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Post Info TOPIC: Telemarketer Pests HOME ADVISOR and ANGIE'S LIST. Terrible BBB reports!


Premium Member Roof Cleaning Institute of America Certified Roof Cleaning Specialist

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Telemarketer Pests HOME ADVISOR and ANGIE'S LIST. Terrible BBB reports!
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Between Angie's List and Home Advisor, according to their Better Business Bureau Reports, there are about 4 X as many outright complaints as reviews and as far as I read, most of the reviews are negative too!

Yet, they pay to be accredited members of the BBB, so the "not so" unbiased BBB keeps them at an A+ level, as long as they keep paying the BBB. This was reported on in the news report below and is now on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo8kfV9kONw

Now, in the case of Angie's List, in spite of all the complaints, most are resolved in the end. I assume that had to do with - in part - that Angie had enough staff to go back and forth between dissatisfied customer and the contractor that Angie's List supplied to that customer? { See below, that is soon to change as well, due to cutbacks ] Does resolving unsatisfactory workmanship etc, make the consumer happy they contacted Angie's List? I'm sure it doesn't! They got a lot of headaches and perhaps lost money etc for at least a period of time. These places may not charge the homeowner anything, so they say their service to them is free - but, is it? Well, the contractors are charged by Angie's List and Home Advisor and are we to believe, that the contractor won't just kick up his price to compensate on each lead that he pays them for?

Contractors will charge more and that's to be expected, just doing business! It's not dishonest in any way, from any contractors end. Angies's List or Home Advisor, on the other hand, are obviously not going to mention, that while it appears their service is free, in the end, the consumer will pay more for a contractor that one of these sites send them.

Both sites claim to thoroughly check out the contractors they provide, then why the high count of customer complaints?

No homeowner need pay a premium to use these type of "Finder" companies.

All anyone has to do to find a local contractor, is search Google or Youtube - I prefer Youtube, as I can see what the folks look like who will be working for me and see their actual workmanship, as it is being performed.

Just put in a search for what you want and where you want it done.

Use search phrases such as:

ROOF CLEANING PORT CHARLOTTE,FLORIDA 

or  PRESSURE WASHING CHARLOTTE COUNTY FLORIDA 

or use your zip code?  ROOF CLEANING 33981

- Not to promote myself but - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Oh wait!  - - This post is partly about honesty! Let me rephrase that!

TO PROMOTE MYSELF SHAMELESSLY, WATCH ME WORKING ON YOUTUBE BELOW-This would be found searching Youtube for ROOF CLEANING 33981 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Chuck+Bergman+Roof+Cleaning

             Look this report over on Angie's List 

https://www.bbb.org/indy/business-reviews/referral-contractor/angie-s-list-llc-in-indianapolis-in-3041007/reviews-and-complaints

Customer Reviews [124] Customer Complaints [495]

                      Now this one on Home Advisor

https://www.bbb.org/denver/business-reviews/referral-contractor/homeadvisor-in-golden-co-22000608/reviews-and-complaints

Customer Reviews [449] Customer Complaints [1114

Now that Home Advisor Bought Angie's List, it has over 570 reviews-mostly negative and over 1600 complaints on record total! Read about the end of Angie's List below:

"Angie's List (ANGI) on Monday agreed to be acquired by IAC (IAC), the parent company of rival HomeAdvisor, for more than $500 million. The deal comes about a year and a half after Angie's List rejected a $512 million offer from IAC. HomeAdvisor CEO Chris Terrill will lead the company.

The arrangement raises questions about the future of Angie's List's Indianapolis footprint, as well as how many employees will remain with the combined company. IAC expects to cut $50 million to $75 million a year in costs by the end of 2018."

So, while running a full staff, the above figures show that customer satisfaction-in the end, amounted to mainly complaints. Now, cutting staff significantly, can only up the dissatisfaction, as I see it?

If any RCIA members use either of these, my apologies! But, I've been  known to rub people the wrong way from time to time, since I joined RCIA in it's 1st year of serving homeowners and roof cleaning contractors.

RCIA has brought to light many falsehoods about how to clean roofs and taught newly interested persons and tweaked the rest of us, who already cleaned roofs, using the non-pressure cleaning system.



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Serving Englewood Rotonda North Port Cape Haze Venice Port Charlotte Punta Gorda Boca Grande Charlotte and Southern Sarasota Counties in Florida.

941-698-1959
www.bergmanroofcleaning.com

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RNlN3R7CqI



RCIA Founder

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Home Advisor just bought Angies List recently :(

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Apple Roof Cleaning Tampa Florida

711 Westbrook

Brandon, FL 33511

813 655 8777

See our website here 

Click here for more information

Here are more of our services

Watch a short video

 




 



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Are these practices from the BBB still in effect as shown in the YouTube video?

