Cicileo Landscapes, Inc.

Review: On the week of 16-20 April 2012, Cicileo was engaged to build an extension of an existing 15 high stone wall and plant existing plants and put in irrigation of the plants. Before we signed his contract, and two days before he said he would start, his crew of two (contract stated crew of three) showed up and started work on the 16th. We had leftover stone for the wall that we said could be used for the extension. After 1.5 days, the wall was partially built. The wall was noticeably concave, noticeably not square and the exposed stone was more than 10x smaller than the original wall. My wife said to stop work and call [redacted]. I came home and both parties agreed to purchase new stone for the wall and tear down the existing extension. The balance of the week saw the crew of two build a new wall extension square and true looking similar to the original wall, the plants planted and the irrigation installed.We got the invoice billing us for all 5 days. We wrote Cicileo on 02 May, saying we did not think we should pay for building a wall of poor workmanship that was torn down. He called me on 04 May at work and claimed that the labor charge would remain because he, himself spent ten hours on our project looking for the new stone and he also claimed that his crew stopped the work. My wife said she stopped the work. After investigation, we wrote on 08 May, that 1. the labor charged was for the two man crew was not disclosed to us before the invoice 2. supervisorial time should not compensate for bad workmanship 3. the invoice for the stone was triple the vendors price, and several other confusing items on the invoice. I went through each invoice item with my explanation and paid for 4 days work, the stone vendors price to Cicileo. On 21 May, Cicileo wrote to me that his crew was forced to use the leftover stone by our demand and the stone price was by the pound. On 29 May, I wrote back that 1.5 days was unreasonably long to figure out that the leftover stone wouldnt work, and that if he bought the stone by the pallet it was 1/3 the price. After 3 more billings for the difference of our payment and his invoice with no further explanation, I called their accountant and said to look at my e-mails. A new accountant billed us again Oct & Nov 2012, I called again and said read the e-mails. Another accountant in March 2013 billed us, prompting my wifes attempt to contact the Revdex.com and she contacted Cicileo saying we had deaths in the family. We just got another bill for the difference July 2013, and for the first time attached is a copy of the invoice with the confusing nomenclature about the mortar cleaned up but still no response yet to my explanatory e-mail of 29 May 2012.There is not room here, but I have copies of emails, the contract and invoices.Desired Settlement: We paid fair amount: ~2/3 of invoice. Want billing for balance to cease, as business's explanations for the difference have changed and/or avoid the (my) complaint. Each new accountant at the business bills us until they are asked to respond to my last email.

Consumer

Response:

Review: 9646999

I am rejecting this response because:

Consumer response for complaint ID 9646999.

1, After sanitizing our complaint to remove names, except the business, I am very surprised and dismayed that the business’s response names the consumers several times.

2, Business comment: [redacted] “has spent countless hours responding to our letters”. [redacted] responded once on 21 May 2012 to our first letter. The first letter of 08 May 2012 was an explanation of each invoice item and what we thought was reasonable to pay for each item a check (the partial payment accompanied this first letter). We responded with a second letter of 29 May 2012, the second letter described why we deemed no further payment was due at that time. Since then, [redacted] has sent several one line invoices for the balance of their original invoice. They have occasionally sent letters threatening going into collections. After a ‘collections’ letter, I called office manager #1 on 02 Nov 2012 and said that I was awaiting a response to my 29 May letter. After another collections letter, I called office manager #2 in Dec 2012 and said I was awaiting the same response. My wife had just lost three family members and called [redacted] independently in Dec 2012 as per [redacted]’s Revdex.com response. [redacted] waited until Feb 2013 just after we had returned from a trip to disposition the deceased’s property, she responded as per [redacted]’s Revdex.com response. [redacted] sent a cleaned-up version of the original invoice in July 2013, this is what prompted me to complain to the Revdex.com. [redacted]’s Revdex.com response of 21 August 2013 is the first time any discrepancies in my 29 May 2012 letter have been addressed. I only wrote two letters to [redacted] to explain our partial payment of the invoice: 08 May 2012 and 29 May 2012. [redacted] responded to the 08 May letter on 21 May and my 29 May letter is my response back.

