Powell Tree Care, Inc.

Initial Business Response /* (1001, 14, 2015/07/09) */
First, my apologies on the delay in my reply. In the past, the Revdex.com has sent their correspondence by US Mail, and I had been waiting on a letter to arrive regarding this. Frankly, it has been numerous years since we have received any...

correspondence from the Revdex.com. This email ended up in my spam folder, and I wasn't even aware of it's existence. I did know to expect this letter though, as Mr. Adams immediately threw this threat at us when he didn't get exactly what he thought he deserved, in spite of his actions preventing this work from taking place.
Mr. Adams requested a quote to trim a Silver Maple in his front yard on 4/13/15. On 4/20/15, he hired us to do this work. At that time, he was told that, due to our overwhelming municipal obligations (we have 4 contracts with 3 municipalities and all are active at thist time), that it could take up to 3 business day weeks (excluding weekends and holidays) for his work to be completed, depending upon weather conditions. He was clearly told that if we had incliment weather, the work would take longer to get done as we can not work in the rain, and if we were to get an excessive amount of rain, the ground conditions would not be safe for tree work. We made it very clear that we would not risk damage to ANY of his property in order to trim this tree. When he called on May 6th to check on our progress, I told him that we had been busy with municipal work (as he was already aware), and that we had experienced numerous rain days. I NEVER apologized for "slacking" as he alleges, as we did not do so. Weather conditions are completely out of our control. I also assured him that the work would be done prior to the end of that week. He then informed me that he was leaving for AZ on the 7th, and then attempted to add additional work to his scheduled job that was never priced to begin with.
We showed up the very next day (on May 7th) to attempt to perform this tree trimming, as promised. Whe drove all of the way to his town to do his work only - we had no other jobs pending in his town, so we made a special trip just to fulfill our promise. When we arrived at his house, we found that Mr. Adams had for some reason decided that it was appropriate to park his vehicles directly under the tree that we were hired to trim, which made the work completley impossible for a few reasons.
Our crew attempted to knock on the door to have the vehicles moved just in case someone was watching his house. There was no answer. We wasted well over an hour on his property trying to find a way to trim the tree without risking damage to his vehicles, but it was impossible to do so. Our crew then left a handwritten note at his residence explaining that we could not proceed with the trimming because of the vehicles parked under the tree. This job was priced very low because the tree was right next to the driveway, and truck access to the tree was imperative for us to do this work at that price. Not only were unable to get our bucket truck in his driveway to access the tree because of his vehicles - his vehicles were parked directly under branches that needed to be cut. The liability for damage to his vehicles was far too great to risk. No tree company in their right mind would attempt to trim a tree with vehicles parked directly underneath it, because the resident would inevitably find something wrong with the vehicles, and then attempt to file an insurance claim for damages.
Mr. Adams then called us claiming that his parents received a note saying that we didn't know which tree to trim. As he stated, there is only one Maple in his front yard, and since our crew is very aware of tree species, the tree that needed trimming was beyond obvious (a Male is a Maple is a Maple - there was absolutely no question as to which tree should be trimmed). I then wrote Mr. Adams a note explaining the situation, and why the work wasn't done - because he left his vehicles under the tree. I asked him to forward a copy of the note he claims his parents received for consideration as our crew swears that they knew exactly what tree to trim, but were not able to access it due to his decision to leave his vehicles parked underneath it, and the note that they left stated the same. Common sense would dictate that you do not leave expensive vehicles parked under a tree that you hired someone to trim. As we had already wasted a good amount of time and money attempting to do a job that we were unable to do due to his poor decision to park his cars under that tree, we nicely suggested that it would be in his best interest to hire the tree company who had given him the next lowest quote, as we would not make another special trip out to his property. At this point, we had alrady lost time and money trying to do this job. We had already paid our crew to drive to his house, and we had wasted gas, and time that we could have used to do other work. We showed up, when promised, to do a job that Mr. Adams made impossible to do.
I have yet to receive a copy of the note Mr. Adams claims his parents received. Mr. Adams then continued to call to bully and harass us, and threaten us with leaving bad reviews all over the internet if we didn't run back out there and do his job. He even went so far as to call from someone else's cell phone, and misrepresent his identity. I had made it clear to him that we would no longer discuss this work, and yet he went on a crusade to not take no for an answer.
Up until Mr. Adams decided to resort to his underhanded tactics of threatening, bullying and harassing us, there was a slight possibility that I could have talked the owner into revisiting his property, but his actions, and his actions alone are the reason why his work was not done when we showed up to do it. And his follow up actions of attempting to strong arm us into getting his way in spite of our wasted time and money precluded any possibility of us being willing to work for him.
