NaturaLawn of America

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Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. 
Regards,
[redacted]

The safety issues have been completed on 6/25 and before I could finish what I was doing [redacted] confronted me out by the swing set. [redacted] was really hard to talk with and with all the  yelling from [redacted] I left the situation.  I will be dropping off new roof pieces for Michael to...

install.  I will not step foot on property anymore. For the late installation was weather and a family emergency.  I did take off $200 for the free airpogo.  That Micheal forgot to mention in his letter.  Thank you [redacted]

Customer - NaturaLawn of America called me on the phone in early
2014, telling me their product was all natural fertilizers and safer lawn care.
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Company - NaturaLawn of America is an organic-based lawn care
company.  Our natural, organic-based programs have effectively reduced the
amount of chemical pesticides by over 80% as compared to traditional lawn care
methods.  We customize our applications and provide a safer lawn care
program which does not rely on the repeated, excessive, indiscriminate use of pesticides.
 Soils are the back bone for supporting plant life.  A lawn grown
under proper soil conditions is similar to a house built on a solid foundation.
 Most traditional lawn care companies overlook the importance of feeding
the soil and only feed the grass blades with synthetic chemicals.  When
NLA applies organic-based fertilizers to the lawn, we are feeding the grass
plants by feeding the soil first.  This builds the foundation on which the
lawn will thrive and become naturally healthy.  Grass grown with
organic-based fertilizers can withstand more stress and are more tolerant to
prolonged periods of dry weather than chemically fed lawns.
Customer - They said they had a full service lawn care for the
season of 2014 and that I would pay $121.00 per service, for 7 services. 
Company - There are 7 scheduled treatments done throughout the
year with our full service program.  These include 6 customized
applications of fertilizers done at intervals of every 4-6 weeks and 1 soil
amendment which can be scheduled anytime throughout the year.  Our service
visits include organic-based fertilizers specific to the lawns needs,
pre-emergent crabgrass control in the spring, weed and insect controls
throughout the year in accordance to our IPM program and our specially-formulated
soil amendment treatment.  Based on the size of the property (27,000 sq
ft), each application costs $121.00 plus tax.
Customer - I have the contract on (pg.2) it states "If you
are not completely satisfied with our service, we will reapply the most recent
treatment completed at no additional cost and continue the regular program, or
we will fully refund, if paid , your cost for the prior visit and cancel any
obligation for future service on your part."
Company - We do not require customers to sign a written contract
or agreement unless required by law.  The NaturaLawn of America Service
Agreement (not contract) states "If you are not completely satisfied with
our service, we will reapply the most recent treatment completed at no
additional cost and continue the regular program, or we will fully refund, if
paid, your cost for the prior visit and cancel any obligation for future
service on your part."  To qualify for this guarantee, you must
notify us in writing or by phone within 30 days of the visit.  Any refund
under the guarantee is limited to the cost of one visit only.  It does not
include reimbursement for repairs by insect damage, disease, other outside
damage or balances owed over 30 days.
Customer - The very first treatment they put down, within a couple
of weeks the weeds were spreading all over. I have never seen my yard that bad!
Two weeks after the first treatment, I was about to call them to complain about
their product, but when I arrived home from work, there was a guy leaving my
house in one of their vans. He left me a bill for another $121.00.
Company – As stated previously, our fertilizer feeds the soil
and the grass plant.  The weeds growing
in the lawn shows the fertilizer is doing what it is designed to do which is
make plants (including weeds) in the soil grow. 
As a way to combat the weeds in the lawn, we will treat the weeds as
needed.  The first treatment was applied
on 4/1/14.  The second treatment was
applied 4 weeks later on 5/3/14.  Both
treatments were applied at the appropriate time.
Customer - I went to inspect the yard and found that the
fertilizer they put down was very minimal, like one piece every couple of feet
or so. I called the company the next day to tell them that the guy hardly put
any fertilizer down and that I was not happy with having to pay $121 for
something that was worth $25. They told me he put down fertilizer and sprayed
the weeds with liquid fertilizer. There were too many weeds to possibly put
liquid on all of them and none of the weeds ever turned brown or died. They
told me on the phone that I was allowed to have a free treatment. I told them I
was not satisfied with their product and that the weeds on my lawn were worse
than they ever were. I also told them to make that the free treatment as said
in contract and I no longer wanted their service. Next thing I know they keep
sending me bills. I called them again and again about the bill and their
service. They have now sent the bill to a collection agency (American Profit
Recovery, ###-###-####). This company has misrepresented themselves and lied
about their products, services and contract guarantees. I do not believe I should
have to pay them any amount of monies and if I do they need to split the
original amount $121 with me because the guy did not put down what he said he
did. Now my lawn is destroyed because of this company. I am going to have to
start all over to fix my lawn and get rid of all the weeds. This is going to be
very costly.
Company – The fertilizer applied to the lawn on 5/3/14 was
applied at the correct rate for this application which is 4 pounds per 1,000
square feet.  This particular fertilizer
applied is yellow, black and white in color. 
The yellow granules tend to stand out in the lawn unlike the blank and
white granules which can easily blend and be difficult to see in the lawn.  The technician was on the property for 35
minutes during which time he applied fertilizer, treated all weeds present and
carefully inspected the lawn for any insects or disease.  All of our fertilizers are granular and the
weed control is liquid.  It typically
takes 10-14 days for weeds to curl up and die. 
In the meantime, new weeds will start to grow in between
applications.  This is why we offer free
service calls with our full service program for customers to utilize for any
issues or concerns they have with the lawn in between applications.
On 5/5/15 the customer called the office and left a voicemail
stating she has more weeds than ever and she was going to cancel but we came
out and did another application. The application barely had any pellets. She is
canceling and she will call back on Tuesday.
On 5/5/15 one of our customer service reps returned the
customer’s call and left a message on the customer’s voicemail stating the
customer has not taken advantage of service calls. The rep advised the reason
to use service calls (such as weed concerns). The account was submitted to the
cancellation department.  The sales
department called the customer on 5/7/15 and spoke with her.  The customer stated she has more weeds then
ever and cancel the service.  The
cancellation department attempted to contact the customer on 5/8/15 and 5/9/15
but unfortunately was not able to get in touch with the customer to discuss her
concerns.
The account was cancelled on 5/9/15.
The customer did not call the office as promised to discuss her
concerns and/or set up a service call.
On 6/5/15 a customer service rep called the customer in regards
to the balance on the account.  The
customer stated she was not happy. She was under the impression we were coming
out after her complaint to do a free service. The rep
informed the customer the application was applied correctly.  The customer stated she still was not happy
but she will send a check for the balance.
NaturaLawn of America did not misrepresent itself in any
way.  The customer was clearly informed
of the service she would receive both verbally and in writing and she agreed to
the service.  The products we applied to
the property were applied correctly and properly in accordance with EPA and IPM
regulations.  The applications applied to
the customer’s property promote growth and feed the soil.  These applications in no way caused damage to
the customer’s property.  Our fertilizer
is specifically designed to rebuild and nourish a lawn, not destroy it.  The two applications the customer received
were just the beginning of the gradual process of our lawn care program.

