On the flip side bad fence companies get Bloggeman pissed and off on a rant. So since it’s been a while let’s start with the incompetence of Alligator Fence Company.
After a search on ServiceMagic.com where we’ve had a lot of success finding good, solid contractors, we decided that Alligator, while a bit more expensive than the others, was the way to go. We spoke to Randy Anderson (douche waffle) to pay the deposit and he said that the crews would start in about four weeks time.
Ok …I get it, there’s a lot of work and this is a small company, no problem. About a week out I called Randy to confirm the actual start date. After a few attempts and a few escalating angry voice mails for him, he had this guy from the “office” call me. The “guy” said, “oh no problem, we’ll be there on Wednesday the 21st to get started but we’ll call on Monday to confirm. Well Monday comes and goes and no call. So I call on Tuesday morning (the 20th) and leave a message that I’d like a call back to confirm work tomorrow. No call.
If you didn’t guess, I get a little agitated when I don’t get calls back, especially when you have a large chunk of my money tied up in a deposit and plan on getting a bit more when you complete a job. After not hearing all day Tuesday, I left a 4pm voice mail giving Alligator until 10am Wednesday morning to arrive to start work or I was calling American Express and challenging the deposit (thankfully Amex knows how to serve their customers!). Of course you know what happens next, 10am Wednesday comes and goes. My first call (at 10:01am) is to Amex who quickly put a challenge on the deposit. The next call was to Mike at Fine Fence.
Mike was our second choice but in reality should have been my first. Fine Fence had better and more reviews then Alligator and for the same price I should have known better. No matter, Mike came right over and reviewed the job. He told me that MissUtility would be out on Friday to mark the lines, and they were there on Friday. He told me his crew would be there on Monday at 9am to start and guess what? 9am yesterday the truck pulls up to the house and the crew jumps out.
Pictures and Video are below so I won’t go into the whole thing but his crew worked all day (including in the rain!!!) and by 6pm I had a new red cedar fence. The worksite was cleaned up, and the whole neighborhood smells like fresh cut cedar. Pretty good job by my standards.
But what to do with Randy and the guys at Alligator Fence? I’ve already blasted them on Service Magic and will proceed to do the same on Yelp, the Better Business Bureau, and some other sites I find. Hopefully I can just “cut-and-paste” one template so as to keep my blood pressure under control. I’d hate to have this great looking back yard and bust a blood vessel in my eye so I can’t enjoy it!
Two lessons for today. 1) Go with the company with the most reviews….more often than not, they are correct and truthful. 2) Don’t piss me off….I can’t take the stress right now!
After a search on ServiceMagic.com where we’ve had a lot of success finding good, solid contractors, we decided that Alligator, while a bit more expensive than the others, was the way to go. We spoke to Randy Anderson (douche waffle) to pay the deposit and he said that the crews would start in about four weeks time.
Ok …I get it, there’s a lot of work and this is a small company, no problem. About a week out I called Randy to confirm the actual start date. After a few attempts and a few escalating angry voice mails for him, he had this guy from the “office” call me. The “guy” said, “oh no problem, we’ll be there on Wednesday the 21st to get started but we’ll call on Monday to confirm. Well Monday comes and goes and no call. So I call on Tuesday morning (the 20th) and leave a message that I’d like a call back to confirm work tomorrow. No call.
If you didn’t guess, I get a little agitated when I don’t get calls back, especially when you have a large chunk of my money tied up in a deposit and plan on getting a bit more when you complete a job. After not hearing all day Tuesday, I left a 4pm voice mail giving Alligator until 10am Wednesday morning to arrive to start work or I was calling American Express and challenging the deposit (thankfully Amex knows how to serve their customers!). Of course you know what happens next, 10am Wednesday comes and goes. My first call (at 10:01am) is to Amex who quickly put a challenge on the deposit. The next call was to Mike at Fine Fence.
Mike was our second choice but in reality should have been my first. Fine Fence had better and more reviews then Alligator and for the same price I should have known better. No matter, Mike came right over and reviewed the job. He told me that MissUtility would be out on Friday to mark the lines, and they were there on Friday. He told me his crew would be there on Monday at 9am to start and guess what? 9am yesterday the truck pulls up to the house and the crew jumps out.
Pictures and Video are below so I won’t go into the whole thing but his crew worked all day (including in the rain!!!) and by 6pm I had a new red cedar fence. The worksite was cleaned up, and the whole neighborhood smells like fresh cut cedar. Pretty good job by my standards.
But what to do with Randy and the guys at Alligator Fence? I’ve already blasted them on Service Magic and will proceed to do the same on Yelp, the Better Business Bureau, and some other sites I find. Hopefully I can just “cut-and-paste” one template so as to keep my blood pressure under control. I’d hate to have this great looking back yard and bust a blood vessel in my eye so I can’t enjoy it!
Two lessons for today. 1) Go with the company with the most reviews….more often than not, they are correct and truthful. 2) Don’t piss me off….I can’t take the stress right now!
fence, a set on Flickr.
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