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HomeAdvisor is an online resource that helps residents find reliable home repair or improvement services in their area. HomeAdvisor has service providers in multiple categories on its site, from maid services to HVAC repair, and screens each one to make sure you end up working with a trustworthy provider. It also backs its platform with a Happiness Guarantee.
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- Instant online scheduling
- Happiness Guarantee
- Doesn’t show all companies in area
- Limited options in some locations
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Reviewed Dec. 6, 2012
I requested paint, carpet, landscape, fence, and roof repair. Three or four companies called me to book appointment and were very nice. Home Advisor calls me and says, “What is going on here? We are not giving you bids without a closing date.” One carpet company told me they would love to come and they have been doing work for Coldwell Banker for 15 years and had no problem with coming at all! He was Abbey Carpet, very professional.
We are trying to get estimates for the buyers to remodel a property, and they completely refused and said they were taking it out of the system. I have used Service Magic for 5+ years and it used to be wonderful. It is too bad it is now Home Advisor. I would never put a request for quotes without actually needing the work. I am on commission too, and my fiancé is the general contractor sales manager for the 21 Home Depots. We constantly go on bids and never tell a consumer we won't come if "I cannot lock in a deal". Unbelievable!
I read the reviews after this call, and you will see it looks like a new trend for this website. Contractors and users, I would now be careful as it has changed. It is no big deal, but I just wasted an hour taking calls, emails, setting appointments, and now cancelled! I am not angry but just want people to know I am very dissatisfied at the least to be honorable. I think their contractors/vendors should know about this. The last contractor we hired made $70,000! We put 4-5 homes on the market a month!
Reviewed Nov. 27, 2012
We used ServiceMagic/HomeAdvisor to find a professional painter. This painter caused over $2,500 worth of damage by painting latex over oil paint. It immediately peeled and the painter refused to correct the issue. He was paid in full and insisted the job was complete. Look at the pictures! We contacted ServiceMagic about their guarantee and submitted a poor review on the painter. They refused to post the review. We sent ServiceMagic all the information they requested. We were told we'd hear from them in 24-48 hours. One month later, we still hadn't heard so we called them. They hadn't even reviewed our information. Then we were told that we would get a minimum of the $500 ServiceMagic guarantee, which we were later told they wouldn't honor. Never use ServiceMagic!
Reviewed Nov. 27, 2012
Service Magic/HomeAdvisor is a scam. They talk you into giving them banking/credit card information and say they're not going to charge you anything unless you get jobs, but charge you anyway. When you try to cancel, they refuse to let you, so you have to hassle with fighting it with your bank or credit card. I also got a letter claiming (from HomeAdvisor) I owed them $179.22. When I called, they refused to drop their false claim and said they'd send it to collections. Now, I'm having to fight it through the Better Business Bureau. At no point were they honest nor did I receive any jobs, yet they charged and threatened anyway.
Reviewed Oct. 30, 2012
I have been with ServiceMagic for only a few months. I had several bad leads and was only credited for 1. I had a recent experience with a customer who volunteered to give me a deposit for supplies for his job. I told the customer that I would be out of town for 2 weeks and would complete the job when I returned, and he was fine with that. I asked if he wanted a receipt for the deposit, he said no.
The day after I left town, I received a text, several nasty voicemail messages, and several emails saying that the customer was dissatisfied and wanted a refund. I emailed the company back the situation and left it at that. Within a few days, they had taken the money out of my bank account! Long story short, if things are working out for you, great! If not, or you are considering these inept rip-off artists, don’t do it!
Reviewed Oct. 26, 2012
We own a landscaping company and joined Service Magic now known as Home Advisor Pros. I have gotten many leads and would say majority of them are a waste or not real leads at all. For instance, I call as soon as the text comes in and email. I made sure I was in charge of these leads as I wanted to track them to see if this marketing way was our best way to go. Out of five, two would never answer phone at all or respond to emails. In fact, many we would try to find and no such place or person. Then, one of those leads would be out of my license allows me to do, so I would have to decline it and ask for a credit back. It is a horrible fight to get credit backs as like one I had nobody ever answered phone or returned a call or email at all and it was a double contact. They credit me one but said it was a viable lead. So next one came in, it was not even a house at all.
The worst one yet is I got two back to back both with very suspicious emails both wanted walls over five feet to six feet tall. Well, in California, that is against the law to have a c27-licensed contractor do those, so I submitted both back for credit. Well, I got an email saying one was credit, the other was not due to I did not submit right. So, I did the live chat telling them I wanted this corrected. They say "nothing I could do" but they were sorry. I got on phone, called them, and a lady told me sorry once submitted and denied, "Nothing I could do." Okay, to say I was a little upset was a huge mistake; I was furious. I asked to speak to her boss. If that was not good enough, then their boss. So, a Gerome came on and told me after explaining their reason, sorry but I would not get a credit. I said I would take this to court. It is a principle.
He told me they are worldwide and not their fault if California law tells us we have more restrictions on walls. They do not have filters to fix that. It is fair to say hard to filter but credit me now that I told you it is against the law for me to go to this house, put up a 6-foot tall wall. I will lose my license, get fined, or go to jail. Gerome tells me, "Well, it is your choice to get the right license. It is your choice." I asked, "Are you joking? Even if I wanted to get that license as engineer, I could not get for a very long time and what do I do? Tell customer, 'Oh, wait I need to get bigger license to help you,' even though Service Magic thinks I can?" I said to Gerome, "I am asking you if this is the way you handle these." He said, "Yes." I said, "If you do not credit me, I am taking you to court and I will go public on the media." He then said, "I told you I would this one time credit you back." I said, "No, you said you would help me and went on to tell me why you cannot help."
It took me threatening to get action. He did say I could pay more for a lead and have choice to accept or not. I wish a lawyer, a television show, someone with clout would investigate them deeply. Can you imagine this account I was charged $54.95? How many of those amounts times how many people? They are huge cons. I am going over every account I got from them as I printed them all out, kept notes on calls, emails, etc. and credits, etc. I really think Americans have companies that are hurting us when we are most vulnerable and in need to survive. This is not just a complaint. It is a cry for help in investigating them deeply.
Reviewed Oct. 25, 2012
I was a ServiceMagic/Home Advisor professional for a number of years and after paying for leads that almost universally ended up being dead ends, I finally terminated my relationship with them. The facts are I paid for well over 200 leads from these guys over the last 5 years and the vast majority of them ended up being bogus - either from customers who were uncommitted to moving forward with a project of any sort. Or, I was simply never able to reach the customer in the first place. Easily, 1/3 of the leads I paid for resulted in a dead end, no contact and I am out $60. And the majority of the other leads were from folks who were obviously kicking the tires with no intention of executing a project with anyone. Maybe 12 leads from these guys over 5 years actually resulted in a project. Not a great batting average.
After several phone calls complaining about the quality of the leads they were sending, I finally had enough of their rhetoric and excuses. I understand the business model they sell; I'm only paying for an introduction and nothing more. I also understand that they sell a lead several times so it is a beauty contest once I actually meet with a customer. My contention is that ServiceMagic does a horrific job screening potential consumers before they sell a lead, because there is an inherent conflict of interest in their business model - no customer, no lead to sell, no cash flow. They will tell you otherwise, but they also will not offer refunds when confronted with the undeniable reality that they sold yet another bogus lead. They best you can get is an 'in-store' credit for yet another lead. Really, if you want to test the veracity of these folks, sign up and give it a whirl for yourself.
When you call to file a complaint, they are extremely defensive of their reputation and will not seriously listen to your feedback. The morons I spoke with on the phone continuously shrilled the company line about how sorry they were to see me go, what could they do better, that other professionals were not having the same problem, blah, blah, blah. But ultimately, ServiceMagic is simply unwilling to meet you halfway and really is unwilling to do much about the poor quality of the leads they send. Don't believe me; take a look at the volumes of complaints on this and similar consumer fraud sites.
In the end, a business relationship with ServiceMagic really is a one sided affair that amounts to a take-it-or-leave-it attitude on their part. So buyers beware. You often pay to play in professional services but there is a lot of room for improvement with these guys. Spend your money somewhere else and avoid the headaches.
Reviewed Oct. 18, 2012
Service Magic has contacted me many times to start an account with them and each time, I turned them down as we were doing well creating our own job leads. When we started to catch up on jobs, I received a call from Bo at Service Magic and he proceeded to tell me how great Service Magic was for contractors just like me. I did not expect anything other than a sales pitch but listened to Bo. I did decide to try them for this reason. I told Bo of my concern with this type of lead generation service; that they would just spam me with job leads that I would be stuck paying for. He told me that they did not work that way and that I could expect 4-5 leads per month.
I believe we received 5 leads in 4 days. I then called and instructed them to stop my leads, but I was informed this could take up to 24 hours to take effect. We did receive another lead before they stopped, which I called in for a credit. I called each customer as soon as the text hit my phone. I did get in contact with 3 of the 5, but the other two had area codes outside of Arizona. They only had voicemail set up that repeated back the phone number I had just dialed and asked to leave a message. I did leave messages and even tried texting and e-mailing the customers but never got a reply. I kept trying to contact these people about their projects but never got a response.
When you stop your leads, they can only stay paused for a short amount of time and will reactivate, or you have to cancel your account to stop them permanently. I did allow them to turn it back on, as I really wanted to see if the poor leads that we got the first time were the usual with Service Magic or maybe just a bad run. It did not take long to start receiving those out of state area code leads again, with the exact same results as before; no one answered an immediate phone call, and none ever contacted me back via phone, text message or email. I was highly suspicious of these leads. I cannot believe that these leads were legit, because every bad lead that came from Service Magic came from an area code outside of Arizona and they all had voicemail set up the exact same way (the computer announcing the phone number you have dialed and asking to leave a message).
None of these people ever contacted me back in any way, shape, or form, and yet I was still expected to pay for these bad leads. I did call these leads in for a credit and was under the impression that they would be credited. I then canceled my account. Weeks later, I received a letter stating that my account was past due and because of the numerous times they have tried to contact me, my account would be going in to collections. Up until this letter arrived I was not contacted; and the fact that I was under the impression that the bad leads would be credited to my account, I had no idea that I had a balance with Service Magic. To their credit the customer service representative, though hostile with me at first, seemed to try to get credits for my leads. He did call me back the next day and informed me that upper management would not credit my account for what I believed to be scam leads, and that I would have to pay them the amount due or face collections.
I have to believe that Service Magic is not in business to make customers angry and then scam them with leads in order to chalk up more revenue, and if the contractors refuse to pay, to simply sell them to collection agencies who buy this debt. I also find it hard to believe that every bad lead had the exact same set up - no answer to any type of messaging. In the end, I would not recommend Service Magic to any contractor and I regret ever doing business with them.
Reviewed Sept. 26, 2012
ServiceMagic charged me $105.00 on August 17. I called the company to get a refund due to the fact that I canceled the account. They do not do refunds. For 5 days straight, I called to try to resolve this problem due to the account being closed because they were no help in getting me any leads that panned out to a job. August 25 and 27, they proceeded to charge me again, $186.00 and $77.00. I called my credit card company to try and dispute this, but my credit card company pretty much said I was screwed and had no choice but to pay. ServiceMagic said, since I never canceled my account, I had to pay August fees. Needless to say, it doesn’t matter - I am screwed, and nobody will answer a phone there.
Reviewed Sept. 23, 2012
I gave ServiceMagic a second chance to do business with me, but ServiceMagic did not even honor a written agreement. No one at ServiceMagic wanted to resolve the issue. No one at ServiceMagic ever called me back after I made several calls and sent emails to Darrick and customer service. And then ServiceMagic sent me the following email:
“Final notice! Because we have not received a response to numerous inquiries regarding your outstanding balance, your account is now being staged to go to an external collections agency within the next few days. To pay your balance and avoid having your account sent to our outside Collection Agency, having additional collection fees and/or litigation fees assessed and possibly a negative reporting against your credit, please provide a valid method of payment below or call Customer Service toll-free at (877) 947-3639. Account summary: XX. Current balance due: $1,336.55. This is your final opportunity to resolve the matter.”