3, Business comment: “We offered a credit of $266.10 in the 21 May 2012 response.” This credit was smaller than either one of the two largest discrepancies.

4, Business comment: “Each time we contacted the Consumer at his office, we felt that we had come to an understanding that our billing was legitimate and true…” This statement was true ONE time on 04 May 2012. I did not have any paperwork with me when Mr. [redacted] explained that despite the first wall being torn down, his ten hours of work on our project justified the billing of five days, and three of those ten hours were spent looking at three possible vendors to get additional stone for our project. He also noted that his foreman had stopped work because on-site stone was not working out. I said I understood his position. When I got home and told my wife; she said that she had stopped the foreman at 2 pm (on 17 Apr 2012) and insisted that Mr. [redacted] be called. At 3 pm Mr. [redacted] came and told his crew to go to the stone’s vendor and get some stone before the vendor closed for the day. Also, she pointed out that the stone was designated by name and vendor in [redacted]’s contract of 09 April 2012. At this point, I decided to examine each item of [redacted]’s invoice. My letter of 08 May 2012, noted all discrepancies, all non-discrepant items were paid in the partial payment at that time.

5, Business response #1: “Two-man crew was prorated” (from three-man crew). Two-man rate: $560 per diem, three-man rate: $680 per diem; $560 is 82% (~5/6) of $680, not two-thirds.

6, Business response #2: “Our masonry team was working with the materials requested to be used by the Consumer…” This is the same reason [redacted] used in their 21 May 2012 response for billing the ‘fifth’ day. Note: the $560 per diem is the largest discrepancy in dollars; we paid for four days work at $560 per diem. Our responses:

6a. On the original consultation: We showed to [redacted] the leftover stone from the original pre-existing wall. As per out 29 May letter, we asked if there was enough stone for the wall-to-be-built. Also, from the 29 May letter, we were concerned that since it was leftover stone that enough was usable. [redacted] said the leftover stone seemed sufficient on both counts, we acknowledged his assurance but still told him which stone by name and the local vendor in case more stone was needed. This discussion was a reason why the stone and its vendor was named in [redacted]’s contract.

6b. The first attempt of the new wall was noticeably deficient in workmanship. Our 29 May letter, specified that the wall was concave in one section, non-square (it was trapezoidal) in another section, varied much more in width than the original wall and the exposed faces of rock were very much smaller than the original wall. My wife showed this to [redacted] at 3 pm and I came home at 5pm to meet with [redacted] on 17 April and showed him the poor workmanship again. To each of us [redacted] agreed to tear down this first wall.

6c. As in my 29 May letter, I pointed out that a professional should be able to discern that the remaining stone was too small BEFORE building it into a wall.

6d. As stated in item 4 of this response, [redacted]’s first response to explain the billing for 5 days was supervisorial time. My letter of 08 May, only counters that contention. [redacted]’s new reason for billing a 5th day in their 21 May response was that they were “forced” to use leftover stone as is their contention in their Revdex.com response. We were never sure that there was sufficient total leftover stone nor if there was sufficient useable leftover stone as stated in item ‘6a’ above.

7, Business comment: “The consumer was always watching and critiquing the work”: Day1: [redacted]’s crew came one day earlier than we had been told and came before we were shown the plan the for wall. As the consumer, this start put us on the alert rather than at ease. I had to come home from work at noon to see what was going on and have the foreman show us the plan for the wall. The ‘bad’ wall was just started but too early to tell. Day 2: the build-up of ‘bad’ wall, my wife stopped the building of the wall at ~2 pm. I think this showed both patience and wisdom; we wondered how much longer would the crew keep building the wall if my wife had not intervened. When I met with [redacted] that evening, I was assured that even with the teardown, the job could be completed in the contracted five days. Now, we are even more alert. Day 3; I came home at noon and consulted with the foreman on the use of differently colored stone and how the stone should be laid into the sloping ground. Day 4 OK new wall completed well, Day 5: all planting and irrigation needed to be done, I stayed home to advise on plant placement and found an irrigation line that was not connected. I was very concerned on getting the job complete and done well. This very comment by [redacted] shows the consumer was available and engaged in the job, yet instead of [redacted]’s crew talking to the consumer to say the leftover stones cannot be used to make a wall to match the pre-existing wall, the crew uses a whole day (actually more than one day) building a very flawed wall.

