All Seasons Painting and Decorating, Inc.

All Seasons Painted my House in July 2012. The house is peeling and chipping and a complete repainting is necessary in less than three years. All Seasons Painting and Decorating, Inc of Springfield Ma, painted my house in July of 2012. There is almost no area now on my house that the paint is not chipping, peeling or just gone. The contract stated scrape end sand where needed. There was little to no scraping and no sanding that we could see. They sprayed on a latex stain, and it covered all my windows with paint splatter. I spent a day with a razor blade scraping them all off. There are still many places that the old paint color can be seen through the new paint, although we called them back numerous times. When they did come back to cover the areas they slopped on a different collor paint that can still be seen now. I have called them back three times in the last few weeks and left messages, and have had no response. I would never use them again and would never recommend them to anyone else.Desired SettlementI paid $3700 to get this paint job done. I want all that money back. It will cost me more now to remove the terrible paint job they did and have the work done again. I would like to have the owner come look at the paint and see what my house looks like now.Business Response I met Mr. [redacted] at his residence and went over all the issues. They agreed to let us fix the flaking paint. They have a carpenter coming soon to fix water damage due to faulty gutters. We are planning to return after the carpentry work is done to remove any loose paint, sand, prime and re paint all areas that require it.

While they were packing to leave an unfinished job, they took my step ladder and possibly other things. Multiple contact attempts went unanswered.Horrible business to deal with. They were hired to paint my garage, hallway and the basement. Despite legal requirement for a contract, none was provided. The printer didn't work, the scanner didn't work, they were out of the company letterhead.... over and over. Then the owner showed up with a subcontractor - apparently a guy whom he just met that morning, to do the work (despite me stressing how important high quality was to me). The subcontractor was very nice, but had no idea or skills to perform what he was hired to do. He proceeded to mess up the walls instead of fixing them. Then he tried to repair the work, with some other people from said company, one less skilled than the next. After 2 weeks of working and reworking the 4 day job, the owner looked over the job and agreed it was horrible (at least to my face). He was apologetic and promised to take care of it to my satisfaction. He sent another guy to fix the botched job the next day. This second contractor worked for a day, and then apparently was instructed to clear out. Nobody knew he was packing - I guess he was instructed to do this in secret. I was convinced he was working on fixing the job, while he was packing up my stuff into his truck and leaving. I only found out through a nasty text message from the owner, that they were not planning on finishing the job. Despite multiple futile contact attempts my property, most notably a step ladder worth $60, was never returned.Desired SettlementSend me a check to cover the replacement cost of the ladder.Business Response Over the past 11 years I've had 687 customers!! I've NEVER had a complaint about anything, especially stealing!! This is a customer who has a lot of money and is known for not paying their bills. They had flashlights pointed sideways on unfinished basement and garage walls so they could have us patching and re patching little scratches over and over. I finally found out from the local paint store that they did the exact same thing to the previous painting company. Wish I knew this sooner. After a week of being run around I said enough. It was the first job I ever stopped before completion. They had no plans on paying what was owed. We even did extra work for free like sand and paint their stairs. Didn't matter. When I came to the conclusion they weren't going to pay I took videos of all the work finished. We didn't take ANYTHING!!! especially a step ladder because #1) I already have more step ladders than employees. #2) a brand new one only costs about $40-$50. This customer still owes me $950 for unpaid services and has the gall to accuse us of this pettiness. When you accuse someone of stealing what does "and probably some other things" mean??? That immediately tells you they have no idea anything is missing and are just doing this because I wouldn't let them run us around for yet another week. This is ridiculous. Not only will I now be pursuing civil damages, I can add slander to the list. I'm a Desert Storm veteran. I work hard to keep a small business afloat. We don't need rich people eying to make waves for no reason. The best analogy I can come up with for this situation is no matter how experienced you are, bad customers are like land mines, eventually you're gonna step on one. We Contractors need our own "Angie's List" so we can warn each other of these horrible customers to stay away from. Consumer Response (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)I think this response gives a good sense of what kind of person we are dealing with. The statements, besides being absurd, factually incorrect and outright offensive, don't even attempt to address the issues at hand: poor quality of work and horrible, bordering on abusive, customer service.Here are the facts:The quality of work from day 1 was horrible. This is something that was brought up to the contractor's and subcontractor's attention and agreed with over and over again by both. It was the sole subject of the last walk-through we had, after the subcontractor was let go by [redacted] - the contractor, BECAUSE of the quality issues. Those included over-patched and over-sanded areas, unpainted surfaces, paint drips and lines, and inconsistencies in paint sheen. There were also paint smears and drips on a lot of my property, which was left uncovered during work. Nobody is talking about small scratches