumers' psychology of linking non cooling and lack of fluorine, fabricate air conditioning lack of fluorine, and easily earn maintenance costs.

Some consumers have reported that when the technician came to their home for repairs, they said they lacked 9 pressures of fluorine. After filling it up, they also cleaned the external unit because it was too dirty and affected cooling. But after spending 850 yuan, I found that the air conditioning was the same as before when it was not repaired. After contacting the master but was unsuccessful, I chose to call the police.

If the repairman fabricated a lack of fluorine, in Yan Bing's view, this behavior constitutes contract fraud and is clearly illegal. "If the repairman belongs to the business entity and the consumer is protected by the Consumer Rights Protection Law, they can complain to the platform, report to the market supervision department, or even sue. However, if the repairman is an individual natural person, the difficulty of consumer rights protection will greatly increase, and it will take a lot of effort to determine their identity and find the other party. Therefore, he suggests that consumers seek qualified business entities to avoid disputes in the later stage.".

In order to effectively address the issue of disorderly charging for home appliance maintenance, the reporter noticed that the Beijing Municipal Administration for Market Regulation, in conjunction with relevant departments, has recently drafted the "Beijing Household Appliance Maintenance Service Clear Pricing Regulations", which specifies that the items, content, prices, and pricing methods of home appliance maintenance services should be clearly priced, and services or related products should not be provided or sold at an additional price beyond the price, and no fees that have not been marked shall be charged.

Once this regulation is introduced, it will also provide institutional support for cracking down on the phenomenon of arbitrary charging for air conditioning maintenance.