In this complaint, events are described in chronological order. Consumers’ information is deleted from emails for their protection and is displayed as "consumers' information." My name is Trung and I am the owner of AC Pro (licensed HVAC contractor) in Huntsville, Alabama. I am writing this complaint to ServiceMagic because I have been set up, lied to, and entrapped by an "online marketing consultant" named Darrick from ServiceMagic. I will also report this incident to the Better Business Bureau and other organizations that ServiceMagic belongs to. I previously enrolled with ServiceMagic in 2010, but I cancelled it because I got one lead which I called the customer back within 30 seconds and the customer said that she just made an appointment with another HVAC contractor. Since then, representatives from ServiceMagic called me to re-enroll with the company. But I refused to do so because I did not want to deal with the hassles and frustrations.
Around the end of May and the beginning of June of 2012, Darrick called me several times and asked me to re-enroll with ServiceMagic. I told him the bad experience that I had with ServiceMagic and did not want to do business with the company anymore. But Darrick kept calling and asked me to work with him and that he will take care of everything at ServiceMagic for me. I told Darrick that the only way I will do business with ServiceMagic is if I only pay for leads that turned into jobs and that I do not have to pay for leads that do not turn into jobs. Darrick told me that he had to discuss and get clearance from his manager. On Monday, June 11, 2012 at 11:17 am, Darrick sent me a written agreement in an email. Below is an excerpt of the email (copied and pasted the original email): “You can call me at this number if the call is negative and I will get the lead credited back to your account. My number is ** and this is my email.”
Darrick called me for his follow-up. I told him that I was going to have the leads turned on by Wednesday. Darrick called me on Wednesday and told me that I had to do the enrollment via telephone and that he would instruct me what to say/answer at certain questions during the enrollment process due to the special agreement that we had. I reiterated the written agreement with Darrick to make sure that ServiceMagic would honor the written agreement and that it was the only agreement that I had with ServiceMagic and that I did not get screwed. Darrick concurred. So, I went through the enrollment process with Darrick. I started getting leads on my cellphone. A lot of the calls were negative. So, after work, I took my time to compile lists of calls that did not turn into jobs and sent them to Darrick. The following are the emails that were exchanged between Darrick and me. I emailed Darrick to please credit the following negative calls: **. Darrick’s reply to me on June 25 is this: “Got it and will get this taken care of.”
I emailed Darrick that things are not working out too well. There were a lot of leads sent to my email address, but not to my cell phone number. For some leads, I had to click on the "accept" button to see the leads because it exceeded the limit. Most of the calls were for price shopping. Most of the leads do not have the lead numbers. I can only list the names. Here are the leads that need to be credited to my account: **. For the above leads, I think it hurt my company's reputation when the customers requested for service but never got response from my company. I need to discuss it with you about this. On the positive side, I did have an install for Jimmy ** and a service call for Phil **. I will pay for those leads. I told him that I will call him. Darrick’s reply on July 2 stated: “I will call you in a bit so we can get this figured out.” I told him that so far, for all the leads, following were only positive responses: **. The rest of the leads were all negative. All those customers were only price shopping and a lot of them were unreachable by phone or never called back after I left them voice messages.
My credit card statement showed $1061.54 was charged to my credit card. I thought that he was going to credit the negative responses to my account. As I am composing this email at 4:32 PM, I received a lead from ServiceMagic with customer's phone number **. When I called this number, the phone kept ringing but no one answered. I told Darrick to please stop my service with ServiceMagic immediately. I called and left him another voicemail at 10:23 am today, August 9. I wanted to know the status about the credit and cancellation. July 2, 2012 was the last time Darrick responded to me. I called Darrick and left numerous voice messages on his phone, but he never returned my phone calls. No action was taken by Darrick. Negative leads were not credited back to my account. I called ServiceMagic's customer service. The following are the dates and ServiceMagic's representatives that I talked to.
On 8/7/2012, I spoke with William and sent him the original email (the written agreement) that Darrick sent on 6/11/2012. William said that he was going to show the email to a manager and see what ServiceMagic was going to do for me. On 8/8/2012, I spoke with Marta and sent her the original email (the written agreement) that Darrick sent on 6/11/2012. Marta said that ServiceMagic is holding the "voice log" as my agreement with ServiceMagic. Marta said that she was going to show the email to a manager and see what ServiceMagic was going to do for me. On 8/20/2012, I spoke with Danniel and told him that I talked to Marta. Danniel said that Marta went back to school full time. Danniel called Darrick to see what transpired. Danniel called and left me a voicemail indicating that Darrick was in his office and that I can call Darrick. When I called Darrick at 4:25 pm, immediately after I listened to Danniel's voice message, Darrick did not answer the phone call.
I left Darrick a voicemail and said that I was going to dispute the charges on my credit card since he did not do what he agreed to do as stated in the written agreement. On 8/27/2012, I called my credit card company to dispute the charge from ServiceMagic. A representative of my credit card company called ServiceMagic several times, but no one from ServiceMagic answered the calls. The representative of my credit card company started the dispute process and cancelled 8 transactions, which came out to be a total of $1061.54. On 8/29/2012, Josh from ServiceMagic called me and asked why I wanted to cancel. I told Josh the whole story again like I explained to all the representatives at ServiceMagic. I told Josh that I called my credit card company and disputed the charges and that I was willing to pay for the 3 leads that turned into jobs as stated in the written agreement. Josh told me that he would cancel my account as requested and that I did not have to pay for the balance.
On 9/12/2012, ServiceMagic sent me an email indicating that my account is now being staged to go to an external collections agency within the next few days." On 9/19/2012, I responded to ServiceMagic in the following email: “Darrick had a written agreement with me which stated that I only pay for the leads that turned in jobs. Any junk leads that did not turn into jobs would be credited back to my account. I left voice messages and sent emails to Darrick for the negative leads and called ServiceMagic to resolve the issue, but no one took any action. Darrick did not return my phone calls. Finally, I called my credit card company to dispute the charges. A representative from ServiceMagic called me a few days after I talked to my credit card company and told me that he would take care of the matter and that I did not have to pay for the charges. Now, you send me a notice for external collection agency. Are you people kidding me?”
On 9/20/2012, ServiceMagic sent me the following email: “Thank you for your email. I have forwarded your account information and this email to an accounts specialist. We will be contacting you to discuss these issues. Thank you for your business. We look forward to speaking to you.” On 9/20/2012, I called ServiceMagic's customer service and spoke with Eric and told him my situation and about the written agreement. Josh told me that I did not have to pay for the balance. Eric said that he was the manager at ServiceMagic, but he can only go by the voice log and he could not do anything for me. As far as he and ServiceMagic was concerned, I still owe ServiceMagic $1336.55. I requested Eric to have the "management team" to contact Darrick to find out the truth and look at the original written agreement before the "management team" contact me.
In closing, the experience I have with ServiceMagic has been totally unprofessional. I am dealing with a bunch of con-artists. I will hold the written agreement to the end. I will only pay for the leads that turned into jobs, but I will not pay for leads that did not turn into jobs as stated in the written agreement. I honor what I said. ServiceMagic and Darrick should honor their words as well. Where is your integrity and professional standard?
Reviewed Sept. 19, 2012
First off, I am a veteran and former Army Ranger and I own the Ultimate Builders. I had been receiving leads for about 3 years from ServiceMagic - some good, but most are bad. I had to constantly ask for credits and most of the time the homeowners were mad because so many contractors had called them. Homeowners would say things like, "They had enough quotes already. Thanks anyway," or, "Please take my number off your list, I do not have any work that needs to be done." I would call and ask for credit, most of the time being denied because the info SM sent my company was legit - that was their response to me!
Every time I would think I was going to quit using SM's service, I would have a customer say, “How soon can you start?" or, "You're the only guy I trusted." Long story short, there were some leads that went past the 30-day notice to request getting credit - but, hell, if the homeowner never calls you back and you can hear their VM, is it a bad lead or should I just keep calling them? But when is enough enough? You know?! I told SM to put my account on hold and that I didn’t want their service any longer. They denied all the credit request that were only 8 days behind the 30-day mark and that sent me to collections without notifying me! SM told me they called one of my sales guys to collect payment before they sent me to collections. **! I should not have been sent to collections because I was charged for bogus information, but they did it anyway. If you are a contractor or a homeowner, please do not use this service!
Homeowners’ info gets sold and kept in their files forever. They will sell your info (your name, number, address, details about the project, and spam you in the future to buy more of their services). Contractors get screwed by giving SM a budget and CC allowance to provide homeowners info and estimates. SM banks on selling the same lead you paid on average of $45 to 4 to 5 different contractors and could care less if there is actual work being provided. SM will allow any contractor on board and sell homeowners info multiple times. Unless you’re one of the best salesmen/estimators in the game, you’re never going to have an ROI with this service!
Reviewed Sept. 19, 2012
I have it all in writing and they still did not notify me that they were going to turn the leads on. Now, Jerome (Account Specialist, Phone: **) said that it is my fault as an agreement is not a guarantee. They wanted me to pay $1,200.00, so we had to close our account.
Reviewed Sept. 15, 2012
Not even two days and my phones are tied up with computer calls and no emails. Then, I get leads and they don't respond to my calls or emails. I get hit six days later and $400. No leads, just no responses. Then I told them to turn it off and I got $1,300 bill for nothing. Now my checking account is a mess and checks are bouncing for lies and more lies.
Reviewed Sept. 12, 2012
I lost approximately $317 from this company that promised me free job leads and would not take money out of my bank account without my permission. But they did. I had to pay $99 start up fees as well as leads that were supposed to be free. They misrepresented themselves and took almost $200 out of my account, and promised there would be no more and I learned $27 more would be taken out from my bank. So I had to put a stop to it and close out my Visa debit card account from my checking account. I could not afford what happened because I am on Social Security Disability and only receive $924 a month and I own a home.
So now, they give me an automated message today and no number comes up on my caller ID. The message said if I don't pay them $27 by Friday, the account will be sold to a third party collection agency. I feel I do not owe them anything and this is fraudulent because I was told I didn't have to pay, as well as no money will be taken out of my account without my permission. I lost too much money from this company and that needs to be stopped. There have been many complaints on them online.
Reviewed Aug. 30, 2012
After contact with the salesman and telling him I had no licenses and no insurance and he saying he could waive all of these requirements, I came to this address and found out why. The salesman called me today and said the special promotion was running out. I told him I was not interested. He asked why and I told him the number of clients told me the leads were sold over and over and I was not interested. He then proceeded to tell me this was all lies. I was standing outside of the emergency room where my daughter was giving birth. I hung up. The salesman then left me a message that cannot be repeated here for hanging up on him. I see how these people would hook you and drag you.
Reviewed Aug. 30, 2012
Hi, I am here to write a review regarding ServiceMagic, which is an unfair and biased company. We hired a handyman through this company, and the handyman was a cheat who left our project in doldrums. When we complained to ServiceMagic, they coldly said that they are an advertising agency and they can’t help. I asked them about premium membership, and they refused saying “we don’t give it unless it is proven in the court who is right or wrong.” Secondly, they only post positive reviews. Perhaps, contractors have the option to pay more and maintain positive review. After such negative experience about the handyman, when we posted our review, it is not visible.
When we enquired about it, they kept saying that it takes 24 hours. I called up customer service and requested to post my review. It is more than 48 hours and our review is not visible. Whereas when we rated other contractors that we used, our reviews were immediately visible as they were positive. So a contractor has some kind of a tie-up by which they request ServiceMagic to hold negative reviews, so contractors can keep bagging the project and negative reviews are not visible. Please don’t fall for ServiceMagic as they don’t take any responsibility for any other things. Not just that, after my first handyman quit, I posted a request again; but Service Magic has nicely filtered our account, so that we don’t get any matched pros.
Reviewed Aug. 29, 2012
I am a flooring business owner. I first used ServiceMagic and it didn't work for my business. I called them and asked them to stop my account. Then a lady named Debby called me and tried for hours to keep using their service. I said it clear and neat that I didn't want to use their service. She has tried but I haven't accepted. She said that they have a service that I pay only when I accept the lead. I said, "No. I don't want to deal with your company because it doesn't fit my needs." She insisted and I refused. We finished our conversation and hung up. I started receiving those leads she talked about. I ignored them and I never used them. After a year and couple of months, I asked my bookkeeper to bring all the statements and at my surprise, I found out that ServiceMagic has been charging for the whole period.