here.Assigning a subcontractor, who is not vetted and is someone the contractor JUST MET, is poor business practice and a bad judgment. I'm not OK with someone gambling with my house, especially when there is no supervision that would uncover any issues early on. The subcontractor was allowed to remain for 2 weeks on a 4 day job, fumbling through the problems, creating new ones and wasting everyone's time.Customer Service is horrendous - [redacted] for the most part was absent from the job, sometimes ignoring my calls and texts for days. After finally firing his subcontractor, he showed up to check the job out. He agreed the job was done poorly, blamed the subcontractor, stated that he trusted wrong people and everyone involved with the job was fired. He promised he would take care of fixing it with his best guys. That seemed like a proper response. Unfortunately "his guys" which was one person, showed up for one day and then packed up and left WITHOUT NOTICE, with my walls full of fresh patches, some sanded, some not. Still under the impression that the job was continuing, I texted asking about the time to completion, only to be responded in pretty much the tone that [redacted] responded to this complaint. I got a nasty text indicating that he decided to cut his losses, because he "sank too much money" into the job. Yes, that will happen when you put a random person on the job and have them try to fumble through it for weeks on end. Way to take responsibility. Subsequent attempts to contact the business owner were ignored.My ladder was taken - by mistake I'm sure. The owner probably didn't see THE VIDEO of my ladder being loaded onto his truck, which I INCLUDED with my complaint here, before he started ranting on about baseless accusations he will sue for. In the end nobody is being accused of stealing a ladder out of need, but taking someone's property is something that should be corrected, not ignored.Finally a few of the juicier points from the "response" that, while unrelated to my complaint, still might be good to address:1) "This is a customer who has a lot of money" - no idea where that very irrelevant notion comes from, but my wife and I are a young couple working hard to make ends meet.2) "and is known for not paying their bills" - I've never had an unpaid bill in my life. This is libel of the worst kind, by a contractor who got every penny he asked for, DESPITE the job going horribly poorly.3) "They had no plans on paying what was owed" - of course I did. Everyone who has ever worked for me was paid what they were owed and this would have been no different. I don't even understand the concept of planning on not paying someone whom you owe money. In fact I had a check for the remainder all written out a week or so before the job was left, back when I was promised that "it would be finished today". This is an absurd and ridiculous excuse for what was clearly a mismanagement on the contractor's part. Anyway, we talked about it during the last walk through, and seemed to have addressed the issue. It wasn't new and the work continued after we talked about it.4) "We didn't take ANYTHING!" - LOOK AT THE VIDEO!5) "When you accuse someone of stealing what does "and probably some other things" mean???" - it means that there are other, small things missing (specifically a small roller, a 3 pack of plastic cover sheets, and a painter's tape), that I have no video to PROVE were taken, but a strong suspicion. If I thought you stole anything from me you would be already in jail - I have it on video, remember? No, I am not accusing anyone of stealing, but mix-ups WILL happen when you have a person unfamiliar with the job packing up in secret behind the owner's back and leaving with anything and everything related to painting they can get their hands on. EXTREMELY POOR JUDGMENT on [redacted]'s part. The real problem isn't stealing or not stealing - it's not informing me that he had no intention of finishing the job, sneaking out, having someone who has no idea about the job pack up and take off, ignoring customer's phone calls and texts afterwards (including the information that something was taken). Those are the problems that I think indicate that this business cannot be trusted, because it is run by someone with no acumen, professionalism or plain decency.6) "This customer still owes me $950 for unpaid services" - that's funny, considering that a few lines above the contractor stated he left the job unfinished. It took me about that much to fix and finish the mess he left behind. It was done in 3 days, by a professional and knowledgeable tradesman. No problems, no drama, all paid for in full, like every other contractor that worked for me in the past.I think a serious customer service issues, like the ones I've had with this company, need to be brought to light. There are excellent, good and poor ways of dealing with customers, and then there is All Seasons Painting's way. A respectable approach would have been to have some courage and simply say that they don't want to work on the house anymore for whatever reason, and leave. No problem there. Why lie and make promises that the job will be finished to my satisfaction, and then sneak out? This is just insane. I'm a friendly open and straight forward person, who is easy to deal with. No need for the theatrics.I think it is important for others to know about the customer service, and the business type they are dealing with. Do NOT fall for the accreditations and local awards that are being claimed, along with the veteran status being mentioned every step of the way (which, to my chagrin, convinced me). This business violates not only rules of decency, professionalism, good judgment and just basic customer service, but also half a dozen sections of Mass General Laws, chapter 142A that regulate contractors (no written contract or license number provided, abandoning a job without justification (hearsay is NOT a justification), poor quality with no remediation, receiving unscheduled payments etc.) A good businessman would apologize and pay for the ladder, this guy instead hurls threats and insults at the customers he wronged. Nice.STAY AWAY !!!Final Business Response Oh my goodness. I really hope you get a hobby or something. I'm not lowering myself to this utter ridiculousness. Again, why would you film someone who you think is taking your ladder instead of confronting the person and say "hey I think you're taking my ladder". Simple. Done. Over with.I told you straight up I was not letting you run us around anymore fixing more and more ludicrous issues. You stopped getting your way so u decided to pitch a fit, and write a novel with incessant rumblings....4 months after that fact by the way. Get a life and put ur energy into something positive. Final Consumer Response (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)You call your response reasoning? Are you serious? This is not about the 60 dollars, and for you to call it pettiness is, again, offensive. If I were petty I would call the cops and report you for theft. Many people would do that in light of how you handled the situation in my house (please see my last email for detailed points). You'll notice that I didn't do that, despite having very clear video footage of my ladder being taken (a rare luck that 99% of your customers would never have, and would be forced to accept your abusive responses). I didn't do that exactly because I'm not a petty person. I know it was an honest mistake by one of your employees, whom YOU put in a difficult position. Your aggressive and offensive handling of the issue, though, is very telling about your personality and customer service skills. Here is an idea: take a critical look at your handling of the issue and learn from it, so that you can do better in the future. If you work yourself into believing that nice, patient and honest customers like me are thieves and liars out to get you, or as you put it "landmines" to be avoided, you are bound to fail.The first step is stopping the insanity.The ladder is not believed to be mine - it is mine, and if you really want to debate that, I can find the photos of said ladder from before you ever worked for me, and a receipt for when I bought it a few months earlier. This is not even a point that should be questioned, not in your position.The issues you continue to find "odd" and try to use to undermine what I say are stupidly naive. Here is one. Why didn't I stop the guy from taking my ladder if I saw him do it?I didn't see the ladder being loaded onto your truck, BECAUSE I DIDN'T KNOW the person was packing up and leaving!!! They snack out while I was at work with nobody there to supervise it!!! That's the whole point, which was made very clearly by me before (you need to read what I wrote more carefully, to avoid sounding absurd). A few days after they left I needed that ladder and couldn't find it. THEN I reviewed the security footage from my home to finally find out where the ladder went. The videotaping is not done by me, but by the security system automatically. Are you just pretending not to understand the issues here?Now here is where it gets interesting: You were notified about the ladder being taken the moment I discovered that it had happened (5 days later 10:55am, April 27th the following text was sent to you: "One of your guys took our step ladder. About 4 feet, black, with a platform on top. I assume by accident, still I want it back. As you organize the return, please review everything that was taken from my house for my thing that could have been inadvertently packed up."). I was expecting an apology and a quick return of the ladder, obviously. Instead you chose to ignore it for 3 months, along with all the other messages and calls from me. Then you reacted violently to the Revdex.com complaint. Again, if I were a "petty" person, it wouldn't be a Revdex.com complaint. I would have reported you to the DA, the Director of Consumer Affairs, and the Police. Appreciate how I chose to handle the situation and show some humility. An apology is what's missing here.Here are a few more absurdities that jump out from your first response. You state that I'm a "rich customer". If I am rich, why do I cheat people who work for me by conning them out of their hard earned money? Or make up stories about stolen ladders? I must be a sociopath, right? Demonizing your customers and working yourself into believing they are sociopaths says nothing about them, but a lot about you. It's not normal to see others that way - sorry to say. I doubt very much you have hundreds of satisfied customers with THAT attitude. I was nothing but kind and patient with you, outright friendly, DESPITE your glaring incompetence (not just your painters, but you, as the manager of the job). You have no possible reason to demonize me like that.Something else sounded odd in your first response. You stated that you wouldn't steal a ladder because 1) it's cheap and 2) you don't need one because you have many. So if it was expensive or you needed one, you would go ahead and steal it then? You think that's OK as long as you have a reason? Again, stop the insanity. You make yourself sound more horrible with every statement you make.Finally I don't care if you have W4s or not for your employees. You and I both know that the issue here is that you brought a guy who never worked for you before to work on my house, and then failed to supervise him or recognize that he was not up to the task. AND THEN, and this is the most puzzling part for me, after seeing how horrible his job was (you, your other employees, people who I hired to fix it after you, and I, all saw it and agreed on it), you still tried to shift the blame onto me - the customer. This, along with being gullible enough to run your business based on stupid hearsay and gossip is your problem. You have nobody else to blame for the situation but yourself. Accept it and learn from it.In closing, the problem is not the ladder money, but how the whole situation was handled. Had you told me:"Listen, I don't want to continue working for you", and had the guts to have an open conversation about it, we'd either clear the air or part ways. EASY. Why the sneaking out? Why the promises of finishing to my satisfaction? Why the insulting text? What is wrong with you??? Seriously.