Our service is continuous from year to year until the customer calls the office and cancels the service.  The customer was made aware the service continues from year to year via phone and mail.  The customer is not required to sign a contract for lawn care in the state of NJ.  The...

customer did not contact us and cancel the service until after a technician performed the service on the property which occurred on 3/12/14.  The customer's reason for canceling was because the service is too expensive and the customer can not afford to pay for it.  On 3/28/14 the husband of the customer informed the office he will send in a payment.  The office did not receive a payment.  On 4/16/14 the customer made a payment arrangement with a manager which the customer agreed to.  The payment arrangement is to split the bill.  The customer's account has been credited for half the balance.  We are waiting for the remaining balance from the customer per the agreement.

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response.  If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.  
The company has decided to not bill me correct?
Regards,
[redacted]

We spoke with this customer and agreed to settle the account

We spoke with the customer on 1/27/14 and she verbally agreed to service. She agreed to services at her fathers property and provided her fathers phone number as the point of contact. We were not made aware that she was not the home ownerat any time. We spoke with her father and he gave her cell...

phone number as she signed up for the service and is the resposible party for the bill. We spoke with [redacted], played the recording twice, we also spoke with her husband and played the recording as well. In the recorded conversation its explained customer service would be calling back to welcome her to the service and we would be sending a new customer welcome pack. We do not call our customers( unless requested) the day before a service is provided. We call to welcome new customers to service which was done but as explained before we were provided the fathers phone number as a point of contact. If the customer would like to listen to the recording again we can play again. The balance is owed on the account.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted] and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. 
Regards,