I called ServiceMagic and of course, one can only talk to customer service people. I talked to Alex. He said he was an account specialist. I told him my story and that I never agreed to anything and that I called to cancel my account and get all the money they took from me without my agreement. He said that he can't do anything. I asked him to give me his supervisor. He passed me to Will. I told him my story again for the nth time but he tried to find ways to blame me such as how come I haven't noticed what happened to me just now? How come I didn't call earlier and ** the use? Then he started being sarcastic with me and offered me an attorney in case I want to sue ServiceMagic, forgetting that he is there to offer leads to contractors and I am calling him to complain about one of their dishonest sales rep. Anyway. I asked him for his supervisor since he has been acting with me that way. He said that he was going to send his supervisor, Sari **, an email and that he will contact me in three business days.
Reviewed Aug. 29, 2012
When I signed up for this service, the sales person named Terry from Overland Park, Kansas informed me that the leads would be left turned off and I would not receive any until I turned them on. I never turned them on and I started receiving leads and did not even know what they were. Then, I noticed that Service Magic removed $180 from my checking account. Then, the supposed leads kept on coming. I would answer and hang up hoping that this would not allow the computer generated lead to bill me. Now, they are indicating that I owe them an additional $340 plus for the leads that I hung up on. I am not getting anywhere with the reps from Service Magic. They have offered to take $140 off of the $340 bill so they can turn my leads back on. I don't want their leads and any of their service. I want my $180 returned to me, the new bill removed, and my account canceled.
Reviewed Aug. 28, 2012
We are a design firm. We were told they would supply us lighting design leads which we would follow up. We were to pay for those leads. Each "lead" forwarded was for an electrical contractor. They had not vetted any of the leads for accuracy so we were charged for services which were falsely forwarded to us. When we complained and said we would like to withdraw from the program. They said we would not be charged for leads unless we responded and took them. We took none of the leads for the next 3 months and then we started getting phone calls about our past due account. My advice is do not do business with these folks. If you are doing business, hire a lawyer and get out. There is no business control in this organization. ServiceMagic did not represent their services in an honest way. It is not much more than a phone scam.
Reviewed Aug. 27, 2012
ServiceMagic does not back their contractor's work. I did everything that was asked of me; and after 2 months back and forth on our problem, they said they would help rate the contractor. That is it. Don't bother with ServiceMagic; it really means nothing going through them. They are useless.
Reviewed Aug. 27, 2012
I talked to Tyler ** and he assured me that I was to only pay on the leads I acquired. I got the bank statement and ServiceMagic is taking out $12.34 for every lead they sent me. I have got only 4 leads. It doesn't even come close to what they said I am paying for their advertising. So, if 4 guys go by and quote the job (and don't decide on the service), they just made 50 bucks for nothing. I called their customer service and they blew me off. I bet that slob Tyler is laughing his ** off. I sure would like to punch him in the nose!
Reviewed Aug. 21, 2012
I am a contractor in the DFW Metroplex that entered into agreement with Service Magic. The only thing they are interested in is the lead fee. The leads have a return of 1/20. So for every 20 leads you pay for, expect one job in return. The other 19 leads are completely bogus. They do not qualify their leads and when you request a lead credit, expect a miracle because it won't happen. My conclusion is this is a totally bogus company with unscrupulous business practices. Avoid at all costs!
Reviewed Aug. 20, 2012
Bear Brook, the landscaper, did my lawn at the beginning of the season. He hasn't been here in a month. My lawn is quite high. I was in the hospital at the time. I called him today and he said he will not come any longer because the parking is bad. I have a driveway and parking in front of my house which he used and also my driveway. It is the end of the season and it will be hard for me to get a man to mow my lawn. I am 86 years old and must have someone soon to do my lawn. Can you help me?
Reviewed Aug. 15, 2012
I was a pest control contractor with ServiceMagic. They say a quality lead is someone who says they don't have the money to pay, but still want a quote for work. I don't think this is a good lead. Also, I tried to contact them to suspend my account but still had 2 calls come through. When I wanted a refund, they told me it is a 48-hour turnaround to suspend on a weekend and it is in the terms, but I have not been sent a copy of the terms. The account manager was not interested until I asked to terminate my account. He then offered to refund one of the calls if I didn't term. When I agreed, he then refused to refund the call and told me to contact the customer. But the job was 9 days old by this time, so I termed my account.
Reviewed Aug. 13, 2012
Our family business was a member of ServiceMagic years back. I remember getting zero leads, but still having our credit card charged by them every month. We were told there is no monthly fee, you just pay per lead. So, we canceled them. About a year ago, my boss (grandfather) came to me and said ServiceMagic wanted us back again. I told him no, we lost a few hundred dollars the 1st time. He is 80 years old and trusts people more than me so he signed up. Once again, he was promised that if we get no leads, we pay nothing. I told my boss to get a prepaid credit card so at least when they steal money from you, there is a limit. Well he did that. He put $100 on a card and that is the card he used to sign up with ServiceMagic.
I totally forgot we were members since I have never gotten a lead from them. Now, they are calling a few times a day threatening to terminate (laughable) our account. So, I guess the $100 ran out even though we were never given a lead. So why are we being charged? If they charge you no matter what, why would they even bother giving you a lead? This company is a joke. Terminate my one-sided (in their favor) account all you want. Also, as a side note, if you are looking for contractors, plumbers, etc. on ServiceMagic, just know that they barely asked us any info when they signed us back up. They didn't even ask if we were insured. It seems legit... not! Stick to word of mouth for referrals, you can't trust these people.
Reviewed Aug. 13, 2012
I get harassing collection calls and I don't have an account! - As a service professional, I signed up with ServiceMagic. They charged me more than the quoted rates for each lead and did not provide accurate leads (sent me work I'm not signed up to do). After weeks of being over charged with no resolution from ServiceMagic, I cancelled my account and contacted the BBB in Colorado. That actually prompted them to contact me and offer me a refund for the overcharges. I accepted the refund, and let them off the hook with the BBB - my mistake. They took several months and several people to finally mail my refund. The cherry on top is that on Fridays I receive a collections call from Service Magic saying that my account is overdue and I need to bring it current or they will take action. ServiceMagic calls every Friday to harass me and follows up Monday morning with the same call.
I have called ServiceMagic after each call to ask them to stop it. After months of harassing automated collection calls, I thought it had finally stopped. But last Friday, the calls started up again. And of course, I received my Monday morning call, too. Again today, I took the time to call them and ask them to stop. They again have told me that I don't owe them money, they can't figure out why I'm getting calls, and they've deleted my number from the system. We will see. They are horrible and pathetic. They bait & switch and then don't make it right until I threatened to go to BBB. And since I can't say they took money from me because they finally refunded it, they are getting the last laugh by harassing me with their automated collection calls. Nice.
Reviewed Aug. 13, 2012
Service Magic lies to sign you up. I had previously used Service Magic to generate leads 3 years ago with very bad results. I got lots of phone numbers of people who wouldn't answer their phone to set an appointment. I was called by their rep, I explained how I was very unhappy with past results and their rep told me it had all changed. If I could set an appointment with the lead they send over, they were going to credit me the $50. Well, I got lied to again; that is not their policy. We had the rep's supervisor on the phone and he said his rep was not working under their guidelines. That’s nice but I got charge $500 for phone numbers of people who didn't answer their phone. Contractors beware; you will lose money with this service. Homeowners take your chances, if a company is not honest with one, they will not be honest with all.
Reviewed Aug. 13, 2012
Service Magic is exactly like other lead generation service. To the contractor, they promise they won't sell a lead to more than 3 contractors, giving you a fair chance to compete for business. The last lead I purchased for $70, and when I called the homeowner to schedule a time to view the work, the homeowner was pissed! I was the 12th contractor to call from Service Magic to ask about a project he had completed weeks earlier! So Service Magic not only sold me a bogus lead, they have sold the same bogus lead to 11 other contractors, and probably more after me! If you are running low on work already, keep your money in your pocket guys. This company will not solve the problem, but will be happy to make you even more broke!
Reviewed Aug. 6, 2012
Warranty not honored - Wolverine Asphalt company completed an asphalt driveway for me. It was a good job with the exception of a dip that gathers water. The owner has told me on several occasions that he would return to repair it, but has not done so. The warranty is for 10 years. I am very dissatisfied in the unprofessional manner in which this job has been handled.
Reviewed July 31, 2012
I had ServiceMagic call me as I inquired about local house cleaning jobs for me to look at and possibly have family members work them, so me and the kids can survive and can get my bills all paid for the time being until the social security claim is processed. I've been out of work since Feb 2012. I was desperate, very depressed and unable to work due to over 3cm tarlov cyst and severe sciatica. This ServiceMagic company called me when I had only inquired about some home cleaning jobs. They asked name of my business and when I said I do not and have never had one, they created one for me and called it Peggy's Cleaning Service.
They got my credit card number, but assured me this was for hold only to ensure their fees are paid for completed jobs and I could choose to pay from this credit card account or other means. I never did any work at all and cannot physically, so I called them in tears and said I was wishful thinking and could not get any family or friends to do the work. This was within the first week. I advised my circumstances and they took a $99.00 hold as it was understood to me that if I could get any of the jobs done (worker placed), then I pay them a fee ranging from $14.00 to $20.00. For new clients only and no fees for recurring clients. They set me up so many local and long distance jobs, so-called leads, that were all over North Texas. These bombarded me daily to my email, cell messages and texts, home phone messaging, etc. They took that $99.00 hold as well as another $550.00 from my account within a couple days' time.
I am living with no income as it is. I broke down and called the credit card company several times, advised them no more transactions from my account but Juniper Barclay did not list it. This company had taken over $700.00 and for nothing, unauthorized! Barclay Bank and ServiceMagic has given me nothing but the runaround. I need my money back and the finance charges. These two companies I have now found to be uncaring idiots and I refuse to speak to either any more! I need action in some form or manner !
Reviewed July 31, 2012
I was a former contractor for ServiceMagic. When I first signed up years ago, I was vetted by ServiceMagic. They made sure I had a business license, insurance, talked to a satisfied client, etc. A few years later, I signed up again and they did nothing to vet me. I thought nothing of it, thinking they had old credentials, although I found it odd that they did not want updated faxes (they were so strict before). It really showed very quickly. Most clients are finding contractors doing work for less than a legitimate business can do the jobs for. This may sound like a good deal for the homeowner, but read the reviews by homeowners here.
My contractor went out of business and won't honor warranty, work not up to the code, etc. A contractor avoids a business license for one reason and that is they are committing tax fraud. If that contractor does not even care enough to insure himself, is it a trustworthy contractor? It's funny to see so many complaints from contractors on this board and then the few bright spots, that do really well with it. I wonder which side of the coin those contractors are on? Be careful hiring them, they may not be in business long after the job.
Reviewed July 29, 2012
I spoke to a representative from Service Magic about having my land surveyed before installing a fence in my backyard. Two companies stood out: Elkins Survey and Tri Star Survey, but I chose Elkins because they assured me that the job would be completed within the week and we needed this done asap. Elkins called me on our scheduled date, 7/5 (Thurs), and said they could not make it until Friday - fine. They did not show up Friday. I called the next Monday, they said they would be there Wednesday...never showed. I went out of town, hoping they would show up while I was gone, nope.
I called on 7/17, assured that he was on his way, no again. I called on 7/19 and was repeatedly greeted with a "that voicemail is full' message. He finally picked up on the afternoon of 7/19 and apologized for not showing up on the 18th....mind you, he should have been there on the 17th. Not only that, I understand weather and delays, but he never called me to update me on the situation. I constantly had to chase him down. When he finally picked up the phone on the 19th, he started to apologize for not showing up. I said, "thank you, but we no longer need your service, we have found someone else." He hung up on me. I called Tri Star, and Raymon was amazing. He had researched my property and was out the same day. He gave me a tour of his findings and was very professional. I would highly recommend him.
Reviewed July 20, 2012
In July 2009, on the recommendation of ServiceMagic, I hired Bishop Painting, LLC to repaint my Victorian two-storey house. Winsley Bishop, the owner, gave me a handwritten contract, specifying the work to be done, the time frame, and a statement that the paint was guaranteed for five years. The job extended way over the time frame, with the painters leaving to take other jobs before mine was finished. And it was not until November, with plastic covering the porch and space heaters, that it was completed. The cost overruns were in the thousands. I was told later by Mr. Bishop that his wife was the one who had written up the contract, that he had failed to review it, and that he needed more money. I refused to send the extra amount that he wanted, given all the problems and stress with getting the job done.
