Falo Inc

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 6, 2015/08/01) */
Most of this complaint is untrue and inaccurate, and quite embellished. To begin with, insecticides will not control a fungal infection. An application(s) of a fungicide would be necessary. I met with these people on 4/9/15 to potentially set up...

a tree care program for 2015. At that time of year the trees had not leafed out yet, and our historical wet spring did not become evident until early May when it started to rain for approximately six weeks which resulted in one of the wettest springs in the [redacted] area. This condition resulted in many tree disease issues to develop in a volume that has been unprecedented in the 35 years I have been in business with 19 of those years here in the Denver area. Unfortunately, since I am not prescient, I was not able to predict this event, nor did I welcome it in it's intensity since it significantly and negatively affected my business this year. Some of the tree diseases that developed out of proportion this year include Anthracnose which affects Ash trees here;Fire-blight, which affects mainly Apple, Crabapple,Pear and Hawthorne trees, and multiple leaf spot disease that affect many Poplar species including Aspens. All foliar infections, and some vascular infections do not manifest themselves until approximately mid-summer after they have experienced a period of hot weather which combines with the infection to then damage the foliage. Most of these tree diseases cause partial damage which then falls off the tree and the tree recovers to complete the season. This customer has 6-8 Aspens with only one of them losing leaves. I tried to explain this to them, and that this infection would not kill their tree, and that the treatment period is after leaf-out in the spring, and made management recommendations as outlined in [redacted] Extension Service's fact sheet #2.920 of which I also supplied them a copy of. However, I am fairly certain that these people heard nothing I said. On 4/9/15, when I met with these people I had no prior history of their trees. When asked to present a tree care program, I estimated our standard program of annual tree fertilization, aphid control, and informed them of the imminent threat of a potential Emerald Ash Borer infestation as instructed by our industry to inform all customers and offer a preventative program of protection which they agreed upon and later declined when we called them to perform the service. On this date, when asked for service that was all I ethically could recommend. When a problem becomes evident then I can recommend treatment at the appropriate time which frequently has to be done the following year. Most plant health care services are timing sensitive and performed, otherwise are ineffective and a waste of your customer's money. I could have tried to sell them many preventative services on 4/9/15 such as iron treatment for their maple tree, Ips beetle prevention sprays on their Pine tree, leaf miner prevention on their shrubs, etc.,but I never do this unless I see issues, have a prior history of a problem presented to me, or my industry experts recommend it such as Emerald Ash Borer prevention. So, I presented my written estimates which were immediately declined because they were more expensive than their previous service. This woman then presented a list of previous services with pricing which although structured differently, mimicked my proposals for tree care. What surprised me after not being willing to change the costs of my services was that she then accepted them. It wasn't until she called me to complain that she revealed to me that her prior service had discontinued service citing service area restrictions. I can state after 35 years that a gentle way to rid your company of a difficult and/or unpleasant customer is to tell them that you no longer service their area. Having knowledge of their prior company and the size of the company, and the financial status of these people's neighborhood, I can assure the Revdex.com that their prior company probably still services their area. From the beginning of service these people have been difficult, complained about costs of services, acted confused,, and declined previously agreed upon services. All services were previously bid with written estimates of which I went over in detail with these people. I will not, and do not recommend ANY service unless I have a prior history or see evidence of a problem, and there was absolutely no mention of a disease issue to me. We do practically no disease management on Aspens as the general consensus of our customers is not to spend money on trees that have a reputation for being short lived in this area. Mainly, requests to us are to keep the aphids off, and occasionally to fertilize them, and when they lose their appeal to the landscape then remove them and replace with a hardier tree. Also, as a general annual service we always recommend fertilization as our area soils are not by nature designed to grow trees, and lack in essential nutrients which cause many issues with our area trees. I hope I have been able to outline what we consider as standard tree care for our area to the Revdex.com. Myself, and my company have a solid reputation as an honest, knowledgeable, and pleasant company to work with, and we can produce references to back up this statement. Do things always go perfectly? Anyone who has made it through high school should know the answer to that question. An analogy of this complaint could go like this. You go in for a fitness checkup and some advice on how to care for your health. At the time you appear healthy to your health care provider. Several months later, you develop a sinus infection. You attack your health care provider with a complaint that because it was an exceptionally cold winter, and a lot of people were sick, that he or she should have predicted you would acquire an infection, and appropriately prevent it, so give me all my money back for completely unrelated health care services to compensate for developing a sinus infection, and if I die from this infection then mister or miss you are in big trouble. I don't see any difference from this example and this complaint. On 7/29/15, I returned these people's call from my office speakerphone with my business partner present as a witness to the conversation since I KNEW that I was dealing with irrational people. At this time Mr. tried to get me to agree to come out and treat the tree, AND give them their money back with Mrs. continuously yelling in the background. I truly had tried to explain to these people how treatment works in this situation, but as I previously stated, these people aren't listening. When this demand was not met, then Mrs. took over, and that's when she really got mean. At this point in time she threatened me with her husband's prior, official status in the form of his "connections," if I did not return all of their money. I have this witnessed and documented. In my dictionary, this type of threat is defined as extortion, and is a very serious offense. Revdex.com, honestly, after she threatened me in this context, I considered approaching my legal counsel, and may yet do so to take appropriate action. Personally however, I would