I've never been a big fan of Home Advisor. I get some of my business from Thumbtack, didn't feel Porch was worth it to me, and after many phone calls and e-mails, I gave in and signed up for Home Advisor. After a little over a year with Home Advisor, I can give my solid opinion it is a blatant rip-off. The sales guy laid out how he was going to be there with me every step of the way to make sure I was successful on Home Advisor. He kept his word until he had my credit card number and until we raised a huge stink we couldn't get in touch with the guy again. If memory serves they wanted $1,000 just to sign up, but after haggling with them for a while I think I got that down to $300. After I was signed up roof cleaning requests started coming in, including several that I contacted the people and they were going to be out of town for the next few weeks, and never got back to me even after I followed up with them. I had one guy that wanted me to come take a look at his roof so I scheduled the visit following up after a small roof cleaning that someone had subcontracted to me. The guy wanted to come watch me clean that roof but since I'd never spoken to the home owner I obviously wasn't going to bring the potential customer onto someone else's property. I explained this to the customer and he got mad and stopped responding to me, so I'm assuming (but may be wrong) that this person was maybe trying to break into the roof cleaning business and wanted some free education. I'm not against helping new people in the business, even for free - I've done it a few times in the past and was happy to do so. Then I had a customer that said he got 7 quotes for roof cleaning and I was more than twice as high as everybody else. I found that hard to believe since the two story roof was <20 cents per sq. ft. The guy wanted to use me because he felt I was far better educated and experienced than the other 6 companies, so I asked the guy what price he would find acceptable. He wanted me to match the price that was about half my original quote so I countered, but I wasn't going to go to half my quote and he wouldn't budge on what he would pay so I wished him well and walked away. I finally landed my first Home Advisor job on a tiny rancher for $300. That was my only job that panned out on Home Advisor. There were also a several jobs where I was the only person that the customer was supposed to have access to, but they all went with "other companies". There was even one job that a local roof cleaner that I'm buddies with and I do subcontracted work for him where we were chatting one day and found out we both had been sent the same job. It wasn't what we would call a roof cleaning job...the customer just wanted leaves blown off his roof and he wanted it done for essentially what it cost me from Home Advisor and gas. We both contacted Home Advisor and requested a refund since it wasn't a legitimate roof cleaning request. I got my money back, but my friend didn't, so that was the day he quit using Home Advisor. He had told me several instances where the leads ended up being false where the address was an empty lot, or the phone number given was not a residence and so on.

On the flip side I started with Thumbtack first and still use Thumbtack, although I stopped doing quotes for house washes when they charged me $54 on a $200 house wash bid on a house that was supposedly actively lived in and when I arrived it had been vacant for quite some time. They refused to even entertain the idea of a refund. Thumbtack has their share of other false leads too in my opinion, but I still find it worthwhile to use Thumbtack. Here is the frustrating part. I used the exact same information on Thumbtack and Home Advisor. I built a spreadsheet years ago that gives me my roof cleaning cost based on square footage, pitch, degree of staining, gutters/no gutters, etc...you know the drill. So my costs were not biased between HA and TT. I used the exact same knowledge and sales tactics on all customers, yet on Thumbtack I win about 75% of the jobs where I am able to open any kind of dialogue with the customer beyond just sending my original response. Versus on Home Advisor I won 1 out of a few dozen quotes...based on that I'm saying in my opinion that Home Advisor is just a huge scam. Now I've been a "Top Pro" on Thumbtack ever since I have been eligible 3 years ago, and since that is reviewed every 6 months starting 1/1/2019 I'll have my 6th back to back Top Pro award.

Thumbtack also seems to have reduced their support staff. When I first joined Thumbtack I submitted several suggestions to make them better, and they used a few of them. I've also sent information to correct bad information on their roof cleaning website at least 10 times over the past 4 years and they have never made any changes, even though I've sent them technical documents proving their information is incorrect.

Just my two cents on the subject.

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RCIA Founder

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We were a paid member of the BBB for many years. However, a few years ago, we were so busy cleaning roofs here in the Tampa area that we decided to cut back on ALL Advertising.
That was when the BBB showed their true colors!
They DEMANDED I take the BBB Accredited Logo off any and all websites, flyers, etc, etc, etc immediately.
Not only that, but they went out of their way to add 'This Business is not BBB Accredited ' to the listing from the BBB that appears in our local search result.
The BBB IMHO is fine, as long as they are getting money out of you :(

__________________


Apple Roof Cleaning Tampa Florida

711 Westbrook

Brandon, FL 33511

813 655 8777

See our website here 

Click here for more information

Here are more of our services

Watch a short video

 




 

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