Plumbing Company Fined for Exploiting Quake Victims

A plumbing service chain that does work throughout the San Fernando Valley was fined $11,700 after owners pleaded no contest to charges that employees undertook earthquake-repair construction without clients’ full approval, authorities said.

The charges target the Torrance-based Rapid Plumbing Inc., whose business practices following last year’s Northridge earthquake included failing to provide estimates to customers before replacing or repairing water heaters, flex pipes and ball valves, according to Deputy City Atty. Don Kass.

The company was fined $3,700 and ordered to contribute $8,000 to the American Red Cross. The company was also placed on three years probation, he said.

Rapid Plumbing is the first of 13 companies and individuals charged with exploiting earthquake victims to be convicted, Kass said. Rapid Plumbing had been charged with eight additional counts, but they were dropped by the city attorney’s office as part of a plea bargain, Kass said.

Kass said there were six instances in which Rapid Plumbing exploited earthquake victims. “A common scenario is where people would call on Rapid Plumbing, and they would not be presented with a prior written contract,” Kass said. “Afterward they would almost be knocked over when presented with the bill, which in their minds was pretty exorbitant.”

Investigators from the Los Angeles County Department of Consumer Affairs were tipped off to the company’s practices by calls to an earthquake fraud hot line set up by the city attorney’s office.

Brian Pullan, president of Rapid Plumbing, said that the plumber responsible for the work in question was fired immediately after the jobs in late January, and that the company seeks to provide fair service to its customers.

Kass agreed that the count to which Rapid Plumbing pleaded no contest involved only one plumber, but said others were involved in the additional charges.