Then he took me to court to collect it. I didn't hire a lawyer, feeling sure that I had a good case. He had a lawyer, and he won. I have tried to put the whole experience behind me, taking some comfort in thinking the paint job itself was a good one. But I am now being told by a painter I trust that the paint is "popping" all over the house. I have tried to contact Mr. Bishop and put in a call to ServiceMagic, but he has not responded and he has not been with Service Magic since 2009. Is there any recourse for getting him to comply with his paint guarantee of five years?
Reviewed July 11, 2012
They won't honor promise lead credits - I am a real estate appraiser. I cannot appraise a property for a homeowner that needs the appraisal for financing if they are going to use any conventional financing options. The bank has to order the appraisal, oftentimes through appraisal management companies. I was told by three different ServiceMagic employees that these would be credited, but frequently, they will not credit these back. The homeowner might as well be asking me to replace his roof or kitchen sink. It is simply not an appraisal that I can do in good faith. I will be leaving now.
Reviewed July 10, 2012
I am a sprinkler contractor. I have been with ServiceMagic for 9 years. I have a 4.9 rating with 568 reviews. I am very happy with their referral system. I get 75% of my leads through them. I close about 90% of all my leads. These contractors who complain about them are failing in their own business. They put the blame on the referral company. Only the hardest working contractors can benefit from this service. You have to work the leads. They’re not going to do it for you.
Reviewed July 5, 2012
I've been a subcontractor for a long time and decided to try to do some contracting. I also registered with them for those '"leads". It’s not a surprise those leads were with disconnected numbers and one with a number of a clinic somewhere in Pittsburgh, PA. Of course, they refused to give me credit for those leads. What I think really happens here is these guys need to feed a lot of employees and pay for ads everywhere and I don't think they have enough real leads to generate good profit (at least in all areas). So, they need some extra profit and they generate somehow those bad leads. I won't speculate on how they do that or even that they actually do that or where there is a mistake in their service. But the fact that they refuse to accept that those numbers are really disconnected or fake and they don't check those numbers somehow tells that they just spin that money-making machine and don't really care about protecting their contractors or customers that need service.
I assume that maybe after you spend couple hundred bucks you may get some good leads, but I believe that if you are new to the site, you are a victim of some sort of "mistakes" or imperfections of their system. Nothing of that I can prove or demand that my assumptions on how they work are true. But to me personally what I said makes sense. Anyway, you don't really think that you register there and the next day your business is blooming. But I think they need to put more money in verifying customers’ numbers and contractors’ backgrounds better. So far I wouldn't recommend it to anyone and will talk people out of using their services. So research the topic well before making a decision.
Reviewed July 2, 2012
The first company was a plumber. This was the second time they scheduled with me and either cancelled or didn't show up. I can't remember the name, but the woman didn't speak English too well. My main concern is a company called DDB Services. He came out on the 29th of June and gave us a $250.00 estimate to fix our countertop range and promised to call back on Monday. I gave him a $100.00 check. I haven't heard from him and he has no phone number on his receipt, so we are cancelling the check. Please do not send me any more referrals. I would never refer ServiceMagic to anyone.
Reviewed June 29, 2012
This service sucks! I have been a contractor for over 25 years, and because of the weak economy, I thought signing up for ServiceMagic leads might give my business a boost. What a mistake! The leads are bogus; either the people don't get back to you, or they act like they are not interested in your service. After I pissed away approximately $300, I realized the people who are supposedly looking for work are in cahoots with ServiceMagic. They scam contractors out of money via electronic transfers from your account for leads that don't really exist. They don't even require insurance certificates from contractors which put homeowners at incredible risk. This alone says they are only interested in finding out what your checking account and routing numbers are. Make sure you cancel your bank account after you cancel your service, so they can't continue to drain your account!
Reviewed June 29, 2012
I enrolled with them when I was working with a company, then we received a total of 18 leads that were useless because clients were not looking for contractors. Bogus leads and customers that when I call them were like, "Who are you?" So I changed with another construction company and I convinced my boss to give it a try and see. So we did. But this, she had the grand idea of going into the website as a client and as it turns out, the way ServiceMagic creates their website is call and they tell clients, "Help us plan your project," then the customers enters their info, which in a matter of minutes is being sent to a contractor in the area.
By the time the contractor calls the clients thinking it's an actual looking for an estimate. Then the customer answers the phone surprised at first, then they think ServiceMagic offered them a free quote. But in the end, it turns out the customer never said had the money was ready to do the job. Hell, he isn't even sure if he is going to do it. The second thing we discovered is that they say they sent the leads to three contractors in the area, and they charge you cheap but as it turns out, you are the only contractor registered with them. So it's a big fat lie. Then it came to me. Let's say in an area there are 20 contractors and just a client, so how is it that they decide which three are getting the lead? So I discovered they send it to three, then to the rest of the contractors they make adjustments so it can be bogus, and they still charge you for it since the only criteria for reimbursement is if you say the customer's phone number is disconnected.
The last thing was my cousin tried enrolling in ServiceMagic but was rejected because they did a background check and had a felony three years ago. Then we all laughed because when all felons come out to work, the only thing they can work at is construction. So it means about 30% of the construction business has a record and also my cousin was working with my old employer managing the ServiceMagic website. So it came to me, ServiceMagic is a big fraud and I'm sure we will see them on TV when they rip-off someone they shouldn't. But in the end, the stupidest in this story are the contractors that after reading all this will enroll with them, like I did, not only once but two times and the customers that are being lied to. And if anybody has question how to play the system and learn more, email me and I'll be happy to help **.
Reviewed June 26, 2012
I got a phone call from Kyle who represented himself to be someone who can generate leads for my carpet cleaning business. All was great until I was trying to explain to him that this business model for getting customers would not work with my upper end service. When he got snappy and rude, I tried to ask him to not contact me again; but mid-sentence, I got the phone hung up in my ear. This man was rude and this Service Magic referral company smells of a rat. I wish companies like this would be illegal and rude people like Kyle shouldn't be allowed to have jobs where they are talking to people. Rude!
Reviewed June 25, 2012
I used ServiceMagic to get 4 quotes on tree work. The guy from Tarzan came out and gave my neighbor and I quotes. I told him we had other companies giving us quotes to. I asked him, "If we were to call you back to hire, when is the soonest you could come out?" He said Monday. I received other bids and I and the neighbors decided to go with a different company. I never called Tarzan or the other bidders back. I then got a call from a tree company saying they couldn't make it out on schedule. I assumed it was the one I hired and not Tarzan. Today, while the tree service I had was here, Tarzan showed up. I never wanted any thing more than a bid from them. The secretary called me and said I confirmed their appointment (which I never called and initiated) and they were billing me from 10% of an estimate. She was extremely rude, yelling at me, calling me a liar and a **.
She was getting her lawyers to take me to court because she records all of the telephone conversations and she had a verbal agreement. She never said she was recording her call, which is illegal. I only agreed to a time because I thought since I only called one tree service and scheduled an appointment (not them) that when I was speaking to a tree service, I thought it was the right one. The owner of this company should be made aware that he has an employee that is extremely rude. I may have not have used their service, but now no one on my street will ever allow them to step foot in their yard ever again. It's also not right for a company to think just because they did an estimate that they have you as a for-sure client and schedule you with an appointment. This I am extremely upset about.
Reviewed June 22, 2012
I signed up with ServiceMagic based largely on my brother's reportedly favorable experience. Well, having been in the construction industry for over 20 years, I can tell you that this is not the way to go if you are a service provider. I had a couple of leads provided by them which proved to be utterly useless. In one such case, the homeowner told me that, no, they were not looking for a contractor, and asked why I was calling. And others were the homeowner informed me that there was already some affiliates with ServiceMagic on site, this despite my having contacted the lead the instant that I received the message.
The simple truth is that the company piles these so-called leads into your account, along with the accounts of numerous contractors in your area, does nothing to check out the homeowner (even though they claim to vet these people before issuing any leads), and charges each service provider for every single lead they send. After only four days - four days! - my account balance was just under $260 for a bunch of useless and error-filled leads. I can only imagine what would have happened if I hadn't terminated my relationship with them when I did. And mind you, I tried unsuccessfully for the first three days to access my account in order to keep a handle on whatever charges were accruing, but couldn't access the information because they made up the username and password on the account and then failed to inform me!
If I hadn't taken the time and been very insistent with the customer service rep at ServiceMagic, I would still be accruing charges for bogus leads. If you are a service provider, I urge you to proceed with great caution. I've just had my pocket picked, and while I suppose I can chalk it up to Life Experience 101, it nonetheless infuriates me when people are misleading and disingenuous and immoral, and that has been my experience as a service provider for ServiceMagic.
Reviewed June 15, 2012
I am a contractor who entered into an agreement with ServiceMagic. I received one bogus lead (potential customer info not valid) and was charged a lead fee of $60. They refuse to credit this amount and are very rude on the phone. This is a scam. Do not use them either as a consumer or a contractor - you will be very disappointed. Not to mention, they will steal your money.
Reviewed June 15, 2012
Rick has totally made my house windows look like crap. They don't work and ServiceMagic will do nothing. They said to contact you. This man has called me on the phone and screamed at me because I had someone else do the roof on my mom's house instead of him. I told him I was on a time limit and needed it done. He has hollered at me in my house because he ordered windows that were too small, then too large, and then one fell over in his truck and broke. I told them I didn't want him back at my house to finish the job. He called today and said (the 4th) new window didn't come in and he would be back on Thursday. ServiceMagic said they left him a message that he was not to come back. I do not want this bully back in my house. He has caused lots of stress, anger, and lost sleep over this project that has taken over a month and is still not complete. I have shutters off my house in the front, siding off in the back, and windows that don't fit or work. It is a terrible mess. Can you please help?
Reviewed June 13, 2012
Mason work: total nightmare! I hired a company through ServiceMagic to do a cement driveway, brick-paver walk and steps. The pavers fell off the steps after the first day. There are half-inch gaps between each brick and the walk is completely off pitch. Forget the driveway - the whole thing needs to be ripped up and redone. As it turns out, this company lost their license two years prior to me hiring them. ServiceMagic does not follow up on accounts once they are approved on their site. You must do your own background checks. ServiceMagic will only reimburse for up to $500 - and I spent over $5,000. Now, I will be going to court. Don’t use Service Magic for any contractor recommendations - ever!
Reviewed June 11, 2012
This is about bogus leads that they refuse to refund. Leads that do not check out by name or service were done over a week prior. They say that they do a background check. No, they don't. I was skeptical on the background check due to the fact they received the "go ahead" an hour after getting the information for me. I checked for a credit and background check for my information and no request from ServiceMagic ever showed up - which tells me that they never did the check. I cannot believe some people use this referral service exclusively. What a complete roll of the dice.
Reviewed June 8, 2012
I signed up with this company to pick up work and I had to pay for each job to bid on, which they call leads. Anyhow, I was told roof jobs were $15 to $25 and additions and renovations were $20 to $45. Hell, when the bids came in, they charged me for a roof bid of $50 and the man would not return my call. I also had two other bids they charged me for and never got to bid on it or even get to talk to the customer. My renovation bid came in and was charged $75 because I was an exact match. Now what's an exact match? I'm stupid and should have seen the red flag when they want access to a credit card or checking account, so they can suck you dry. They got me for about $300 total and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm too far away to drive up there and beat their ass. They do bad business.
Reviewed June 2, 2012
I paid over $40,000 to have a Gunite Pool installed last June. The whole process was a nightmare from them installing pool in the wrong spot in the yard to busting a main pipe under my patio when installing the winter cover. Now, I'm left with a pool which is getting ruined because of inappropriate ph levels because of faulty display board on my system and a malfunctioning filter. And he has not returned my phone calls and told the BBB that he has downsized and does not have the time to come or order my display which is still under warranty.