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
[To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, we would like to know your view on the matter.]
Regards,
[redacted] I would like to state that this matter has not been resolved to my sayifaction as the issues have not been completely addressed as stated below.All I can say is buyer BEWARE.  This is the typical response from Mr. [redacted] when he is pressed to deliver upon that for which he has been duly paid, but has not delivered upon.  As you can see from his response,  nothing is ever his fault and he is always the victim (even at the expense of the satisfaction of his obligations).  It is important to note that not everything that Mr. [redacted] said in his response is untrue, 1.  He did state that he had a family emergency and claimed that he had to be gone for 4 weeks, but that does not explain why it took him 8 weeks to complete, and only after a deadline was put to Mr. [redacted] to have the swingset completed or issue a complete refeund of our deposit. 2.  He did reduce the price of the playset by $200 to offset our inconvenience. There are also many misrepresentations of the facts.  The weather issues that Mr. [redacted] referenced are greatly exaggerated.  In fact, there were several days that it rained, but the days that it didn't rain outnumbers the days that it rained 3 to 1 (Mr. [redacted] was apparantly not available to complete during these periods).  In fact, Mr. [redacted] would not even consider assembling the playset if there was the slightest change of rain in the 10 day forecast.  In addition, Mr. [redacted] has failed to disclose that I fixed a major safety issue as a result of his negligence at my own expense, time, and labor. Another misrepresentation of the facts revolved around the interaction I had with Mr. [redacted].  While I will admit that I did raise my voice out of frustration, I never "yelled" at Mr. [redacted].  In addition, there were never any threats made or attempts to bully Mr. [redacted] in any way.  My only goal was to determine how he was going to fix the safety issues with the back of the roof that I  had previously noted.  Again, this is simply an attempt by Mr. [redacted] to to pass his responsibilities off on the consumer as it is obvious that he has no desire to rectify the safety issues that he has yet to completely fix.  It appears that his resolution would be to have me fix it as he feels that he is the one being unfairly treated during this 13+ week ordeal. He has also failed to deliver rings for a trapeze bar that he stated were on backorder, but he would get to us as soon as they were available.In 30+ years of doing business, I have never submitted a complaint to the Revdex.com, but that is because I have never conducted business with a company that has so little regard for the customers that pay them for their services.  Although this is my first compaint to the Revdex.com, it is not the first received about issues with Creative Kids Play Systems and Josh [redacted].  As a consumer that reads this or any other complaints about this company, I would warn you that not all consumers that are dissatified will take the time to inform the public about potential challenges with local businesses.  I have discussed this fact with Mr. [redacted] and informed him that numerous complaints about his company were present on Facebook and I was informed by Mr. [redacted] that he didn't care what people said about him on Facebook. Please do your own research.  Look on Facebook, check The Revdex.com, and discuss with previous consumers before assuming that you will be satisfied with this product or company. Although I do not consider this matter resolved, I lack the confidence in Mr. [redacted]' "professional" abilities to resolve this to my satisfaction.  I am just glad no one was hurt as a result of the numerous oversights and safety issues that Mr. [redacted] stated that he fixed in his response to my original complaint.

We take considerable pride in offering the highest quality and customer service experience for our customers. We therefore truly regret the confusion concerning this customer’s account. Please allow us to clarify. While it is correct that we come out, on average, every 5 - 7 weeks for lawn...

treatments, the interval between some treatments may be as little as a week depending on what makes the most sense for the individual property. Variables include (but are not limited to) time of year, temperature, weather and lawn conditions. We apologize if this message was not communicated adequately to the customer. Most importantly, the “unapproved” treatment was one of the customer’s seven (7) regularly scheduled treatments he agreed to when he started services in April and was done concurrent with the core aeration with overseed so as to ensure the best seeding results. In circumstances like this when treatments are close together, we are always amenable to allowing our customers to stretch out payment so long as we can do the treatment at the correct time from an agronomic standpoint. Since our receipt of this complaint, we have reached out to the customer and have agreed to inspect the property with the customer and redo, if necessary, the core aeration with overseed job in its entirety at no additional charge. During our inspection we will check for seed germination which would signal that seed was put down during our initial aeration and overseeding. In this case, if there are areas of the lawn without germination, we will only redo those areas so as not to damage the existing young grass plants. In turn, upon completion of the inspection and any necessary repair of the seed job, the customer has agreed to pay his outstanding balance at the time of the inspection. We made an attempt last week to meet with the customer to affect this plan but he failed to keep the appointment. In response, we tried several times to contact the customer and we have yet to hear back. We will try again this week.

After reviewing the account we have found that the consumer did agree to service and agreed to a recorded confirmation call during the purchase. He then spoke with Customer Service the day after the first service was done due to confusion on the account and agreed to service at that point....

 We are not sure were the  misunderstanding is but in order to resolve the matter we have credited the account.

