Joe Merenda Landscaping Services, Inc.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ***, and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.We are waiting to hear back from MrMerenda as to the clarification on how he is coming up with the total amount on the Demand letter. We are asking a second time for Mr. Merenda to provide a financial breakdown of that figure
Regards,
*** *** *** ***

Revdex.com:         10/6/17 I have reviewed the response made by Joe Merenda Landscape Services, Inc.,  in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your records, we have attached all relevant documents regarding this complaint. There are two major discrepancies.  First, Mr. Merenda is attempting to charge us for landscaping services that were never provided due to his breach of contract with his failure to adhere to our verbal agreement and understanding for work to commence at 8:30am on September 26th. For the record, when we spoke two weeks ago to schedule the work appointment, Mr. Merenda was the one who STATED WORKING STARTING TIME of 8:30am, NOT ME, when we scheduled work day appointment of September 26th. Mr. Merenda's comment denying ever saying this is NOT A TRUTHFUL STATEMENT.  In fact initially, we had scheduled for another day and when we rescheduled, once again Mr. Merenda restated working start time of 8:30am on September 26th. In other words, Mr. Merenda stated starting work time of 8:30am on TWO separate occasions, so his saying that he never said this is NOT A TRUTHFUL STATEMENT.  I relied on our verbal agreement and Mr. Merenda's word for scheduling date and time, on September 26 with work commencing at 8:30am, to my detriment. I counted on Mr. Merenda to keep his word and was planning on meeting him and his work crew to get them settled in and to talk to them regarding the landscape work beginning at 8:30am prior to my important meeting. Mr. Merenda had mentioned to me he was going to come with the crew to provide instructions to them on the work to be done. Since we had reached that verbal understanding of work commencing at 8:30am, and I felt at the time that I could trust Mr. Merenda to keep his word, I made an important meeting appointment and worked around the scheduled work time for he and his work crew of 8:30am. When he and his work crew failed to materialize and to begin work at 8:30am, I was forced to call him at 8:50am since he lacked the professionalism, lacked the courtesy to give us a call to let us know of the delay, and lacked respect for our time. When we spoke and we inquired about why he and his work crew, had not arrived to begin at the agreed upon scheduled work time of 8:30am, all he said was "We got a late start. My work crew will be there around 9:30am since they will be stopping in for coffee." He never mentioned anything about any emergency, nor did he even take ownership over the situation to apologize for not calling to notify us of the delay ahead of time.  We later found out, when his two man work crew arrived around 9:30am-9:35am, that even his work crew were not aware and were not told of work commencing at 8:30am. The first I heard about the alleged emergency was when I returned home from my important meeting and heard two voicemails where he claimed to have had the intent to call and something about equipment issues. At that time when he told me his work crew would arrive around 9:30am after taking a coffee break, a full hour after the agreed upon work commencement time of 8:30am,  I had to make a decision. Either deal with someone who had not only broken our verbal agreement for landscaping work to commence at 8:30am but who had failed at a minimum to make a courtesy call to us informing us of the delay OR miss my important meeting while I waited for his work crew to arrive once they were done with their coffee break around 9:30am since he did not give me the opportunity to ask another family member to be there to settle them in and to speak with them on the landscape work. Mr. Merenda breached the contract with his lack of professionalism. If we could not trust Mr. Merenda to keep his word on our verbal agreement and understanding of work commencing at 8:30am on September 26th, then we also could not trust his work, we could not trust in the quality of his work anymore.  In other words, if we could not trust Mr. Merenda to keep his word, we also did not believe we could trust him, nor could we trust in the quality of his landscaping work due to his lack of professionalism, lack of reliability, lack of courtesy call, and lack of respect for our time. The second discrepancy involves the Demand Letter where Mr. Merenda is alleging an amount of $258.98. The total contract for landscape services is for $647.46. When that total is divided by 12 the total per man hour is $53.95.  On the contract it states maximum can charge is for two (2) man hours. $53.95 x 2 man hours = $107.90  What is the financial breakdown for the $258.98?  We believe that Mr. Merenda should act in good faith in consideration for his breach of the contract with his violation of our verbal agreement and understanding of work commencing at 8:30am on September 26th and not attempt to collect money that he did not earn.  I relied upon his word to my detriment in attending an important meeting. As we mentioned in the initial complaint, Mr. Merenda should take ownership over the issue that took place with his business due to his lack of professionalism, a lack of a courtesy call, and poor customer service. We believe Mr. Merenda should do the right thing, take responsibility for his lapse in professionalism and for what happened and leave us alone without trying to charge us for his mistakes. Regards, [redacted]

We continue to differ in the accuracy and sequence of events as described and any new correspondence the complainant has forwarded in her rebuttal.   As our only settlement, we still are still offering to complete the scheduled work as per the original contract; we do this in good faith by extending the October 6th Small Claims Demand Letter deadline to Friday, October 13, 2017.  To be clear, this updated deadline is to either receive the Small Claims Demand amount or written agreement to have us schedule a visit to complete the work as originally contracted. After Friday, October 13, 2017, the offer to complete the job as planned is off.

We did receive the contract in the mail signed by [redacted], the mother.  We did contact the daughter (only had her number) that we were in receipt of the the contract and to schedule a best time.  She identified two days where, in her words she was "off" from work and agreed on the Tuesday,...

September 26th.  She asked me when the crew might arrive; I gave her a window of time which everyone who is the first job of the day receives, namely "as early as 8:30-ish".  We did run into am unanticipated equipment problem early on which had my crew leave home base at 8:35 am.  After I cleaned up the grease on myself, I was ready to pickup the phone and call the daughter to say that we were "on our way" and give her an e.t.a., when she called me yelling to the point that I could only slip-in one sentence in before she hung up.  I acknowledged that I was about to call her to inform of the delay and mentioned that I could see on our GPS that they MAY HAVE stopped for coffee.  When I found out the reason for the stop I called the contact number and finally was able to explain the delay---it was, for lack of a better phrase, an "emergency pit-stop" at a local McDonalds.  I did say in my messages that I would still send the crew over to do the job.  She met them with a letter that spoke to her and her mother's disdain for being treated in such an [unacceptable manner].  In her letter which she handed to my crew, the daughter starts out talking about the 8:30 promise (again, this never occurred) and then contradicts herself later on when she tries to make a point and refers to "agreed upon starting worktime time frame."   PART A of the contract discusses some of the situations/events which can delay job commencement, so this is why we are billing her for cancelling after three days and at arrival to the job site.  We are a 22 year old business and this is only the 4th complaint in our history and the first which had to do with an arrival time dispute.