Reviewed May 30, 2012
I have to agree with Robert. I, too, am a ServiceMagic contractor. I have found ServiceMagic to be fair and equitable in their resolution of disputes. I have, on occasion, challenged the quality of a lead and in most instances, ServiceMagic has agreed with me and reversed the charges. If you follow up on your leads and are diligent with your potential customers, you will have success. I have, on many occasions, worked for customers from other areas who I have never met and yet the contracts were signed, the work finished and the final payment received without any hassles. The service does work for truly excellent contractors. I too have a 4.94 rating with them (out of 5).
For those consumers who have had bad experiences, please remember that ServiceMagic is not responsible for a bad reputation that a contractor develops later. I personally know that they checked me thoroughly before accepting me as a contractor. I would also advise you to ask any potential contractor for a recent list of customers that you may contact as a reference. I provide this to any customer who asks and I usually offer it before they have a chance to ask. Any reputable contractor will be proud of his work and is more than willing to let his customers do the sale for him. I am sorry to those of you who have had bad experiences. There are contractors who either slip through the cracks or take a turn for the worst. Always make sure you get recent customers who have had work done. This will give you an idea of who you are working with currently.
Reviewed May 29, 2012
I received a phone call today from ServiceMagic stating that I owed them $265.00 and if not paid today, the matter would be turned over to collections. My response to them was that I have only received one call from ServiceMagic regarding a potential customer. The first time that I was contacted by ServiceMagic, I was not told that I would be expected to pay for any leads that I received. I was only told that if I was asked to do the work by the customer, that I would pay ServiceMagic a percentage upon completion of the job. ServiceMagic also stated that I would receive an email, as well as a text message regarding the lead. The one and only lead that I received was a phone call from ServiceMagic. I have never received any other communications from them whatsoever and now they are asking for $265.00.
I spoke to someone from ServiceMagic about two weeks ago, and tried to explain the situation to them, but the conversation went in circles and nothing was resolved. At that same time, 5/11/2012, I was able to put my account on hold, (don't send me any further leads). At that time, my account was $200.00. But apparently, they disregarded my request, and sent out at least two more leads without my sanction. I didn't receive any notice of them either. Apparently, this incident is going to find its way to collections, as I am not at all willing to pay for something that I have not received. I am also suspicious about the fact that ServiceMagic is reluctant to send out a paper statement with the charges that I say I owe them.
Reviewed May 16, 2012
I have been with ServiceMagic for 8 years. I have a 4.9 rating with 500 reviews. I have never had an issue with them that wasn't resolved professionally and fair for both sides. These people complaining don't know how to use a referral company. It takes work. ServiceMagic can only give you the leads. If you are good, then you should be able to take it and work it into something successful. I close about 80% of all leads. It works for me. Those complaining are those failing in their own business. To work it, you must be the best of the best.
Reviewed May 14, 2012
Signed up for ServiceMagic. They said they have leads for service calls, well they don’t. They sell you web searches and say those are leads and they don’t refund your money. They are the biggest scam.
Reviewed May 14, 2012
I work for a great moral roofing company, but leads were a little slow and as being an independent contractor for the company, I wanted to bring in some extra leads. So, I contacted ServiceMagic and set up an account with them. After receiving just a few leads, I found that most of them were filled with wrong numbers and emails or came to me a week after the customer had sent in their request for a contractor.
When I asked them for credit and not to be charged for these leads that I had no chance to begin with to earn their business, I was denied the refund and given a huge line of junk about how it's the "law of averages" that their leads payoff. But if every 2 out of 3 are bad leads (i.e. wrong contact info or days after the initial request so they already had a contractor), how many leads do I have to have and earn their business to recoup the cost of these factious leads.
If you are a contractor and looking to build your business, do not use ServiceMagic! They will cost you far too much with false leads to be able to make any money if you are a consumer. From past experience (I was in the HVAC industry for many years and the company I used to work for at one time tried ServiceMagic), we found that they shotgun out the info to numerous contractors, some great and some that would be like inviting a vampire into your home and you would never want them in your home in the first place! Not happy at all with the leads or the customer service.
Reviewed May 5, 2012
I checked ServiceMagic for good contractors to replace existing gutters on my house. Within minutes of completing the online questions, I received a call from Randy ** with Skytech Skylights & Gutters. He came out & emailed me an estimate. I advised him I would like for them to do the work and then the trouble began. Every time I had a conversation with anyone with Skytech Skylights & Gutters, they asked me the colors I had chosen. Randy and I had discussed this at length and I had made my choices. But no one seemed to have that information.
Finally, Mark Stroud, owner of the company, came out & they put up the gutters but they were the wrong color. He painted them the color I wanted so I thought it would be okay. We had leaf guards on the old gutters but it turned out I got no leaf guards on my new gutters. Unfortunately, I had already paid Mark what he said it would cost. I thought it was a little high but went ahead & paid him. In checking my emails, I found I was charged $191.66 more than I was quoted and I didn't even have leaf guards. I then emailed Mark about this and told him I would like to have the leaf guards & based on the higher amount I had paid for the gutters, I shouldn't owe more than about $50-$60 more. He told me he would come out & do the work but he never did.
We had an agreed day for him to come and he came out but his employee was supposed to have had all the supplies on his vehicle and the employee never showed and Mark supposedly couldn't get in touch with him. When I called Mark & left messages, he never returned my call. I had to call him on a phone using a different number & he answered the phone. When he said he never got my messages but would come out before the weekend to do the work, he didn't come. My husband usually handles things like this but he is in the hospital for an extended stay and I had to do this myself with a very bad result. All I want are leaf guards on the gutters and it seems to be too much to ask!
Reviewed April 27, 2012
I hired a contractor through Service Magic for a new fence. He finished the fence, but still had to cut two of the posts at the gate and put the caps on all posts. I made the mistake of paying in full and he never showed up to finish the job. I had given him a good review trusting that he would come back as promised to finish. Two weeks later, I called Service Magic to ask to change my review. They told me I couldn't do it, but they would. I dictated what I wanted written in the review. They assured me they would change the old review, but nothing has changed. I called again, sent emails, but nobody answers my emails and on the phone they lie by telling me the reviews was changed. They say that they do a thorough check on the contractors, but I am sure that's not true. Do not hire Service Magic contractors.
Reviewed April 27, 2012
We are receiving calls from all over the country on a privately listed phone number regarding a roofing job. We never even heard of this company. Someone gave them our information without our knowledge, and there is no way to contact their customer service.
Reviewed April 23, 2012
Drywall - The company we hired got paid and left the job unfinished. It looks like crap and is unrepairable.
Reviewed April 21, 2012
Your first question when trying to get a contractor/service person is, "Are you this company or are you ServiceMagic?" I researched companies for new windows and new countertops. When I called the numbers listed for the companies in which I was interested online, people answered and took my personal information (phone, address, etc.). Only after they had my personal information did they inform me that they were not employees of the firms but of ServiceMagic - and then only because I demanded that they tell me the truth. I told them to forget it, but within minutes I had all sorts of people calling my house and bugging me.
Also, I made it very clear I did not ever want phone calls from some of their "suggestions," including and primarily Sears, with whom we will never again do any sort of business. They assured me only the companies I contacted first would contact me. Wrong. Sears called me 10 times before I threatened to report them to the FCC. Another company called me six times after I specifically told ServiceMagic I would never do business with them (via previous history). Of all the people ServiceMagic sicced me on, only 2 were appropriate, professional, knowledgeable and personable. The rest were completely awful in every way. Don't be fooled. Ask first, "Am I talking to company X or am I talking to some liar from ServiceMagic?"
Reviewed April 19, 2012
I used ServiceMagic to find a mold remediation specialist. I needed my basement to be tested in order to get a home equity loan. Pure Energy Pro responded immediately to my inquiry. We set up an appointment for Jeremy ** to come do the mold tests. He was punctual and the tests were completed. I expected mold to be present. It was a hot, humid summer day in August and my home is more than 200 years old. The floor is dirt and the walls are granite. Mold was found to be present and in order to proceed with the loan, I contracted with Jeremy ** to perform mold removal services. The job cost is $3235. His contract specified that $2000 (cash or check, no credit card) be paid in advance. A credit card payment would have insured his work be done to my satisfaction but he didn't accept credit cards. Now, I know why.
I mailed a check on October 5, 2011. The check cleared the bank on 10/11/11. I received an email from Allen stating he was scheduling the work for 10/19 or 20 and would contact me to confirm when closer to the date. On 10/19/11, he sent an email asking, "How does next Wednesday look for you? We will need you out of the house while we are in the basement." I responded immediately to confirm that Wednesday, 10/26/11 would be fine. On 10/20, I received another email from him asking if he could come Monday or Tuesday (10/24 or 25). Again, I responded immediately to say either day would be fine and to let me know which day. I heard nothing further until the evening of 10/25 when I received an email advising me that he would be coming the next day to do the work.
Jeremy ** had $2000 of mine in his bank account since 10/11/11. He gave me vague dates for when the work would be completed and finally sends an email the night before he plans to come (a full week later than his original date to do the work without an explanation of the delay). By then, I was no longer interested in getting the loan, was not bothered by the mold in my basement as it had surely been there for the 30 years I've lived in the house, and wanted my deposit back and nothing further to do with Pure Energy Products and Jeremy **. I responded with an email asking him to cancel the work and refund the full or at least a partial refund on the deposit. There was nothing in his 11-page contract that suggested the refund was non refundable and what company demands such a large deposit up front and keeps it for such a long time before coming to begin a job.
Jeremy ** refused so I agreed to have him come to do the mold removal. His contract stated that all moldy items removed from the basement would be bagged. Nothing was bagged. It was taken from the cellar and through the kitchen to be placed in the bed of my husband's truck. After the chemicals to kill the mold were applied, Jeremy ** never returned to the job. He had two workers who came back the next day to lay plastic over the dirt floor and walls. We have an old sump pump. It is old and rusty but is reliable and worked well when necessary. It has a ball float which when water fills up in the hole the ball attached to a rod, floats up. When the ball floats up, the rod trips the switch that turns on the pump. When the ball drops, the rod drops too, turning off the pump. Allen's men covered the hole with plastic and cut a small hole in the plastic for the rod. Then they duct taped and foamed the plastic to the rod in the down position. The plastic, duct tape and foam made it so the rod would stop the ball from floating if water got into the basement and that effectively disabled the sump pump.
I expected Allen to return to do post testing to ensure the mold was gone and I intended to have him fix the problem his men created. He didn't come back and instead sent his wife whom I don't believe is a qualified mold remediation specialist. She collected samples for the post tests and took a check for the remaining $1235 for the job. Jeremy ** was now paid in full for a job that was not done satisfactorily. I contacted Allen to inform him that his work had disabled my sump pump and to ask him to come back to fix it. His first response was, "We didn't touch it." The next time I repeated the request he said, "I'm not a plumber. Call a plumber." I didn't need a plumber. The sump pump works well as long as there is no plastic sheeting and duct tape and foam all over it. I contacted his again to make the same request. This time he said, "Just cut the plastic away."
His work is supposed to be covered with the 30-year warranty. If I cut away the plastic, the warranty would be void. He needed to come back to do the job properly but he refused. After all of my arguing with Jeremy ** and his never once offering to come see the problem or to fix it to my satisfaction, I no longer wanted anything to do with him or his company. I threw away $3235 and will need a qualified specialist to come back to do the job correctly. Jeremy ** and Pure Energy Pro are punctual and reliable until he gets your money. After he has the money, he fails to deliver the service he promised. I am also angry that ServiceMagic allows its contractors to respond to reviews with lies and accusations blaming the customer for the bad job performed by a ServiceMagic contractor. A customer can only write one review and cannot reply and comment on the crap that the contractor posts in regards to his poor review.
Reviewed April 17, 2012
On 4/10/2012, I contacted ServiceMagic to inquire about a carpet cleaner. I specified that two of the rooms had some spots. This was because when I moved, I had a box with shampoo. The Carpet Magic company was provided based on the description of problems. I soon got a call from a man named Michael. We scheduled the cleaning for 4/13/2012 between the hours of 1 and 3 p.m. with a 30-minute call. Michael showed up without calling at 1:07 p.m. I told him that I needed the 30-minute call. He said that he did not have another cleaning and that he was going to wait outside until I was ready. He never told me that I needed to vacuum clean the carpet.