While they were packing to leave an unfinished job, they took my step ladder and possibly other things. Multiple contact attempts went unanswered.Horrible business to deal with. They were hired to paint my garage, hallway and the basement. Despite legal requirement for a contract, none was provided. The printer didn't work, the scanner didn't work, they were out of the company letterhead.... over and over. Then the owner showed up with a subcontractor - apparently a guy whom he just met that morning, to do the work (despite me stressing how important high quality was to me). The subcontractor was very nice, but had no idea or skills to perform what he was hired to do. He proceeded to mess up the walls instead of fixing them. Then he tried to repair the work, with some other people from said company, one less skilled than the next. After 2 weeks of working and reworking the 4 day job, the owner looked over the job and agreed it was horrible (at least to my face). He was apologetic and promised to take care of it to my satisfaction. He sent another guy to fix the botched job the next day. This second contractor worked for a day, and then apparently was instructed to clear out. Nobody knew he was packing - I guess he was instructed to do this in secret. I was convinced he was working on fixing the job, while he was packing up my stuff into his truck and leaving. I only found out through a nasty text message from the owner, that they were not planning on finishing the job. Despite multiple futile contact attempts my property, most notably a step ladder worth $60, was never returned.Desired SettlementSend me a check to cover the replacement cost of the ladder.Business Response Over the past 11 years I've had 687 customers!! I've NEVER had a complaint about anything, especially stealing!! This is a customer who has a lot of money and is known for not paying their bills. They had flashlights pointed sideways on unfinished basement and garage walls so they could have us patching and re patching little scratches over and over. I finally found out from the local paint store that they did the exact same thing to the previous painting company. Wish I knew this sooner. After a week of being run around I said enough. It was the first job I ever stopped before completion. They had no plans on paying what was owed. We even did extra work for free like sand and paint their stairs. Didn't matter. When I came to the conclusion they weren't going to pay I took videos of all the work finished. We didn't take ANYTHING!!! especially a step ladder because #1) I already have more step ladders than employees. #2) a brand new one only costs about $40-$50. This customer still owes me $950 for unpaid services and has the gall to accuse us of this pettiness. When you accuse someone of stealing what does "and probably some other things" mean??? That immediately tells you they have no idea anything is missing and are just doing this because I wouldn't let them run us around for yet another week. This is ridiculous. Not only will I now be pursuing civil damages, I can add slander to the list. I'm a Desert Storm veteran. I work hard to keep a small business afloat. We don't need rich people eying to make waves for no reason. The best analogy I can come up with for this situation is no matter how experienced you are, bad customers are like land mines, eventually you're gonna step on one. We Contractors need our own "Angie's List" so we can warn each other of these horrible customers to stay away from. Consumer Response (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)I think this response gives a good sense of what kind of person we are dealing with. The statements, besides being absurd, factually incorrect and outright offensive, don't even attempt to address the issues at hand: poor quality of work and horrible, bordering on abusive, customer service.Here are the facts:The quality of work from day 1 was horrible. This is something that was brought up to the contractor's and subcontractor's attention and agreed with over and over again by both. It was the sole subject of the last walk-through we had, after the subcontractor was let go by [redacted] - the contractor, BECAUSE of the quality issues. Those included over-patched and over-sanded areas, unpainted surfaces, paint drips and lines, and inconsistencies in paint sheen. There were also paint smears and drips on a lot of my property, which was left uncovered during work. Nobody is talking about small scratches here.Assigning a subcontractor, who is not vetted and is someone the contractor JUST MET, is poor business practice and a bad judgment. I'm not OK with someone gambling with my house, especially when there is no supervision that would uncover any issues early on. The subcontractor was allowed to remain for 2 weeks on a 4 day job, fumbling through the problems, creating new ones and wasting everyone's time.Customer Service is horrendous - [redacted] for the most part was absent from the job, sometimes ignoring my calls and texts for days. After finally firing his subcontractor, he showed up to check the job out. He agreed the job was done poorly, blamed the subcontractor, stated that he trusted wrong people and everyone involved with the job was fired. He promised he would take care of fixing it with his best guys. That seemed like a proper response. Unfortunately "his guys" which was one person, showed up for one day and then packed up and left WITHOUT NOTICE, with my walls full of fresh patches, some sanded, some not. Still under the impression that the job was continuing, I texted asking about the time to completion, only to be responded in pretty much the tone that [redacted] responded to this complaint. I got a nasty text indicating that he decided to cut his losses, because he "sank too much money" into the job. Yes, that will happen when you put a random person on the job and have them try to fumble through it for weeks on end. Way to take responsibility. Subsequent attempts to contact the business owner were ignored.My ladder was taken - by mistake I'm sure. The owner probably didn't see THE VIDEO of my ladder being loaded onto his truck, which I INCLUDED with my complaint here, before he started ranting on about baseless accusations he will sue for. In the end nobody is being accused of stealing a ladder out of need, but taking someone's property is something that should be corrected, not ignored.Finally a few of the juicier points from the "response" that, while unrelated to my complaint, still might be good to address:1) "This is a customer who has a lot of money" - no idea where that very irrelevant notion comes from, but my wife and I are a young couple working hard to make ends meet.2) "and is known for not paying their bills" - I've never had an unpaid bill in my life. This is libel of the worst kind, by a contractor who got every penny he asked for, DESPITE the job going horribly poorly.3) "They had no plans on paying what was owed" - of course I did. Everyone who has ever worked for me was paid what they were owed and this would have been no different. I don't even understand the concept of planning on not paying someone whom you owe money. In fact I had a check for the remainder all written out a week or so before the job was left, back when I was promised that "it would be finished today". This is an absurd and ridiculous excuse for what was clearly a mismanagement on the contractor's part. Anyway, we talked about it during the last walk through, and seemed to have addressed the issue. It wasn't new and the work continued after we talked about it.4) "We didn't take ANYTHING!" - LOOK AT THE VIDEO!5) "When you accuse someone of stealing what does "and probably some other things" mean???" - it means that there are other, small things missing (specifically a small roller, a 3 pack of plastic cover sheets, and a painter's tape), that I have no video to PROVE were taken, but a strong suspicion. If I thought you stole anything from me you would be already in jail - I have it on video, remember? No, I am not accusing anyone of stealing, but mix-ups WILL happen when you have a person unfamiliar with the job packing up in secret behind the owner's back and leaving with anything and everything related to painting they can get their hands on. EXTREMELY POOR JUDGMENT on [redacted]'s part. The real problem isn't stealing or not stealing - it's not informing me