8, Business comment: The wife had the wall torn down for how it looked. See item ‘6b’ above; bad workmanship looks bad. Non-square corners, much smaller exposed stones, concave walls and large variations in wall width look bad. To date there has never any mention of the cost to teardown the 1st wall in any response from [redacted] (because it really was bad workmanship).

9, Business response #3: The invoiced price for the additional stone is $561.60. By dollar amount the cost of the stone is the second largest discrepancy. I went to the vendor and found the retail price for a pallet of the specified stone to be $200 as per my 08 May letter. The invoice is 280% of the retail price for a pallet. [redacted]’s response of 21 May 2012, said the price was fair because he paid $0.30 per pound for the stone. [redacted] said he tried to find the cheapest way to buy stone by the pound. So we were invoiced for nearly three times the price of a pallet to get three quarters of a pallet worth of stone. It seems obvious that we, the consumer, were not averse to having leftover stone; see all of item ‘6’, above. Even if I grant that [redacted] paid $561.60 for 1872 pounds of stone, I have yet to understand why the very significant quantity discount to buy a pallet was avoided by [redacted]. We paid the retail price for a pallet of the specified stone: $200.

Two other invoiced items covered in my letters that were not included in the original Revdex.com complaint.

10, The chicken wire baskets used to protect the roots from gophers. In [redacted]’s reponse of 21 May 2012, the claim is made that only the material cost of the baskets is shown on the invoice. Since all baskets were made on the last day of the job, I saw the crew did not even use one full roll of chicken wire for all their baskets. I found the retail price for a roll of chicken wire to be $37.50 as per my letter of 08 May. The invoice charges $7.00 for each of two 5-gallon baskets and $3.50 for each of thirty 1-gallon baskets. This totals $119.00 of invoice; we paid for a full roll: $37.50. In my 08 May letter, I mentioned that in our phone call of 04 May that we had only received 27 1-gallon baskets, yet all itemized invoices still show 30 1-gallon baskets. [redacted]’s Revdex.com response to the stone price says, “That would be a markup of 300% which we did not and would not do as that is not business like.” Here is a markup over 300% if a whole roll had been used!

11, During the initial consultation, my wife specified that free mulch from the county transfer station NOT be used because it had debris mixed in with the organic material. After the crew left on the last day, we went to area and found the ‘stuff’ laid on the ground, which we both thought was mulch, contained debris. We would to pay nothing for such “mulch”. And we saw nothing matching the invoiced wood chips. [redacted]’s 21 May response said that the ‘mulch, soil amendment’ was put in each hole for each planting and the wood chips were the ground cover. In my 29 May letter, I pointed out that the contract stated the soil amendment was to be tilled into the entire planting area. No tilling took place for the duration of the job; the soil amendment was put only in the hole for each planting but it was not spread over the whole area. The only material spread over the whole area was identified by [redacted] on 21 May was ‘wood chips’. On 29 May, I pointed out that the volume for the soil amendment could not be as much as was invoiced. And now that the ‘wood chips’ was identified, I asked why should we pay for it as the debris in the ‘wood chips’ was so similar to the FREE ‘mulch’ from the county transfer station.

12, Mortar was invoiced as “Materials: Mortar/4 Bags” quantity: 18 @ $11.25 = $202.50. I have no idea what the “/4” meant, but later (after the partial payment and after both my letters) itemized invoices now say, ”Mortar Bags”. When I went to the stone’s vendor, I also checked their price of mortar used to make stone walls. Their retail price was $6.00 per bag, so we paid for 18 bags at $6.00 each.

Summary: No reason to date explains why we should pay for the day to build a wall that was torn down because of poor workmanship. No reason to date explains why the quantity discount to buy a pallet of stone was ‘avoided’. The baskets have a markup that the Business itself says is not business like.

Regards,