like to see these people drop this whole ridiculous complaint, and leave me alone, but I can assure anyone reading this that I refuse to be intimidated, and will not voluntarily allow ANYONE to extort money from me. It is too bad that their tree is marginally infected with a random leaf fungus, which by the way will not kill the tree, and the tree still has plenty of foliage on it, but this has happened all over the city this year. Revdex.com, how many other complaints like this have you had to mediate? Also, when I inspected the rest of their trees, there were no insect pests on ANY of them. Are their other insects flying around, landing on trees, buildings, fences, your arm, etc? Well, go out and sit in your backyard and just observe for a while. Not all insects are tree pests, and FYI, when we attend continuing education workshops, one of the biggest topics is how to not kill non-threatening insects while performing our services. I believe I have presented an honest defense to the Revdex.com against this preposterous accusation, and can substantiate every bit of it. Thank you.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 8, 2015/08/10) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
Falco, is not taking blame for the "poor service" he provided. Now he is accusing us of being problematic customers instead of taking responsibility for causing our tree to get a fungal infection to begin with...Of course, I was upset, and did not go out to listen to his excuses as I have diligently taken care of our trees and shrubs for 17 years, and have never had the misfortune of dealing with a company that puts the blame on customers instead of trying to resolve the situation he instigated to begin with! I'm sure I was justified in being upset regarding the poor condition of our once beautiful Aspen which is now fighting for it's life. It has been shedding leaves for weeks now, and my husband is in very poor health and cannot be outside raking and vacuuming leaves daily. I have been doing this in between doctors visits, and my husband's recent surgery. A task we should not have to be doing until late fall. I contacted our prior tree service, which was [redacted] and spoke to [redacted], today, August 10, 2015, and she verified that because they cut back jurisdiction that we were no longer in their service area, NOT BECAUSE OF THE DEFLAMMATORY ACCUSATIONS MADE BY this long winded vicious person who did not place in a "black ink spot plug" on 4/9/15 when he came out to spray our trees, nor did he inquire about this kind of problem we had experienced in the past, as Aspen Trees are very delicate especially on a Mesa, here in Golden or in Colorado and are very susceptible to this kind of a problem occurring, and we feel that it was his responsibility to make the proper inquires regarding whether or not this fungus had or had not occurred prior to servicing our trees. We have indeed, not made any threats, as he stated in his response, but we want this fairly settled, and we feel that he was at fault and should give us our money back, at least on the one Aspen, which is infected, and in the event it should die, he should be held responsible for the removal and replacement costs. If necessary, we will hire an attorney as we feel he is not being fair or cooperative at all.
Final Business Response /* (4000, 15, 2015/08/29) */
Okay, Mrs. ** I am going to try to mediate this issue at this time, in an effort to save us both time and money. To begin with, this black leaf spot infection is not going to kill your tree. You can consult with the Jefferson County Extension Service in Golden for another opinion. I am not going to confront all of the claims in your most recent response, except for one. I am not going to present any more science or academic information. I do not recall you showing me info from 2012. After I presented you with estimates for what I recommended for standard tree care, you then presented me a list of previous services from [redacted] that I remember as being very similar to mine, but I deal with large volumes of paperwork daily, and this was on 4/9/15, so I don't know what else to say about that. The fact is, unless requested at that early stage of the season, I don't recommend treatment for the many issues that could affect Aspens as most people have stopped spending extra money on them. Even your neighbor has systematically removed his Aspens as they decline and stated to me that he was done spending money on them. I hear this all the time. Other than keeping Aphids off of them, because of the mess they can make, the trend has been to not spend money on them. Just this week a customer of mine in an HOA by Standley Lake was arranging with a tree service to have all of the Aspens removed on his block and replace with different trees. All of them. The point I am trying to make is that is has become futile to even try to sell services regarding Aspens, so because of that I did not present services for this potential threat. Maybe you are an exception to this but I didn't know that. I deal with many people every day, and I am telling you the truth. Also, the last thing I want to see is someone's tree pick up an infection even though I am in the business of taking care of trees. After consulting with several of my business associates and customers regarding this issue, and getting mixed feedback I am going to try to settle this issue. I will refund you the entire sum of the money you have spent with my company this year if you will agree to end this conflict, also. This will need to be done through this Revdex.com medium. Also, my advice to you is to contact a company to arrange to treat this tree as soon as it leafs out in 2016. If done correctly, it will most likely prevent this problem next year. Tree diseases are like human diseases in which treatment doesn't always work as hoped for and can require additional or different treatments. In addition, and you will most likely agree that we have no further contact with each other. I also want to state that I have absolutely no problem with Hispanics or anyone else. My business partner is Hispanic, and we have worked together for five years now. Mrs C., I once again assure you that this is not a fatal disease. That doesn't mean something else might not damage it in the future. For example, the extreme freeze we experienced at the beginning of November, 2014 killed many, many trees. Quite honestly, I was somewhat surprised that the Aspens didn't visibly suffer from that freeze. I am truly sorry this has all happened, but I have learned some things from this experience. I will definitely be warning people about Black Leaf Spot whether they want to spend the money or not, I can assure you of that. Anyway, I hope this solution will work for you, and we can both move on.
Final Consumer Response /* (4200, 17, 2015/09/10) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
I did not read this rebuttal, or should I say further attack, it is much too upsetting and stressful for me, and I will no longer further engage with this individual. If my tree does indeed die, I will seek removal costs...I have enclosed the latest picture of what is left of our tree, and a copy of the pre-plan on servicing my trees, I mentioned in my last response.