that he had no intention of finishing the job, sneaking out, having someone who has no idea about the job pack up and take off, ignoring customer's phone calls and texts afterwards (including the information that something was taken). Those are the problems that I think indicate that this business cannot be trusted, because it is run by someone with no acumen, professionalism or plain decency.6) "This customer still owes me $950 for unpaid services" - that's funny, considering that a few lines above the contractor stated he left the job unfinished. It took me about that much to fix and finish the mess he left behind. It was done in 3 days, by a professional and knowledgeable tradesman. No problems, no drama, all paid for in full, like every other contractor that worked for me in the past.I think a serious customer service issues, like the ones I've had with this company, need to be brought to light. There are excellent, good and poor ways of dealing with customers, and then there is All Seasons Painting's way. A respectable approach would have been to have some courage and simply say that they don't want to work on the house anymore for whatever reason, and leave. No problem there. Why lie and make promises that the job will be finished to my satisfaction, and then sneak out? This is just insane. I'm a friendly open and straight forward person, who is easy to deal with. No need for the theatrics.I think it is important for others to know about the customer service, and the business type they are dealing with. Do NOT fall for the accreditations and local awards that are being claimed, along with the veteran status being mentioned every step of the way (which, to my chagrin, convinced me). This business violates not only rules of decency, professionalism, good judgment and just basic customer service, but also half a dozen sections of Mass General Laws, chapter 142A that regulate contractors (no written contract or license number provided, abandoning a job without justification (hearsay is NOT a justification), poor quality with no remediation, receiving unscheduled payments etc.) A good businessman would apologize and pay for the ladder, this guy instead hurls threats and insults at the customers he wronged. Nice.STAY AWAY !!!Final Business Response Oh my goodness. I really hope you get a hobby or something. I'm not lowering myself to this utter ridiculousness. Again, why would you film someone who you think is taking your ladder instead of confronting the person and say "hey I think you're taking my ladder". Simple. Done. Over with.I told you straight up I was not letting you run us around anymore fixing more and more ludicrous issues. You stopped getting your way so u decided to pitch a fit, and write a novel with incessant rumblings....4 months after that fact by the way. Get a life and put ur energy into something positive. Final Consumer Response (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)You call your response reasoning? Are you serious? This is not about the 60 dollars, and for you to call it pettiness is, again, offensive. If I were petty I would call the cops and report you for theft. Many people would do that in light of how you handled the situation in my house (please see my last email for detailed points). You'll notice that I didn't do that, despite having very clear video footage of my ladder being taken (a rare luck that 99% of your customers would never have, and would be forced to accept your abusive responses). I didn't do that exactly because I'm not a petty person. I know it was an honest mistake by one of your employees, whom YOU put in a difficult position. Your aggressive and offensive handling of the issue, though, is very telling about your personality and customer service skills. Here is an idea: take a critical look at your handling of the issue and learn from it, so that you can do better in the future. If you work yourself into believing that nice, patient and honest customers like me are thieves and liars out to get you, or as you put it "landmines" to be avoided, you are bound to fail.The first step is stopping the insanity.The ladder is not believed to be mine - it is mine, and if you really want to debate that, I can find the photos of said ladder from before you ever worked for me, and a receipt for when I bought it a few months earlier. This is not even a point that should be questioned, not in your position.The issues you continue to find "odd" and try to use to undermine what I say are stupidly naive. Here is one. Why didn't I stop the guy from taking my ladder if I saw him do it?I didn't see the ladder being loaded onto your truck, BECAUSE I DIDN'T KNOW the person was packing up and leaving!!! They snack out while I was at work with nobody there to supervise it!!! That's the whole point, which was made very clearly by me before (you need to read what I wrote more carefully, to avoid sounding absurd). A few days after they left I needed that ladder and couldn't find it. THEN I reviewed the security footage from my home to finally find out where the ladder went. The videotaping is not done by me, but by the security system automatically. Are you just pretending not to understand the issues here?Now here is where it gets interesting: You were notified about the ladder being taken the moment I discovered that it had happened (5 days later 10:55am, April 27th the following text was sent to you: "One of your guys took our step ladder. About 4 feet, black, with a platform on top. I assume by accident, still I want it back. As you organize the return, please review everything that was taken from my house for my thing that could have been inadvertently packed up."). I was expecting an apology and a quick return of the ladder, obviously. Instead you chose to ignore it for 3 months, along with all the other messages and calls from me. Then you reacted violently to the Revdex.com complaint. Again, if I were a "petty" person, it wouldn't be a Revdex.com complaint. I would have reported you to the DA, the Director of Consumer Affairs, and the Police. Appreciate how I chose to handle the situation and show some humility. An apology is what's missing here.Here are a few more absurdities that jump out from your first response. You state that I'm a "rich customer". If I am rich, why do I cheat people who work for me by conning them out of their hard earned money? Or make up stories about stolen ladders? I must be a sociopath, right? Demonizing your customers and working yourself into believing they are sociopaths says nothing about them, but a lot about you. It's not normal to see others that way - sorry to say. I doubt very much you have hundreds of satisfied customers with THAT attitude. I was nothing but kind and patient with you, outright friendly, DESPITE your glaring incompetence (not just your painters, but you, as the manager of the job). You have no possible reason to demonize me like that.Something else sounded odd in your first response. You stated that you wouldn't steal a ladder because 1) it's cheap and 2) you don't need one because you have many. So if it was expensive or you needed one, you would go ahead and steal it then? You think that's OK as long as you have a reason? Again, stop the insanity. You make yourself sound more horrible with every statement you make.Finally I don't care if you have W4s or not for your employees. You and I both know that the issue here is that you brought a guy who never worked for you before to work on my house, and then failed to supervise him or recognize that he was not up to the task. AND THEN, and this is the most puzzling part for me, after seeing how horrible his job was (you, your other employees, people who I hired to fix it after you, and I, all saw it and agreed on it), you still tried to shift the blame onto me - the customer. This, along with being gullible enough to run your business based on stupid hearsay and gossip is your problem. You have nobody else to blame for the situation but yourself. Accept it and learn from it.In closing, the problem is not the ladder money, but how the whole situation was handled. Had you told me:"Listen, I don't want to continue working for you", and had the guts to have an open conversation about it, we'd either clear the air or part ways. EASY. Why the sneaking out? Why the promises of finishing to my satisfaction? Why the insulting text? What is wrong with you??? Seriously.

