Ned Stevens Gutter Cleaning & General Contracting, Inc.

The return trip and requested repair has been performed, and said repair has been fully documented by multiple photographs and statements from the returning crew.  This matter has now been turned over to our outside attorneys.

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:
We did not ask you to do this work.  I told your customer service representative that the work was not authorized.  Your customer service representative went through my tenant and told her that someone at Ned Stevens had already spoken to me about the work.  This representative left out the part about the work not being authorized, proceeded to schedule the work with my tenant, and had my tenant give Ned Stevens a deposit and payment for the job.
Regards,
[redacted]

Calling us a "scam" is terrible.  We provide a service when people request it, and that's what we did here.  On 9/1/2015 at 1:40 P.M. you asked us to clean the gutters in the fall.  We reviewed the recorded call and we even sent it to you so you could hear it and you...

agreed in a later call that the service was authorized.  So thinking that you wanted service, we sent a crew to your house who did the job.  But you said you tur[redacted] them away because it was too early, so we agreed to come out a SECOND time, for no extra charge (that call was on 11/20 at 12:29 P.M.).  And in December we came out AGAIN.  So that's 2 crews, 4 men, driving to your home in our busiest time when so many others are patiently waiting for service, to perform a service you requested twice, on recorded calls for anyone and everyone to hear, and yet we are somehow running a scam?  Again. that's truly terrible of you to say.  We did every single thing you asked of us, and did so twice, and in the end the job was credited (which we told you on 12/14 at 11:26 A.M.) So, unlike others who received our service only once, you will pay nothing for having us to your house twice.  We agree with you that we will never service your house again.

You have reported the wrong company to the Revdex.com.  We have only been to your house once on 5/20/10 for a service you requested and paid for.  We have not been back to your home since that day.  Please notify the Revdex.com of your mistake and withdraw your complaint against us.  Thank...

you.

This issue is not resolved, I have had no communications with Ned Stevens

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:We did not ask you to do this work.  I told your customer service representative that the work was not authorized.  Your customer service representative went through my tenant and told her that someone at Ned Stevens had already spoken to me about the work.  This representative left out the part about the work not being authorized, proceeded to schedule the work with my tenant, and had my tenant give Ned Stevens a deposit and payment for the job.
Regards,
[redacted]

With all due respect, November 26th is the perfect time to have your gutters cleaned, and it is the time slot that most of our customers desire.  The reason most people want this spot is because the leaves are more than 80% down by that point.   I have no doubt that there was debris in your gutters on November 26th.  If not from your trees, then from all the neighboring trees.  However, if you still feel that we arrived too early, we are willing to come back as soon as possible, weather permitting, and re-clean the gutters at your home at no additional cost (just the cost for the November service).  I think this is a fair offer and result.

As I am sure you can imagine, we have been battling the weather every day.  Freezing temperatures and snow create safety risks that we cannot take.  However, the weather is good today and we will get your job done today barring some unforeseen circumstance.  Thank you for your...

patience and we are very sorry for the delay.

The only thing that is sad here is the fact that, despite all our best efforts, it is impossible to make this person happy. There was not one belligerent phone call, and I invite the Revdex.com, as I did all Yelpers, to listen to the phone calls for themselves so that they can hear the truth (the...

calls can be emailed very simply).  The calls show the opposite of what this person says: they show a company struggling to deal with an incredibly difficult customer (probably the most difficult we have faced in years) who hangs up on customer service staff trying to help her.   And speaking of Yelp, we have close to 50 4-5 star reviews that were filtered by Yelp via their own internal filtering process.  We are a 4+ star company on Yelp if it were not for their filtering process (which is why they are the subject of numerous class action lawsuits which we soon are joining).  We are A+ rated by the Revdex.com because most of our customers love us, and rightfully so:  for 50 years we have worked very hard to make every customer happy.So what did we do here to try our best to make this customer happy?  We sent out our head QC Manager to each house multiple times to re-clean, re-repair and re-inspect, and he has relayed that the jobs were perfect.  But, as stated, you can't make everyone happy, no matter how hard you try, especially when they simply don't want to pay a bill for services rendered.As we have advised this customer already, her 1.5% service charge continues to grow.  And just as Arlington Properties would expect payment for services rendered, we expect the same, and are prepared to proceed with collections and litigation.

We have been doing this work for 50 years, and if our crew found a problem, then we believe there was a problem.  We will send out our QC Manager in the next few days to inspect the job and double check the information given by the foreman who did the work.  If the information given by the...

crew was wrong, they will be suspended or fired.  We do not take our job lightly.  Note that there is no incentive to either the crew or the phone operator to sell the work.  If we find a problem, we report it.  It's that simple.  After the QC inspection that is performed, we will contact you and let you know what we found.  While I cannot think of a time we have ever been wrong, it doesn't mean that the crew here did not make a mistake (such as entering information for the wrong house).  Again, we will let you know what our QC Manager finds after his inspection.