This person came into my house, did a terrible job, and on top of that, when he came in into my house, he asked me for my credit card because according to him, he had done other work for which he never got paid because the people did not have the money. I trusted him. He got a pre-approval to do the job and I was supposed to sign when he completed the job, so he can get paid. This man did not even spend 45 minutes inside my house and when I went to see his work, it was not done. The stairs were not clean on the side. My bedroom was not done correctly. I told him that I was not satisfied and his response was that I had already signed, of which his invoice needed my second signature, which I did not sign.
He claimed that the color of the carpet showed blood or feces and that he could not give me a brand new carpet. I told him that even though I had a dog, they don't come inside my house since I have a house for them outside in the yard. He was very unprofessional and when I spoke with my bank, the charges there were duplicated. Now, I have a carpet that really smell like feces because my belief is that he used the same water that he cleaned other dogs' house with to clean mine. I have another carpet cleaner coming to my house today to clean the carpet again since the carpet smells horrible. Pictures have been taken and I will pursue this company legally. In the future, please do not endorse company such as the Carpet Magic without first getting legitimate references.
Reviewed April 17, 2012
Their leads are inaccurate. Prices for leads differ greatly without rhyme or reason. There were late night leads just before the end of the day without positive outcome. Leads on computer are timed differently than the push onto my phone. However, they are always on time with drawing funds every Friday!
Reviewed April 17, 2012
I had one sensor on my alarm system that needed to be repaired/replaced and I wanted a short term security monitoring contract using a cell device. Security Pros from Service Magic said they could honor both of my requests. The system failed on the second day. It has a battery failure because the technician used a receptacle that didn't have power. I called the monitoring company (Security Networks) to find out why no one called me about the failure. I was told that I didn't have an account with them. There were so many different stories about who installed the equipment and who did or didn't do the monitoring I had the system removed and stopped payment. When they came back to disconnect their system, they also disconnected all of my sensors. I would not recommend Service Pros. They do not do alarm system monitoring. They charged me $381.
I also used an HVAC from Service Magic Axiom Air Services, LLC. In 2011, I installed a new air conditioning system in late 2010 and for the second summer in a row my system wasn't blowing enough to cool the house. The technician didn't check the system for a leak. He immediately decided to use the dye detection to check the leak which requires a follow-up visit and is expensive instead of the nitrogen detection which is quicker and cheaper. Then he added Freon. I asked more than once how much he was charging for the service. He said he had to see how much Freon he used. He never checked the vents, dampers, nor did he check for a Freon leak. This guy owns a HVAC business and he told me that he's been doing this type of work for 20 years. After he was done, he charged me $473!
I was shocked, upset and I felt like he purposely got over on a woman. He tried to change the price but I declined. I will never use this company again. He's not an honest businessman. I don't believe that Service Magic checks out these services. The service providers are out trying to get whatever they can from customers. I would not recommend using Service Magic and I'll never use them again.
Reviewed April 13, 2012
I had had an account with them, but they were sending me leads I didn't get or couldn't get a hold of. So I told them I was disputing what they said I owed them. They never got back with me and I started getting calls from collection companies.
Reviewed April 5, 2012
Very misleading when they said you will get a credit. They only credit your Service Magic account, not your checking account. We cancelled with Service Magic because of out of area leads and information we received about the fees were incorrect.
Reviewed March 28, 2012
I signed up as a health care vendor. I was charged for numerous leads where the potential client did not want our specific service or never answered the phone (most likely a fake number) or was told to never call them back or was out of our service area. I realized that I could ask to dispute these types of calls. In the end I received a $54 credit on the account. I cancelled my service and was told they would not credit my previously charged credit card. That the $54 credit was merely a courtesy and was for in house purposes only. Due to the fact I only secured 1 client over the past 5 months, I have lost more than $54. I would not recommend this referral company to a colleague.
Reviewed March 27, 2012
I have used ServiceMagic successfully in the past. This time, besides the four names given to me, I started getting calls from other very aggressive contractors not on the list. No one called and they told me no one else should call. They would investigate and call me back. They never called back and the calls continue from aggressive contractors, who have only the info I provided ServiceMagic, who said they got my info off the Internet. Either ServiceMagic is giving info to more contractors than they tell you, or they have a breach and are not dealing with it. I've had these contractors go to the extent of coming to my house. This is horrendous. I won't do business with them anymore.
Reviewed March 26, 2012
I used this site to find someone dependable to remodel and repair a bathroom. I had a bad experience with trying to pick my own person and figured this would be safe. Wrong! I was better off finding someone off the street. The contractor that was recommended was unorganized, the work was rushed and sloppy and not even completed on time. A thousand things were promised and very few were delivered. If you live in the Miami area and Service Magic recommends Cutting Edge Solutions, don't use them! Their contractor is a money hungry liar!
Reviewed March 26, 2012
I have been signed up with ServiceMagic for about five weeks. Of the seven leads sent to me, only two have been anywhere near serious "customers". One is a broke single mom with 4 kids who just wants to know how much it will cost to have her basement built in. The other has someone already working on their bath, but wants me to give them advice as to whether it's being done right! Out of the others, one man told me where to go and hung up. One politely said she wanted everyone to stop calling and remove her number from our list. Three have never answered my calls or e-mails nor called back on my messages. ServiceMagic is a fraud.
Reviewed March 9, 2012
while I don't condone Mr. Limbaugh's choice of words in the public forum of talk radio, I feel as if Service Magic simply joined the drone of political side taking. Mr. Limbaugh's comments, while uncalled for, were certainly no less inflammatory than remarks in the public arena from those such as Bill Maher, Ed Shultz, Maxine Waters or for that matter the vice president of the United States. I refused this morning to advertise with Service Magic and will refuse to deal with any other company that has handled themselves in this way. Such obvious overreaction smacks of caving to political leanings and is undeserving of any positive response.
Reviewed March 8, 2012
Hardwood stairs were put down in December 2011, and by February 2012, the stairs are all lifting up. I try to get in touch with the individual to come back and fix the problem, and up until now, no success.
Reviewed March 6, 2012
Just to let Fix It Fast/Service Magic know, as long as you sponsor Rush Limbaugh in any media format, I will not use your services or your affiliated providers. I am going to actively work with relatives, friends, and acquaintances to boycott all Rush Limbaugh sponsors. Lastly, wow, are you guys behind the eight ball for not getting out of this bind by now?
Reviewed March 3, 2012
I have been a roofing contractor for over 28 years. After trying Service Magic for just a couple of weeks, I found that only one out of 10 leads were legitimate. The first lead I received was a non-working number. The second was a hoax performed by kids. The third lead wouldn't call us back. We received two leads that had already signed with other companies when we promptly called them. One customer refused to allow us to come out because they were looking for a remodeler, not a roofer. Five following leads could not be reached and would not call us back. After complaining to Service Magic, I was informed that they would e-mail these last five that would not call us back and see if these customers would respond. They did not.
In the mean time, Service Magic debited my account $550. I was very upset because I notified them nine days before they took the money out of my account that I had several leads that were no good. The original salesman, Andy **, just disappeared and wouldn't call me back after I signed up even though he said all I need to do was notify him with any bad leads and he would credit me. He lied. It is very difficult to get a hold of anyone at Service Magic! When you finally do reach someone, it is obvious that they are well versed on how to refuse a bad lead credit.
This is a well rehearsed scam. Stay as far away from this company as you can! I spent many wasted hours trying to contact these bogus leads and trying to get my money back. I finally had to cancel my debit card and report a claim to Visa. Service Magic had the nerve to tell me that they were scheduled to take another $165 out of my account the following week for yet even more bad leads? This should be criminal and probably is.
Reviewed March 1, 2012
I am a contractor who signed up to get leads in our area. We were told by the salesman that they currently had leads for us. We received leads for areas that were hours away. These leads were either for services we do not provide or were just too far away. When we were charged for these leads, we called SM to complain and we were treated very poorly. We talked to many people and when told that someone would call back, they never did. We cancelled our account, but could not get reimbursed for all the useless leads. We spoke with many different levels of management and they still would not even consider returning the money they took from us for a service they did not provide. They stole our money and they do not care. When I would call the leads to tell them that I could not help them, they would get very annoyed. I don't blame them. Everybody makes mistakes. Only the decent companies own up to them; ServiceMagic will not own up.
Reviewed Feb. 17, 2012
Years ago our business was contacted by Service Magic offering to give pre-qualified leads for the services my company offers. In short, they charge hundreds of dollars for leads that are hundreds of miles away for "maybe" type fishing expeditions that people are requesting bids on and that are not even the type of work that we offer professional installation of. The more I contact Service Magic to tell them to take me off their call, email and fax lists, the more junk spam I get from them. I have had to threaten them with a cease and desist order to get them to stop filling my fax machine with junk leads. Their service reps are very polite but their sales staff is pushy, hateful, rude and nasty. They demand you do business with them or else.
Reviewed Feb. 10, 2012
ServiceMagic called and informed me of an online generating service. Leads were between $45 and $65 per lead. They allowed me to put a cap of $500 per month on the bill. I agreed to their terms. After the third month I got a bill for $781.80. They could not tell me why and refused to do anything about it. I disputed it on my Bank of America card but they said it would have to be a specific line item charge on my credit card bill. But it was only the amount over $500.00 I could dispute so the Bank of America said I could not dispute it. I closed the account. I would not use ServiceMagic ever again.
Reviewed Feb. 5, 2012
I am a veteran in dire need of work. In short, of all the leads I've been provided, only two have led to a contract. Approximately, 75% of the leads are for consumers that are just testing the waters and have no intention of moving forward with the work anytime in the near future. We're talking years in many cases, if at all or the consumer can't be reached, i.e. refuses to answer or return phone calls/emails. Service Magic does not give credit for these fruitless leads. So far, I have been billed nearly $1000 for the so called leads but the resulting work has been a pittance. Furthermore, Service Magic does not mention the fact that they give no credit for 'unable to contacts' or 'just testing the waters' scenarios when they make their sales pitch. I for one am going to see what the BBB has to say about this. They are preying on people that really need work and their practices are deceptive at the very least.
Reviewed Feb. 2, 2012
I'm not sure if they are a scam, but they are deceptive in their sales practices. As a contractor, I went through the phone sign up process, which includes a general terms and agreement phase. On one, I took exception to being billed up to $400.00 a month for leads. The sales representative, Ms. ** said not to worry and that they would agree to bill me for one lead a week. Long story short, they billed me $753.00 for a month and a half service. When I asked them about it, their account manager stated, "you agreed to $400.00 a month." Deceptive? You decide. Anyway, out of 17 "leads" non panned out. Most never returned phone calls or emails and when I was able to contact someone, they seemed surprised or irritated that I called.
Reviewed Feb. 1, 2012
I asked ServiceMagic if they had any tree service that would work without charge for disadvantaged seniors. I have a dead tree branch about to fall on my roof and as an 80 year old on welfare, I can't afford to have it removed. ServiceMagic knew all of this but still referred me to three companies without telling them I couldn't pay for service. The tree removal companies were extremely upset because the reference cost them $20 each (they told me this) and one man even phoned me back three times, cursing at me for a charge he'd have to pay to ServiceMagic for a negative reference. Bad stuff!
Reviewed Feb. 1, 2012
On1 1/01/2011, I engaged in a written and signed contract for remodeling of a property I own in Florida located at *** *** ave, Longwood, Florida 32750. The person who I signed the agreement with is Kevin **. This individual is a handyman who actually with other hired subcontractors did the work. He allegedly acts and contracts under the following qualifying certified contractor: Fernando **
The qualifying contractor has been unavailable and is unreachable. He has never presented himself and as far as I'm aware of has not supervised the remodeling project nor its financial matters as mandated by Florida statutes 489.1195. I did try to contact him via telephone multiple times and certified mail twice, receiving no response, even though he did receive my correspondence and acceptance was verified by the USPS. Mr. ** has received $9000 corresponding to the first two payments from the $25000 agreed on for the remodeling project and $9360 for doubtful work which in its majority was illegal and material.
Unfortunately and not trying to excuse myself, I trusted Mr. ** and his qualifying contractor who continued working without permits, all the time assuring me that they were being processed. Up to the agreed termination date 12/24/2011, he had completed more or less, at most 10% of the scope of work, breaching the terms of the contract.
