My husband and I discovered that part of the wood around our kitchen window had been eaten away from the inside and there were some type of droppings consistently accumulating on the windowsill. We were afraid of a termite infestation and called Terminix to come out and perform a free inspection. From the moment the inspector got into my home, I felt that he was pushy and "shmoozy" but I decided to give it a chance. He inspected my home and found no signs of termite infestation in the basement, the walls or anywhere else he looked. However, when I showed him my window he said it was termite activity and wrote down in his report that he'd seen termite activity.
He then proceeded the hard sell. He was trying to sell me insulation as well, and quoted me a price of about $2,000. He gave me financing options, and it wasn't until I directly asked that he admitted there was an 18% interest charge on the financing. I told him over and over again I had to speak to my husband first, but he wanted to set up an appointment as a placeholder so we could get the work done if we decided to do it. I agreed, and he had me sign this little electronic pad he had to check if I was eligible for the financing and hold the date. Then he went out to his car and printed out the paperwork and left it on my kitchen table. Right after he left I got a message on my phone from his manager saying that they couldn't do the date we had selected (which was 5 days out) and he had put my job on the books for the next morning. He said if he didn't hear from me he would assume that was ok. Seriously? I called the number he gave me and it was a generic number for Terminix, so I couldn't reach him directly. I called the guy who had set up the date for me, and he was very pushy about wanting to get the job in. I became uncomfortable and restated that I wanted to talk to my husband first. He said ok.
Upon reading the paperwork that evening I discovered several things. First, I had apparently signed a contract saying that they would do the work! I was shocked. I know I was at fault for not asking more questions about what I was signing, but he had me sign a little electronic pad with no visible instructions or paragraphs, and he didn't even tell me that I was signing a contract! There was a cancellation form, but you had to deliver it to the head office (which was 60 miles away) within 3 days. I was furious. I had told him I still needed approval from my husband, so why would he think I was okay with signing a contract? Second, he had told me numerous times during his spiel that Terminix would cover any reoccurrence of the termites, but he never even mentioned that I would have to pay a yearly fee of $225 for that protection service.
I called the Terminix number immediately to voice my frustration, only to discover that I was also still on the books for the job the next morning even though I'd told him I couldn't do that! And they said they didn't know if they could cancel it because it was after 9 pm. Needless to say, I spent a somewhat sleepless night, and my husband was forced to drive my cancellation form all the way to their main office the next day.
Today I had a guy from JP, Erlich, come out and he told me within one minute that the damage at my window was from carpenter ants. He explained why he knew that, and quoted me a price of $275 to treat it, which was much lower than the $2,000 plan Terminix was trying to push on me! I was so mad when he left because I realized that the Terminix guy was either not skilled enough to even identify the pest problem I had or was outright misleading, lying to me to try to sell me expensive services. You draw your own conclusions, but based on his shady behavior all around I have a suspicion. So, in the end we have ants, not termites. We will never do any business with Terminix again. We're relieved that we did not give them a dime.