All Seasons Painted my House in July 2012. The house is peeling and chipping and a complete repainting is necessary in less than three years. All Seasons Painting and Decorating, Inc of Springfield Ma, painted my house in July of 2012. There is almost no area now on my house that the paint is not chipping, peeling or just gone. The contract stated scrape end sand where needed. There was little to no scraping and no sanding that we could see. They sprayed on a latex stain, and it covered all my windows with paint splatter. I spent a day with a razor blade scraping them all off. There are still many places that the old paint color can be seen through the new paint, although we called them back numerous times. When they did come back to cover the areas they slopped on a different collor paint that can still be seen now. I have called them back three times in the last few weeks and left messages, and have had no response. I would never use them again and would never recommend them to anyone else.Desired SettlementI paid $3700 to get this paint job done. I want all that money back. It will cost me more now to remove the terrible paint job they did and have the work done again. I would like to have the owner come look at the paint and see what my house looks like now.Business Response I met Mr. [redacted] at his residence and went over all the issues. They agreed to let us fix the flaking paint. They have a carpenter coming soon to fix water damage due to faulty gutters. We are planning to return after the carpentry work is done to remove any loose paint, sand, prime and re paint all areas that require it.

While they were packing to leave an unfinished job, they took my step ladder and possibly other things. Multiple contact attempts went unanswered.Horrible business to deal with. They were hired to paint my garage, hallway and the basement. Despite legal requirement for a contract, none was provided. The printer didn't work, the scanner didn't work, they were out of the company letterhead.... over and over. Then the owner showed up with a subcontractor - apparently a guy whom he just met that morning, to do the work (despite me stressing how important high quality was to me). The subcontractor was very nice, but had no idea or skills to perform what he was hired to do. He proceeded to mess up the walls instead of fixing them. Then he tried to repair the work, with some other people from said company, one less skilled than the next. After 2 weeks of working and reworking the 4 day job, the owner looked over the job and agreed it was horrible (at least to my face). He was apologetic and promised to take care of it to my satisfaction. He sent another guy to fix the botched job the next day. This second contractor worked for a day, and then apparently was instructed to clear out. Nobody knew he was packing - I guess he was instructed to do this in secret. I was convinced he was working on fixing the job, while he was packing up my stuff into his truck and leaving. I only found out through a nasty text message from the owner, that they were not planning on finishing the job. Despite multiple futile contact attempts my property, most notably a step ladder worth $60, was never returned.Desired SettlementSend me a check to cover the replacement cost of the ladder.Business Response Over the past 11 years I've had 687 customers!! I've NEVER had a complaint about anything, especially stealing!! This is a customer who has a lot of money and is known for not paying their bills. They had flashlights pointed sideways on unfinished basement and garage walls so they could have us patching and re patching little scratches over and over. I finally found out from the local paint store that they did the exact same thing to the previous painting company. Wish I knew this sooner. After a week of being run around I said enough. It was the first job I ever stopped before completion. They had no plans on paying what was owed. We even did extra work for free like sand and paint their stairs. Didn't matter. When I came to the conclusion they weren't going to pay I took videos of all the work finished. We didn't take ANYTHING!!! especially a step ladder because #1) I already have more step ladders than employees. #2) a brand new one only costs about $40-$50. This customer still owes me $950 for unpaid services and has the gall to accuse us of this pettiness. When you accuse someone of stealing what does "and probably some other things" mean??? That immediately tells you they have no idea anything is missing and are just doing this because I wouldn't let them run us around for yet another week. This is ridiculous. Not only will I now be pursuing civil damages, I can add slander to the list. I'm a Desert Storm veteran. I work hard to keep a small business afloat. We don't need rich people eying to make waves for no reason. The best analogy I can come up with for this situation is no matter how experienced you are, bad customers are like land mines, eventually you're gonna step on one. We Contractors need our own "Angie's List" so we can warn each other of these horrible customers to stay away from. Consumer Response (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)I think this response gives a good sense of what kind of person we are dealing with. The statements, besides being absurd, factually incorrect and outright offensive, don't even attempt to address the issues at hand: poor quality of work and horrible, bordering on abusive, customer service.Here are the facts:The quality of work from day 1 was horrible. This is something that was brought up to the contractor's and subcontractor's attention and agreed with over and over again by both. It was the sole subject of the last walk-through we had, after the subcontractor was let go by [redacted] - the contractor, BECAUSE of the quality issues. Those included over-patched and over-sanded areas, unpainted surfaces, paint drips and lines, and inconsistencies in paint sheen. There were also paint smears and drips on a lot of my property, which was left uncovered during work. Nobody is talking about small scratches here.Assigning a subcontractor, who