This company does not do what they claim. First they come on site with a crew that had limited ability to communicate due to a spoken language barrier. Next we had to point out clog areas that at first they claimed did not exist and then after being told went back and cleaned those areas out. Their claim of providing a complete gutter system inspection is joke. We called them knowing of at least three specific issues and did not report any of them as existing. Would not recommend this company to anyone.

We are sorry that you had a bad experience.  We have already suspended the crew indefinitely based on your call yesterday.  The customer is always right, and if the customer says they left a mess, they are suspended without pay.  As for the telephone call with the agent, most calls...

are recorded for quality assurance, and I will review the call to see if the agent was completely clear about the separate screen removal cost.  If not, you will be refunded for the screen removal cost and the agent will be suspended without pay as well.  We are A+ rated and in business for 50 years.  We have been able to grow due based on our customers’ happiness, and the majority of our new customers statistically come to us by way of ‘word of mouth.’  Again, we are sorry you are upset and I will be in touch with you about the call once I have reviewed it.

While we are sorry you are upset, there are some very simple and logical explanations as to what happened, despite the fact that you don't want to believe us.  We were hired to clean the gutters and re-nail one gutter (for $35, not for $50.)  The gutters were cleaned.  The gutter...

hanging off the house could not simply be re-nailed, it had to be replaced (as often is the case and which you said you were aware that it needed to be replaced).  As such, we quoted you a price to replace the gutter, offering you a credit for the $35 re-nailing fee.  You did not want to replace the gutter because you did not like the fact that we would not tell you when we were 15 minutes from the house.  For reasons too numerous to explain, we do not call customers when we are on the way to the house.  We follow our business model (and we have an A+ rating so we are generally making customers happy.)  The fact that we came back was a data entry error by our newest phone operator.  Instead of cancelling the return service, he left the job as 'pending.'  He has been disciplined accordingly, but it was a simple mistake (and there would have been no charge for the service anyway, so it was our cost, not yours.)  Because we could not re-nail the gutter, the $35 charge was credited.  In the end, the gutters were cleaned and the re-nailing was credited.  It is not fair to refuse payment for the cleaning service that was requested and performed.  As such, should the charge back be honored, the matter will be sent to a debt collector.  Please call us and ask for a manager if you would like to discuss this matter.  Thank you.

We are sorry you are upset.  We do not ever want to do a job that a customer does not want us to do.  Doing so would not only upset a customer, but both jeopardizes the safety of our crews and delays service for other customers who are waiting.  Therefore, I assure you that we...

didn't know that you didn't want the job to be done.
Here, the cleaning schedule was authorized and approved with the customer verbally and an email confirmation of the schedule was sent.  The customer was advised that we would arrive automatically for each service.   The customer was also advised that changes to the schedule must be made by calling the company.  Specifically, the email stated "**Please do not reply to this e-mail, as responses are not monitored.  Any changes to your schedule must be made by calling 800.542.0267, 7 days a week**"
We did not receive the customer's email stating that they cancelled the schedule.  As such, as promised on the phone and by email, we arrived and performed the service. Arabic Bulgarian Catalan Chinese Simplified Chinese Traditional Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Finnish French German Greek Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hmong Daw Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Klingon Klingon (pIqaD) Korean Latvian Lithuanian Malay Maltese Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swedish Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese

We do not perform any service unless it is clearly authorized by the customer.  For our customers' convenience, we pre-schedule service for future dates if the customer authorizes us to do so.  The June service that this customer is disputing was clearly authorized by [redacted] on...

December 11, 2014 at 7:50am.  All calls are recorded for quality assurance and we have reviewed the call.  The customer was aware that we would come out automatically for the June service (as we did for the fall service), and at 5:52 in the call, she specifically requested we arrive some time in the middle of June. The customer asked when she would be billed for the June service and at 6:10 she was told that we would leave a bill for her in the door when the job was complete.In the end, all we did was exactly what we were told to do. The call is available for review any time and can be emailed.  If you would like to review the call, please email your request to [redacted]

I run this entire company and I personally handle this customer, having sent probably 30+ emails back and forth.  I have responded to multiple threats, accusations, and written defamatory statements, all in an attempt to resolve her issues (which change with nearly every email.) Quite simply,...

this customer will never be satisfied. The gutters were installed perfectly and there are absolutely no issues with the material or installation.  The problem she is having with the gutters now is due to neglect:  they have not been cleaned in quite some time.  Whens gutters are clogged, they overflow - it's that simple.  Furthermore, we cannot inspect and run water through gutters that are filled with debris, and she has been notified of same in writing.  Once she has them cleaned the gutters we will be able to inspect the system.  Note that we will not perform any gutter cleaning service for this customer at any cost.  Also, if her gutters worked perfectly fine in the past, there would have been no need to call us to replace all the gutters.  Regardless, she has been notified that she must clean her gutters and then we can return to inspect them.