Throughout the months after signing the contract and checking periodically on the progression of the remodeling, I realized that Mr. ** was not working as agreed and never was present at the premise being remodeled, eventually surpassing the due date. At this point, I started doubting the credibility and trust worthiness of this man and took a defensive stance, sending him a notification of breach of contract. Also, with no success. Once again, I requested Mr. *** an itemized list of expenses of the project.
On 12/26/2011, I was confronted at my primary residence by Mr. Joe ** a subcontractor who had worked as a subcontractor in the remodeling project I'm referring to. He informed me that Kevin ** had not paid his wages more or less in the amount of approximately $3000 as agreed upon, even though I had paid Mr. *** fully in advance to cover all labor. Same thing has happened with an electrician. Due to the these circumstances, unlicensed activity, mishandling of monies and fraud, Mr. ** contract was terminated and he was informed that he is banned from my property.
Recently under pressure from the permit department of the City of Longwood, I requested an inspection and proposal from a licensed contractor in order to ascertain the condition of the property and estimate the cost of restitution in order to meet the original contract. Informally, I was told that the costs would be in the range of $40000 or more, that 90% of the work that had been done is useless and that part of the demolition had impaired the structural fitness of the home and that urgently this had to be taken care of.
As his qualifying contractor, Mr. *** has never been present (I haven't met this gentleman) to supervise Mr. *** and other subcontractors work and has always been unavailable, he is jointly and equally responsible for the unaccountable amount of money and all grievances. Mr. ** as well as Mr. ** are also mutually culpable in engaging in illegal unlicensed work activity, which has been reported to the appropriate Florida authorities. Let me add that Mr. ** lied that he had been processing and acquiring the permits for the remodeling and as such I have been issued a citation from the City of Longwood permits department in order to address violations which could incur in heavy penalties.
As Mr. ** and Mr. ** are totally unreliable, of questionable integrity and misrepresented everything, my communication with the former is broken. Mr. ** barely responds to my emails. I consider their handling of monies at this point fraudulent and require restitution of past, ongoing and future expenses and an itemized explanation of the whereabouts of my payments. Of equal importance are the establishments of procedures and penalties so that these questionable individuals will not harm other customers. Considering Mr. Fernando ** is the qualifying licensed contractor and as such is bound by Florida Statutes, this complaint extends unto him in equal proportion.
Recently, I also have filed a complaint against Mr. ** and Mr. ** with the Department of Business and Professional Regulation and the Better Business Bureau.Mr. *** and Mr. *** are also a matter of complaint in case # ****.
Reviewed Jan. 25, 2012
When I asked for a quote on painting our kitchen I was called by PaintCrew.com. When I checked the phone number it was listed no number. I also call them at ** to cancel my appointment at 1:00. The person took down my info and said due to technical difficulty they would have to call me back. Shady company!
Reviewed Jan. 23, 2012
Two months ago or so, we filed a complaint against Service Magic in regards to a company they referred called Reese's Pressure Cleaning. After a long battle of proving our case against Reese's Pressure Cleaning, Service Magic finally came through under their "Service Guarantee" policy, refunding us $500 of the $600 we spent with Reese's. They discovered through the before and after photos that we were right. So in closing, Service Magic did the right thing and Reese's Pressure Cleaning was and still is a bad company because in the end, it's really up to them to make it right.
Reviewed Jan. 23, 2012
I hired an electrical contractor through Service Magic who showed up twice completing less than a third of the contracted work. When I complained to Service Magic, they didn't bother to call back for several weeks. When they finally called, they were spewing some ** lies told to them by the contractor. They didn't even listen to my description of the problem; they just took the word of the scumbag contractor. Remember folks, they earn their money from the contractors, so they will take their side every time. By the way, they only promise you a $500 refund, which is little solace after being ripped off for thousands.
Reviewed Jan. 20, 2012
They charged me for leads I did not ask for. They used my company name to get leads on the internet without asking or telling me. They used my cleaning company name with their telephone number on a website.
Reviewed Jan. 11, 2012
This is not a good service! The leads they send you are not all real leads. I had two leads the same week that had bad phone numbers. The people selling to you are getting paid by the leads. Yes, you can call and get credits, but it is not easy. I tried 20 leads and found that one was "ok". The lead rates compared to the work you get is so far off. Try it for yourself like I did--even after three people who had tried it warned me not to. I only want people to know it's not what they sell it to be. Very hard to get credits unless you go to the cancel department.
Reviewed Jan. 10, 2012
I received a phone call this morning from "Brad", claiming I had registered my business with ServiceMagic.com. I know I have not registered my business with any 3rd party businesses or websites. The guy who called me did not even have the correct name for my business. After reviewing comments on this and three other websites, I wont be returning his call. Thanks people, for your comments.
Reviewed Jan. 4, 2012
Service Magic called me and 'pushed' their services. They said that they will provide me leads for my handyman services. I received about 12 leads, only one was a real lead. 5 leads were already taken or stopped. They agreed to credit me for one lead only. 6 other leads, the customer did not return back the calls or did not meet me to see the job. Service magic kept telling me it was not their problem. I do not know how they are still allowed to operate with their fraudulent practices. I stopped the account after two agonizing weeks.
Reviewed Dec. 28, 2011
I signed up for ServiceMagic with the hopes of growing my small construction company. An enthusiastic salesmen promised me with world in order to get my credit card. From there, I was met with high monthly charges for "leads" that were unreachable, or on the odd occasion, I did contact someone they would inform me that they had no project to complete and the lead sent to me was a result of error. The salesmen who opened my account promised me that these types of leads were eligible for credit if the proper procedures were followed. However, after most of the requests were denied, I found out ServiceMagic does very little to resolve these issues.
Reviewed Dec. 9, 2011
Service Magic was trying to recruit our business over the phone promising leads for work in our area. They demanded SS#, date of birth and other private info to do a "background check" over the phone. And when we grew suspicious and asked them to send us something in the mail, they got all defensive. This is bad business practice. If you know in the state of Florida to be a licensed building contractor you already have to undergo lenghty background checks and fingerprinting, I find them ignorant and out to defraud the building trades.
Reviewed Dec. 9, 2011
I needed two jobs done. I first noticed that two contractors came to look at the job and neither had trucks. They both came with copies of their licenses. I chose one who seemed okay. I let him know that I had secured the funds so he requested on Monday to meet Friday and we would have to give him 25k; the two jobs combined to just under 40k. When I promptly responded that we can do 1/2 and 1/2 on the 6k job, which was to be done first, and then the standard This is a red flag! I googled the particular contractor up by name and his track record wasn't pretty. I hate to even give them a one star.
Reviewed Nov. 29, 2011
I started a Service Magic account with high hopes of growing my 2 man handyman business into a larger company. As it turned out, I ended up receiving leads that were bogus and dead ends. As a small business in a tough market, I could not afford to lose money. However, Service Magic automatically deducted $72.00 from my bank account without my approval. The kicker to the story is that I had closed the account several days prior to the charge. 6 months later, I'm still fighting and arguing with Service Magic reps and supervisors. They will not let me speak directly with anyone in the billing department, account managers or anyone with authority to help me with this matter.
Reviewed Nov. 29, 2011
We had just bought a new house that was only 10 years old. The deck was grey and needed to be restored and stained, so we looked online for local contractors and discovered ServiceMagic, who recommended Reese's Pressure cleaning. This guy, we felt he over charged us; but still we proceeded to use him. He totally led us to believe that all we need is to pressure wash, brighten and stain to make it look "brand new." His words. He went on to boast of the chemicals that he used, so we trusted in what he said. This guy totally ruined our decks. The first step broke, cracked and splintered the whole works. We contacted the contractor. No response. We contacted ServiceMagic which told him to contact us.
He did and he comes on our property with a four-wheeler equipped with an exposed machete, who was acting totally belligerent and hostel to the point that we had to call the police and file a report. ServiceMagic in turn attempted to file a complaint or resolve the issue. Not only did they not resolve the issue, but clearly said it was our fault. When we supplied them with all the evidence of the damages, police report, the works, you can't dispute clear evidence. The contractor Reese's Pressure Cleaning had none. Where we had before and after proof of the damages on photos that wasn't there until he did his work. Bottom line, ServiceMagic failed to help or resolve the issue and on top of that said that it was our fault. So I hope any one reading this will consider the many complaints with this horrible company that should have our best interest, the consumer.
We filed a complaint against Reese's Pressure Washing with the Better Business Bureau. If we have to take this to court we will, but Reese's Pressure Washing won't be alone. We want to get justice for the bad treatment that we received from ServiceMagic being that they recommend him but take no responsibility for how this turns out for the consumer. ServiceMagic has 425 complaints with the BBB in the last three years.
Reviewed Nov. 28, 2011
I had a service call for 85.00 dollars. I was not paying attention as I was expecting Cassidy's Plumbing Company (who came and gave a free estimate). I would give 5 stars to Cassidy. I would give no stars to Finnegan.
Reviewed Nov. 21, 2011
Through service magic, I hired Fresh Start Cleaning Services. They sent different people in bi-weekly to clean and I asked that the same people clean each time. I complained 3 times about the inadequate cleaning service and got no where. They did not clean as indicated on what they service claims. Horrible customer service and the house was left in a mess.
Reviewed Nov. 4, 2011
Service magic has stolen leads from our company. We have not worked for them for four months; we shut them down but they still are advertising our company. People looking up my company called them, and Service Magic tells them that we are no longer taking any work, and they send it to other contractors, so they get paid. A former customer lost my phone number and looked me up under handyman, the number he had gotten was Service Magic. I had not worked for them in four months. I called service magic four times and emailed them about this matter and didn't hear from them. I would love to see someone remove advertising for my company with Service Magic.
Reviewed Oct. 31, 2011
We agreed to a contract with ServiceMagic in January 2010 to have them provide leads for our building business. Of the 72 "leads" that they supplied, only 2 were valid. The others were either non responsive or not interested. ServiceMagic automatically charged us for over $3,500.00 for these bogus leads. The last "lead" they provided turned out to be a crack house where we were told to "Get the ** off the property or I'll shoot you!"
Reviewed Oct. 28, 2011
I also am a contractor with Service Magic and I have been noticing they have been deducting more money out of my account. I have called them and told them I'm not even getting the jobs and they're like, "Sorry, but we can't do anything about the problem." I've been thinking about dropping them. I haven't decided yet though.
Reviewed Oct. 25, 2011
A civil lawsuit was filed on October 19, 2011 in United States Federal Court against ServiceMagic, Inc., their subsidiary, Market Hardware, and Market Hardware's CEO Brian Kraff for bad faith business practices, unfair and deceptive trade practices, unfair competition, cyber squatting, and other serious violations of law. If you are a service contractor and have ever had a complaint against ServiceMagic, Inc, please consider downloading and completing the affidavit form provided at our website: ***
Reviewed Oct. 25, 2011
Back in 2010, I became a Service Magic contractor; they send me leads and paid for them. Most of the time, I couldn't get a hold of the customer, or when I did get a hold of them, they stated that they never requested the service or that they had an appointment with someone else. A lot of these leads were supposed to be exact match leads, and if they were exact match leads, why were they sent to multiple contractors?
The problem started a few months ago, when all of the sudden I stop receiving leads in the whole period of time. I received 4 leads, which out of the 4, I was able to contact 2. My account never got charge and I didn't receive a bill about it, then all of the sudden back in 07/20/2011, I received a bill asking me to pay $311.50. I try calling them to no avail. I try looking through my account to see what I was paying for the account had been block.
I tried contacting them through a chat service and was successful, he inform me that my account was sent out to collection and that I needed to talk to them, I explain to him that I wanted to see what I was being charge for and he stated that he couldn't help me to talk to the collection agency. I called CMI and I explain the situation to a gentleman and I ask to see what I was being charge for. He stated that he would send me an email, which I never received. CMI is billing me for $415.33; they are harassing me and refuse to give me any information. I refuse to pay because they refuse to provide me with information. I did not receive all those leads; therefore, I shouldn't be held responsible. Why didn't Service Magic call my phone? Why didn't they send me a text, or email stating there was a problem? They only contacted me after I was sent to collection, while I worked with them I paid thousands of dollars and got 2 good leads, service magic is a rip off.
Reviewed Oct. 24, 2011
I have, as a contractor, been taken advantage of by ServiceMagic as I have paid several thousand dollars in leads and have not had any work from their lead program. They do not replace bad leads as they say they would. I think the way to fix their lead program is to let the homeowners know that their contractors are paying a hefty price for their leads. Also, prescreen a little better on their part.