is not vetted and is someone the contractor JUST MET, is poor business practice and a bad judgment. I'm not OK with someone gambling with my house, especially when there is no supervision that would uncover any issues early on. The subcontractor was allowed to remain for 2 weeks on a 4 day job, fumbling through the problems, creating new ones and wasting everyone's time.Customer Service is horrendous - [redacted] for the most part was absent from the job, sometimes ignoring my calls and texts for days. After finally firing his subcontractor, he showed up to check the job out. He agreed the job was done poorly, blamed the subcontractor, stated that he trusted wrong people and everyone involved with the job was fired. He promised he would take care of fixing it with his best guys. That seemed like a proper response. Unfortunately "his guys" which was one person, showed up for one day and then packed up and left WITHOUT NOTICE, with my walls full of fresh patches, some sanded, some not. Still under the impression that the job was continuing, I texted asking about the time to completion, only to be responded in pretty much the tone that [redacted] responded to this complaint. I got a nasty text indicating that he decided to cut his losses, because he "sank too much money" into the job. Yes, that will happen when you put a random person on the job and have them try to fumble through it for weeks on end. Way to take responsibility. Subsequent attempts to contact the business owner were ignored.My ladder was taken - by mistake I'm sure. The owner probably didn't see THE VIDEO of my ladder being loaded onto his truck, which I INCLUDED with my complaint here, before he started ranting on about baseless accusations he will sue for. In the end nobody is being accused of stealing a ladder out of need, but taking someone's property is something that should be corrected, not ignored.Finally a few of the juicier points from the "response" that, while unrelated to my complaint, still might be good to address:1) "This is a customer who has a lot of money" - no idea where that very irrelevant notion comes from, but my wife and I are a young couple working hard to make ends meet.2) "and is known for not paying their bills" - I've never had an unpaid bill in my life. This is libel of the worst kind, by a contractor who got every penny he asked for, DESPITE the job going horribly poorly.3) "They had no plans on paying what was owed" - of course I did. Everyone who has ever worked for me was paid what they were owed and this would have been no different. I don't even understand the concept of planning on not paying someone whom you owe money. In fact I had a check for the remainder all written out a week or so before the job was left, back when I was promised that "it would be finished today". This is an absurd and ridiculous excuse for what was clearly a mismanagement on the contractor's part. Anyway, we talked about it during the last walk through, and seemed to have addressed the issue. It wasn't new and the work continued after we talked about it.4) "We didn't take ANYTHING!" - LOOK AT THE VIDEO!5) "When you accuse someone of stealing what does "and probably some other things" mean???" - it means that there are other, small things missing (specifically a small roller, a 3 pack of plastic cover sheets, and a painter's tape), that I have no video to PROVE were taken, but a strong suspicion. If I thought you stole anything from me you would be already in jail - I have it on video, remember? No, I am not accusing anyone of stealing, but mix-ups WILL happen when you have a person unfamiliar with the job packing up in secret behind the owner's back and leaving with anything and everything related to painting they can get their hands on. EXTREMELY POOR JUDGMENT on [redacted]'s part. The real problem isn't stealing or not stealing - it's not informing me that he had no intention of finishing the job, sneaking out, having someone who has no idea about the job pack up and take off, ignoring customer's phone calls and texts afterwards (including the information that something was taken). Those are the problems that I think indicate that this business cannot be trusted, because it is run by someone with no acumen, professionalism or plain decency.6) "This customer still owes me $950 for unpaid services" - that's funny, considering that a few lines above the contractor stated he left the job unfinished. It took me about that much to fix and finish the mess he left behind. It was done in 3 days, by a professional and knowledgeable tradesman. No problems, no drama, all paid for in full, like every other contractor that worked for me in the past.I think a serious customer service issues, like the ones I've had with this company, need to be brought to light. There are excellent, good and poor ways of dealing with customers, and then there is All Seasons Painting's way. A respectable approach would have been to have some courage and simply say that they don't want to work on the house anymore for whatever reason, and leave. No problem there. Why lie and make promises that the job will be finished to my satisfaction, and then sneak out? This is just insane. I'm a friendly open and straight forward person, who is easy to deal with. No need for the theatrics.I think it is important for others to know about the customer service, and the business type they are dealing with. Do NOT fall for the accreditations and local awards that are being claimed, along with the veteran status being mentioned every step of the way (which, to my chagrin, convinced me). This business violates not only rules of decency, professionalism, good judgment and just basic customer service, but also half a dozen sections of Mass General Laws, chapter 142A that regulate contractors (no written contract or license number provided, abandoning a job without justification (hearsay is NOT a justification), poor quality with no remediation, receiving unscheduled payments etc.) A good businessman would apologize and pay for the ladder, this guy instead hurls threats and insults at the customers he wronged. Nice.STAY AWAY !!!Final Business