See attachments.  Thanks.
[redacted] | Office Manager
2702 Cindel Drive  | P.O. Box 2330
Cinnaminson, NJ  08077
P ###-###-#### | F ###-###-####
[redacted]
From: [redacted]
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2014 8:46 AMTo: '[email protected]'Subject: [redacted]Importance: High
 Webpage is not found therefore I am emailing you my response to the Revdex.com complaint [redacted].  See below:
 Three mailings were sent to [redacted], NJ [redacted].  The first mailing consisted of a prepay offer and new customer information.  A copy of the new customer information is attached.  This mailing is mailed and/or emailed to every new customer explaining the service and offering a discount if the customer wants to prepay for the season.  Included in this information is a service agreement which clearly states "All NaturaLawn of America programs are continuous, not a one time trial basis.  The service will be continued from year-to-year automatically unless you notify us otherwise".  This mailing was printed on 4/19/13 and mailed to the above address on 4/22/13.  The second mailing consisted of a prepay offer and renewal reminder letter.  This mailing was printed on 11/18/13 and mailed to the above address on 11/21/13.  The third mailing consisted of a prepay offer and renewal reminder letter.  This mailing was printed on 1/27/14 and mailed to the above address on 1/30/14.  The renewal reminder letter which is mailed to every single customer states "Your service has already been scheduled for our 2014 season" under the heading of the letter.  The first line of the second paragraph states "Your services have already been scheduled for the 2014 season".  The first line and second lines of the last paragraph on the bottom of page 1 states "NaturaLawn® of America’s services renew automatically each year and they have already been scheduled for your 2014 season.  As indicated in our service agreement, the service is continuous from year to year unless you notify us to cancel.  As mentioned above, these three mailings were mailed to the above address on the dates indicated above according to the customer's account records.
[redacted] | Office Manager
2702 Cindel Drive  | P.O. Box 2330
Cinnaminson, NJ  08077
P ###-###-#### | F ###-###-####
[redacted]

I can provide the recording but as stated in the previous response we have stopped the collection process with the account and [redacted] has also been notified to stop their collections as well.

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response.  If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. 
Regards,
[redacted]

This is not our customer. The North [redacted] franchise serves only [redacted] Please send this to the correct franchise. Thank you!

As a company we are confused why this needs to be brought to a lawyers attention, as we stated in the previous response we are crediting the bill.

Copy of service agreement attached as requested.Thank you.

NaturaLawn of America regretfully declines [redacted]'s respond to the complaint. NaturaLawn has done everything in it's power to provide all documentation regarding the annual renewal of service. The annual renewal of the service has not changed from 2012, when [redacted] agreed to service, as well as in 2003 to 2005 when service was also agreed upon. We have continuously attempted to contact [redacted] regarding the balance on her account, and offered a complementary discount. All documentation can be provided to prove these attempts.

We take considerable pride in offering the highest quality customer service experience for our customers. We therefore truly regret the confusion concerning this customer's account. Please allow us to clarify. We have been in contact with this customer several times since he agreed to begin our lawn...

care program on 7/11 and each point of contact is clearly documented in his account. On July 12 we sent this customer, via regular, first class mail, a written confirmation of his acceptance of our seven (7) treatment program. That letter included our service agreement that identified the seven (7) treatments for which his property was scheduled and the price he had agreed to pay for each treatment. Our lawn care program includes a soil test on the first visit, but treatments continue at regular increments regardless of when the results of the soil test come back to us. No notes were made on this account at the time he agreed to begin our services to hold treatments pending soil test results. Furthermore, a request to hold treatments pending soil test results is contrary to Company policy and procedure and would not have been agreed to if it had been broached by the customer. On 7/18 we spoke with the customer about his initial treatment and the soil test did come up in that conversation. The customer was advised that the results are important to our treatment plan, but the results would take a few weeks to come in. No request was made to hold treatments pending soil test results. The first treatment was completed on 7/27 and the second on 8/11. On 8/12 the customer was sent a Payment Reminder email as well as an After Service email. On 8/15 the customer called in stating that he never agreed to a second treatment, which is standard in our program, and said that he would not pay for that second treatment. Since there is no record of a request nor an agreement to hold treatment pending soil test results, we did not agree to write off his balance. On 8/25 we sent a statement via USPS to the customer's address and on 9/12 we made a 1 month call in effort to collect the balance due. During the 9/12 phone call, the customer stated again that he would not pay for the second treatment and said that if we called or sent him any more communications, he would go to Revdex.com and the consumer affairs department. He was unwilling to discuss the matter further. We made one last attempt later in the day on 9/12 to call the customer and resolve the issue. We left a message on the customer's voicemail that went unanswered. Since the customer no longer wished to communicate with us, we could not resolve the issue and had no choice but to send his balance to collections. While it is clear that the customer agreed to and had services performed on his behalf, at this juncture we have written off the account balance and have halted all collections activity. We hope that our response has satisfactorily addressed all issues brought up in the complaint. Again, we apologize for any confusion or inconvenience that occurred on this customer's account.

To Whom this May Concern:  It is my understanding that [redacted] feels that our service was sold as a trial.  That is just not true.  Our company does not indicate that it is for a trial basis ever.  It is explained by the sales person, the service agreement (which is sent...

the next day), every invoice, every statement, every email, and finally before the next years service starts we send out a letter outlining the services for the upcoming year (which was sent out to them on 1/16/2017). The statement on everyone of these items states "FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE, YOUR SERVICE CONTINUES FROM YEAR TO YEAR".  But as a good business owner I will credit there account for the 131.70. John V[redacted]Owner