I can only tell you that we never knew that the job was not authorized.  We were asked to do a job, paid a deposit, we did the job and we were paid in full.  We did not know that the person who called us did not have the authority to book the work.  What is the tenant saying about this?  Did they know they were not allowed to book the work?  Does the lease allow them to book work without your permission?  Again, we were only doing what we thought the homeowner wanted us to do.

Our Quality Assurance manager reached out to this customer to explain that this was a free return visit to the home.  The customer had requested that we come back out to the home during the fall gutter cleaning service because the customer had felt we came out too early.  (See Notes from...

agent "2/10/2018 2:14 P.M. Emailed a response to Ms explaining that this was a return visit done at no cost based on her call to our office in Nov stating that we came too early. Included a $0 bal inv to show it was done at no add cost. smithg"   The customer has no bill balance with us and was not charged for this service.  We fully guarantee all of our work and were returning to the home free of charge based off of a request from the fall.  Please see attached the bill with a zero dollar balance as our head of quality assurance indicated back in February.

Review: I called [redacted] to get an estimate for a gutter cleaning and they mentioned that the gutters on the lower level of the house should be replaced. I told them that this was a rental property, the work to replace the gutters was not authorized, and that it was something the other landlord and I needed to agree on. The tenant called up to schedule the gutter cleaning and [redacted] told my tenant that they had already spoken to me about the gutter replacement and that the work was just waiting for approval, which was not at all the case. They took her calling in to schedule a gutter cleaning as that approval. They completely forced the work on my tenant. The work they did cost a substantial amount of money. I would never have agreed to let them do this work without getting other estimates first. I have called [redacted] several times and they claim they have no fault in this situation.Desired Settlement: I think [redacted] should issue a full refund.

Business

Response:

We have searched for your account by address, phone number and email and we can't locate the account. Can you please give us the property address that we serviced? Thank you.Although I haven't been in the account, we don't 'force' work on anyone. We give customers their options and they make a decision as to how they want to proceed. We also usually secure a deposit in part to ensure authorization. We have been in business for over 50 years and we are A+ rated - we are not here to play any games. Once we locate your account, we can review the call and see exactly what was said. We are happy to share that call with you once we get your account information.

Consumer

Response:

[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.]

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted]. The property address is [redacted]

Regards,

Consumer

Response:

Review: [redacted]

I am rejecting this response because:We did not ask you to do this work. I told your customer service representative that the work was not authorized. Your customer service representative went through my tenant and told her that someone at Ned Stevens had already spoken to me about the work. This representative left out the part about the work not being authorized, proceeded to schedule the work with my tenant, and had my tenant give Ned Stevens a deposit and payment for the job.

Regards,

Business

Response:

I can only tell you that we never knew that the job was not authorized. We were asked to do a job, paid a deposit, we did the job and we were paid in full. We did not know that the person who called us did not have the authority to book the work. What is the tenant saying about this? Did they know they were not allowed to book the work? Does the lease allow them to book work without your permission? Again, we were only doing what we thought the homeowner wanted us to do.

Review: I had contracted with Ned Stevens to perform gutter cleaning. they performed the service times. It got to the point that they came quicker that I needed so I asked they contact me before coming. they continued to come and and performed the service even after I had sent email asking them to stop.

They are now billing for that even though it was requested through their email to stop.

They say they did not get email from me.Desired Settlement: remove the charges for this service that was never requested.

Business

Response:

We are sorry you are upset. We do not ever want to do a job that a customer does not want us to do. Doing so would not only upset a customer, but both jeopardizes the safety of our crews and delays service for other customers who are waiting. Therefore, I assure you that we didn't know that you didn't want the job to be done.

Here, the cleaning schedule was authorized and approved with the customer verbally and an email confirmation of the schedule was sent. The customer was advised that we would arrive automatically for each service. The customer was also advised that changes to the schedule must be made by calling the company. Specifically, the email stated "**Please do not reply to this e-mail, as responses are not monitored. Any changes to your schedule must be made by calling 800.542.0267, 7 days a week**"

We did not receive the customer's email stating that they cancelled the schedule. As such, as promised on the phone and by email, we arrived and performed the service. Arabic Bulgarian Catalan Chinese Simplified Chinese Traditional Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Finnish French German Greek Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hmong Daw Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Klingon Klingon (pIqaD) Korean Latvian Lithuanian Malay Maltese Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swedish Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese

Consumer

Response:

This issue is not resolved, I have had no communications with Ned Stevens

Business

Response:

Thank you for your response. What is it you are waiting for from us? We are here 7 days a week, happy to talk to you to discuss this matter. Call ###-###-#### and ask for the Manager named [redacted]. Thanks.