Response Oh my goodness. I really hope you get a hobby or something. I'm not lowering myself to this utter ridiculousness. Again, why would you film someone who you think is taking your ladder instead of confronting the person and say "hey I think you're taking my ladder". Simple. Done. Over with.I told you straight up I was not letting you run us around anymore fixing more and more ludicrous issues. You stopped getting your way so u decided to pitch a fit, and write a novel with incessant rumblings....4 months after that fact by the way. Get a life and put ur energy into something positive. Final Consumer Response (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)You call your response reasoning? Are you serious? This is not about the 60 dollars, and for you to call it pettiness is, again, offensive. If I were petty I would call the cops and report you for theft. Many people would do that in light of how you handled the situation in my house (please see my last email for detailed points). You'll notice that I didn't do that, despite having very clear video footage of my ladder being taken (a rare luck that 99% of your customers would never have, and would be forced to accept your abusive responses). I didn't do that exactly because I'm not a petty person. I know it was an honest mistake by one of your employees, whom YOU put in a difficult position. Your aggressive and offensive handling of the issue, though, is very telling about your personality and customer service skills. Here is an idea: take a critical look at your handling of the issue and learn from it, so that you can do better in the future. If you work yourself into believing that nice, patient and honest customers like me are thieves and liars out to get you, or as you put it "landmines" to be avoided, you are bound to fail.The first step is stopping the insanity.The ladder is not believed to be mine - it is mine, and if you really want to debate that, I can find the photos of said ladder from before you ever worked for me, and a receipt for when I bought it a few months earlier. This is not even a point that should be questioned, not in your position.The issues you continue to find "odd" and try to use to undermine what I say are stupidly naive. Here is one. Why didn't I stop the guy from taking my ladder if I saw him do it?I didn't see the ladder being loaded onto your truck, BECAUSE I DIDN'T KNOW the person was packing up and leaving!!! They snack out while I was at work with nobody there to supervise it!!! That's the whole point, which was made very clearly by me before (you need to read what I wrote more carefully, to avoid sounding absurd). A few days after they left I needed that ladder and couldn't find it. THEN I reviewed the security footage from my home to finally find out where the ladder went. The videotaping is not done by me, but by the security system automatically. Are you just pretending not to understand the issues here?Now here is where it gets interesting: You were notified about the ladder being taken the moment I discovered that it had happened (5 days later 10:55am, April 27th the following text was sent to you: "One of your guys took our step ladder. About 4 feet, black, with a platform on top. I assume by accident, still I want it back. As you organize the return, please review everything that was taken from my house for my thing that could have been inadvertently packed up."). I was expecting an apology and a quick return of the ladder, obviously. Instead you chose to ignore it for 3 months, along with all the other messages and calls from me. Then you reacted violently to the Revdex.com complaint. Again, if I were a "petty" person, it wouldn't be a Revdex.com complaint. I would have reported you to the DA, the Director of Consumer Affairs, and the Police. Appreciate how I chose to handle the situation and show some humility. An apology is what's missing here.Here are a few more absurdities that jump out from your first response. You state that I'm a "rich customer". If I am rich, why do I cheat people who work for me by conning them out of their hard earned money? Or make up stories about stolen ladders? I must be a sociopath, right? Demonizing your customers and working yourself into believing they are sociopaths says nothing about them, but a lot about you. It's not normal to see others that way - sorry to say. I doubt very much you have hundreds of satisfied customers with THAT attitude. I was nothing but kind and patient with you, outright friendly, DESPITE your glaring incompetence (not just your painters, but you, as the manager of the job). You have no possible reason to demonize me like that.Something else sounded odd in your first response. You stated that you wouldn't steal a ladder because 1) it's cheap and 2) you don't need one because you have many. So if it was expensive or you needed one, you would go ahead and steal it then? You think that's OK as long as you have a reason? Again, stop the insanity. You make yourself sound more horrible with every statement you make.Finally I don't care if you have W4s or not for your employees. You and I both know that the issue here is that you brought a guy who never worked for you before to work on my house, and then failed to supervise him or recognize that he was not up to the task. AND THEN, and this is the most puzzling part for me, after seeing how horrible his job was (you, your other employees, people who I hired to fix it after you, and I, all saw it and agreed on it), you still tried to shift the blame onto me - the customer. This, along with being gullible enough to run your business based on stupid hearsay and gossip is your problem. You have nobody else to blame for the situation but yourself. Accept it and learn from it.In closing, the problem is not the ladder money, but how the whole situation was handled. Had you told me:"Listen, I don't want to continue working for you", and had the guts to have an open conversation about it, we'd either clear the air or part ways. EASY. Why the sneaking out? Why the promises of finishing to my satisfaction? Why the insulting text? What is wrong with you??? Seriously.