Mr. Adams seems to live by the montra that the customer is always right. That is now a law, and it is not a constitutional right. It was an advertising campaign started by a company in England in the late 1800s. IF Mr. Adams had had the foresight to park his vehicles anywhere other than under a tree he had hired us to trim, his job would have been done well over a month ago, and I wouldn't be writing this essay on the Revdex.com site. Companies have rights to, and one of those rights is to not provided services to someone who bullies, threatens, misrepresents their identity, and tries to strong arm them. Companies do have the right to refuse their services to anyone who is an obvious problem waiting to happen. There are a lot of other tree companies out there, and instead of going on a crusade to destroy a company who did everything in their power to fulfill a promise, but could not do so due to their potential customer's very bad decision, it would have been in his best interest to just move on and hire someone else. IF Mr. Adams had apologized for his actions, this may have had a different outcome, but he resorted to threats instead.
I also find it extraordinarly interesting that a consumer is allowed to file a complaint against a company who did nothing whatsoever to harm them, and did everything in their power to satisfy them and protect their property, but could not do so due to that consumer's poor and ill informed decisions.
I have copies of ALL of my correspondence with Mr. Adams, including his original proposal, and both letters that I sent him, which he apparently ignored thinking that threatening us with internet complaints slamming us for refusing to risk damage to his vehicles and his property would scare us into complying with his demands. I would be more than happy to forward that correspondence to you if you wish to see it.
In short - we showed up to do a job, within a reasonable time frame that was well within our stated guidelines. Mr. Adams made a very poor decision, and made performing that work impossible. We have absolutely no desire, at this point, after his nasty, bullying, threatening tactics, to ever attempt to perofrm any work for him again. The letters that I have written to Mr. Adams, including this Revdex.com response, the amount of time and gas that our crew wasted trying to do this job has well exceeded the cost of this job to begin with. Our crews do not work for free, and our worker's comp and liability insurance rates are ridiculously expensive due to the type of business we are in. We have already lost a great deal of money and time on Mr. Adams. And, as previously stated, it would be in his best interest to hire a different company, and to ensure that he leaves them adequate access to the tree by not leaving his vehicles parked underneath it.
Thank you, and please let me know if you have questions, or require any additional information, as I will be more than happy to forward it.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 21, 2015/07/20) */
as you can tell by her complete defensive manner throughout her entire rambling letter that something is wrong here. All I wanted was a phone call from this woman, she could have called the day they showed up and said that the vehicle was in the way... the vehicle was parked on the far back corner of the lot, away from the tree. but if that was the case all she needed to do was call or respond to one of my many phone calls and messages. I had brown tree service come out, paid more money and had no hassle and complete COMMUNICATION with people. I had a friend call and leave a message about a tree to be removed completely and she called him back immidiatedly, and I called her before and after that call just pleading her for some communication bc all I had was a business card with someones scribble on it.... still upset about this and especially with her letter, its disgusting really.
Final Business Response /* (4000, 23, 2015/07/30) */
Jon, I was not aware of this situation until after the fact. I am not kept apprised of everything that happens on a minute by minute basis at every job that we do. I wrote you a letter regarding the problems we encountered on your property as soon as I was made aware of them. My crew stated that they did attempt to call you when they were not able to do your work due to the cars in the way, but got no answer. That is why they left the note. Even if they had reached you on the telephone, how would you have affected this problem from Tucson?
Other than paying another tree company to do this work for you, you were out $0 in this entire incident. We are out money, time and fuel because of it. We paid a foreman, a bucket operator and 3 crew members to go to your house with a bucket truck, a chipper and dump truck and a pick up truck only to find that we could not do this job because your cars were in the way, and we had no access to your tree. The time we spent at your property could have been spent doing other jobs.
You falsely accused our crew of not knowing which tree to trim, which was not the case. You left threatening phone calls, and falsely represented yourself on the phone. You were combative and condescending.
I am glad that you moved on and got your work done by another company, and that you are pleased with the results. I will not continue to fight with you back and forth via the Revdex.com as this situation really doesn't even apply to them - you just want a public forum in which to continue to fight about this. Again - our attempt to complete your work cost you nothing, but we are out time and money because of it, and I am still spending time on this answering your complaints that I should be devoting to other issues. I am sorry you were disappointed - we were too. I am also sorry that you were disgusted - we are too.
Since your work has been done, and you are happy, don't you think that it is time to let this go and move on? I am quite sure that you have more important things to do than to continue a crusade against us because you didn't get what you wanted.
I am sorry that this did not work out, but I do wish you the best. Emjoy the rest of your summer, and good luck with everything.