Although I understand their business fundamentals ...

Although I understand their business fundamentals (just like any business) and the concept of maximizing the profits by all means, I just can't stay silent in this case. I called (by just googling the first available company in the area) to get an estimate for some very benign repair (more about it later) and that should have triggered me to look elsewhere immediately but I figured, I'd give them a shot. Very nice and pleasant phone scheduling person took all my information and scheduled the tech visit for the following day (I called in the evening). I was fine with that although I was hoping to get at least a ball park estimate over the phone not to waste their or my time. So I was given a 2 hour window the following day and I made an arrangements to stay home to talk to the tech and explain the task and not rely on the wife to do that. Next morning I received a bunch of texts with the confirmations, arrival times, etc, a few calls too, which is fine but clearly unnecessary and an overkill (again a red flag if you're looking for a simple work). The tech showed up at the very last minute of the 4 hour window (although originally the window was supposed to be a 2 hour one). I created the tech outside to show him what I needed to be done. Now to the last itself. All I needed was to replace one main valve that shuts the water to the house, it wasn't an emergency or any other disastrous situation a more of a precaution maintenance. All that was required to do was to shut the water at the main valve at the street (25 ft away with easy access and 1 minute of work, cut the old valve off and screw/glue new valve into existing plumbing 0 easily accessible on the side of the house. With the right tools, supplies, some PVC pipe connectors and the valve itself ($25 piece) that would have been a 20-30 min job. Again, I understand that a service call needs to make them worth their while so I figured, fine, I'd pay for 2 hours at the market rate for this type of service. Low and behold - I was given an esteem to do this job for $669!!! I'm not kidding. Not only that, the tech was pretty rude, stating this is their fixed rate for this type of repair and showed their price schedule, and also joked that once I get it done myself in 20 minutes I should call and tell him that. So, this is what I'm doing, letting everybody know that I did this myself in 45 minutes, which included the trip to Home Depot to pick up the valve and a couple of PVS couplers (total material cost $30). I ended up wasting my day not going to the office to go through this experience and now I'm a little smarter and now that I will never be calling this company for any reason to do any repairs. This is the picture of the valve that needed replacement