Reviewed Oct. 24, 2011
A rep named Josh contacted my business, asking if we wanted re-model work. I explained to him no and advised him to contact Home Builders Assoc of Southern Indiana for contacts. He then asked if we were out of business and made insulting comments asking why we don't need the work, etc. He was very unprofessional and he should have said okay and goodbye when we first responded with no instead of making rude and insulting comments.
Reviewed Oct. 22, 2011
I have hired different contractors through Service Magic and they all were good except one. The name of the house cleaning company is "Fresh Start." On August 3, 1010, a cleaning lady that worked for Fresh Start, cleaned my house. On finishing the cleaning of one of the bathroom bath faucet, she commented to me if I realized that that particular bath faucet leaked. I told her that that faucet did not leak.
When I saw that faucet, it wasn't just leaking, it wouldn't turn off. This faucet is positioned at 6 when closed and opens counter clockwise up to the 12 position. After she was done cleaning that bathroom, the lever was beyond the 12 position at 11. I called her boss and her boss spoke to her. The cleaning lady denied that she broke the cartridge of the faucet. The owner of "Fresh Start" brought two different "handymen" to try to fix it but the second guy used a wrench on the valve to try to close it and bent the valve.
Within the next two days, I had three different plumbers assess the bath faucet and all three said that a wrench on the valve should not have been used and that this caused the bending of the valve. The owner of "Fresh Start" was condescending and told me over the phone that if I called her again about my plumbing problems that she would call the police. I posted a negative review on Service Magic and the owner of "Fresh Start" has disputed it. She has 10 days to provide documentation that supports her side. I spent $550 dollars to fix what her cleaning lady and handyman did to my faucet. If Service Magic does not post my review, I might take "Fresh Start" to court.
Reviewed Oct. 15, 2011
I called a number listed on the internet to schedule an estimate for refacing cabinets. After I gave the person who answered the phone my number, she said "I see you have done business with Service Magic before". I replied that I had not contracted with any company through Service Magic. I told them I thought Service Magic was a ripoff company because my husband got ripped off by them to get leads for his business. He is still trying to get rid of them. They charged a lot of money for their "leads", which are mostly bogus. I hung the phone up and about an hour later, a man called from the cabinet refacing company so I know they gave him my number even though I told them not to send anyone. I'm sure this man is going to get "charged" for the "lead" even though I have no intention of doing business with him. I made it very plain that I did not want to have anything to do with Service Magic and they still gave my number to the business.
Reviewed Oct. 11, 2011
I hire them to get leads and that's when my nightmare started. They send leads that don't want any job done, people looking for jobs, and other kinds of person that don't pick up their phone. I had to pay for all that; then I cancel but they keep on. Now I have found out that I have a balance of $556.00 dollars after a year that I cancelled. That company is a fraud to the people who is looking for a better future.
Reviewed Oct. 10, 2011
My overall experience as a vendor with Service Magic is less than 1 star.
The quality of leads is so crappy. Consumers still do not know what they are getting into.
SM quickly charges me for each lead but try to get a credit. I believe their policy is to deny, deny, deny.
We turn our leads off until the proper credit is given, we both lose. Don't be a loser, ask your associates about Service Magic. Yes, there are some positives, but they are just greedy like everyone else.
Don't waste your money.
Reviewed Oct. 5, 2011
I went on ServiceMagic site to find a person to clean, inspect, and repair my chimney. I chose Kenny's Masonary and chimney sweep with a 4.56 out of 5 rating. Kenny refused to check anything outside like the roof flashing or brick on the outside. He took a brush and ran up the chimney a couple of times. He told me he would clean out the bottom clean out area for an additional $20. I told him that is part of cleaning the chimney, but he refused. He was at the house no more than 15 min and charged $125. I complained to ServiceMagic and tried to give Kenny a bad rating, but I kept getting an error message. I contacted ServiceMagic and they told me they would submit my rating for me. However, Kenny still has a 4.56 rating and no rating from me.
Reviewed Oct. 2, 2011
I hired them and got ripped off. I found these reviews after the fact. So, here's my question: if ServiceMagic is a fraudulent scam, how does the BBB have them rated A-? That's pretty good rating. Is BBB a scam too? Do they pay for their rating?
Reviewed Sept. 13, 2011
I used ServiceMagic as a lead referral service. The leads would come to my cell phone via email, text & call. I would call these leads back within 5 minutes (max) & the consumer already "found someone". Other leads I would call then leave messages (more than one) & I would never receive a call back. Other numbers were disconnected when I call back. The reason for my complaint is that ServiceMagic is still advertising using my business name & mailing address but is using the service magic number. With their continuous advertising it could lead to possible loss of my business. I can get possible complaints against my business, loss of income and defamation of character.
Reviewed Aug. 24, 2011
Prices are rising on bad service and bad leads are always generated. Now, they are rising fees. Not only did they rip us off but they also reduced our territory. We have to pay more for extending it. I don't understand why a company of this nature is permitted to act this way in the middle of recession. These people are trying to double their profits. I charge between $50 - $150 per cleaning a medium-sized carpet. With this kind of hike, I will have no profits. They are taking all your money. They left us with just pennies on a one time job. We survive with frequented or recurring customers; however, they don't provide us with any of those.
There are times when a lead is sent to us so we contact the customer right away. What happens? The customer is already mad because at least four providers already contacted them and sometimes, those calls were done hours ago and even a day before. I had contacted ServiceMagic and complained on these bad leads. Their answer is for us to submit a credit request for this "incident" without even an apology on their side. Why not begin a class suit against this company with all these bad practices? Why can't the federal government do anything to stop these abusive practices?
Reviewed Aug. 21, 2011
Service Magic gave me three names of handyman to fix the drip of the faucet. I chose Miguel to do the job. Miguel fixed the drip of the faucet but failed to put the base of the faucet correctly. I called him on August 19 and he promised to come on August 20 at 10 am. He did not show as promised. I called him and left a message which remained unanswered. I have already paid him $75 for the job and I expect him to put the base correctly.
Reviewed Aug. 11, 2011
I was sent a lead end of July. I called the lead up and found that it was not a good lead.
Ten to 15 minutes later, I called up Service Magic to let them know that the lead they sent was not good. They told me that they would review the lead. They end up charging me for the lead anyway.
I called them up and spoke with one of the representatives. He said that they could give me another lead. At first I was will to work with them but me and my wife were thinking if they stole from us once, they might try this again.
The leads they have sent in the past started to feel funny. So I went online to see the reviews and saw that they have done this a lot. Please help stop these guys from taking hardworking people's money.
Reviewed Aug. 4, 2011
After several conversations with the sales rep and being offered a no fee chance to try their service I reluctantly decided to try them. they assured me that they would get me quality leads for fabricating and installing laminate counter tops. After 90 days with them they sent me two leads. The first lead the lady wanted a piece of a post form counter top 29 inches wide and 4 inches deep for the back of a slide in stove.
I told them I don't do post form tops. that lead cost me $19.50. I had to fight tooth and nail for a refund which they held in escrow because they told me they don't issue refunds. After another 30 days I got a second lead. I called her within 5 minutes of getting the lead and she told me she didn't want to talk to anyone on the phone she was trying to get quotes online and had already hired Sears. Again Service magic told me that they wont give me a refund because she filled out the form online. and that constituted a good lead.
I called to cancel my account and was told I was in the phone que and they would call me but after three hours of waiting no one ever bothered to call me to cancel my account and you can't go online to cancel your account. Imagine that! I am now in the second day of trying to cancel my account and every time I speak to someone they put me on hold until someone else like a customer service manager answers the line and amazingly they don't have the ability to cancel my account either so they put me back on hold. It's just a big game. I would not recommend this company to anyone period. Now I have to get a new card so they cant start putting bogus charges on my account that they won't refund.
Reviewed July 15, 2011
I signed up to use Service Magic for "carpentry remodeling" leads. I was told when I signed up that the leads are screened and if I ever had a problem with lead "information not correct, misleading lead work scope, etc.," the company would issue you a credit for that lead.
I have been only using Service Magic for one month and I found that these are not screened or serious consumer leads. I received a lead that I had an option to accept or decline. I accepted it based on the consumer stating she wanted to have cabinets installed within one week within my area. I followed up with the client within an hour over July 4th holiday weekend only for the consumer to tell me that she was not serious about installing cabinets and that she was researching products. I do not sell products, I offer installation services. I placed a request for a credit and was denied. My representative, who was so helpful when I signed up, told me that people change their minds and that's part of the business and we cannot offer credits for that.
I found out that these leads are NOT screened leads with serious consumers seeking services. The leads I received were misleading and I'm struggling to get a credit back. In addition to this, I have called on several leads I received from Service Magic and the consumer never answers the phone, responds to email or appointment date request. I received five leads within two weeks that I was told there were "Match Leads" that the consumer sought me out so I have to pay an additional fee for these leads. If a consumer sought me out, why wouldn't they answer the phone or emails if they want to personally work with me? It seems like a scam. I received five leads with three of them being "match leads" consumers seeking me out but none of them has booked an appointment with me or returned my calls/emails.
These leads come from Internet surfers who make a couple of clicks here and there. And we, contractors in a struggling economy, are chasing these false leads hoping that it will lead to a job, but they don't.
Reviewed June 30, 2011
Service Magic harassed us on joining their company, offering great web space meaning, in turn, we would get more customers. We did sign up with them and I noticed right away that something was wrong. The first lead (a job they set up for you when a customer calls) was okay. It stopped, there was no answer, no contact info, even just an inquiry and we still got charged for everyone. If it stopped there and there were no other problems, I would have been so lucky. They debit money you owe them for leads on a weekly basis. I had been told without a shadow of a doubt that they never ever refund money into a bank account. They only credit your account. Okay, not great and I'm starting to rethink the situation.
I checked my bank statement, not only did they debit for the two leads from week one, they debited them twice and credited them once. They told me it was my bank that did it. My bank assured me that this was not the case. Of course, so I cancelled. That's when I noticed that I did a web search for our company, it shows up only with a link to Service Magic. Previously, I had set up several listings on free sites but all these had been changed. Not only do any customers looking for us get Service Magic number, they completely removed my number, putting their forwarding number in its place. It is like that to this day and they said that it will take up to 60 days to fix this. Also, they changed my address to an address in a different city with the wrong zip code too. When I looked it up, I saw it wasn't even a house, office, anything. It was a field down an old road. That's when things got very peculiar.
They have the same address listed for lots of contractors and the ones that have different addresses listed? All bogus addresses, mostly dirt roads. I called them about this and said that they had no idea, maybe a glitch. One guy said it was the accurate address of one company. When I told him what I found on the map, he hung up on me. I have a feeling something very bad is going on in that company. Now, if anyone searches for us, they only get Service Magic. Service Magic takes one job and sells it to 4 or 5 contractors, with of course only one getting the job. I'm afraid now, even though I've cancelled, they are stealing our business and name.
Reviewed June 29, 2011
I have been using Service Magic for about 2 years to the tune of $5,000. I got a lead yesterday for $82. I call the customer and they told me that the information was incorrect. I requested a credit but Service Magic denied the credit request twice within the same day. They owe me $72 of a balance. They told me that they are not set up to give refunds. So another $72 is down the drain. Has anyone considered a class action lawsuit against this corporate monster?
Reviewed Feb. 20, 2011
This is in response to your letter regarding Service Magic, Inc. and the collection of $1,755.00. This company violated every condition given to me when they initially sold me their "bill of goods." The calls from them to sign up for their service were borderline harassment. When I finally agreed to temporarily use their service, I followed up on every "qualified lead" they gave me. That was the first violation. The leads they provided were not qualified. None of the leads resulted in any business to me. When I tried to call them to cancel the service, not only were they difficult to contact, they refused to cancel the service and continued to charge my credit card.
It appears that other businesses had the same problem. I have enclosed 10 of 54 pages of complaints from Consumer Affairs reports with similar situations as mine. The people of Service Magic are thieves with deceptive and fraudulent practices. Do you really want to pursue this matter? After reading the enclosed Consumer Affairs reports along with others found on consumeraffairs.com, it would be in your best interest to discontinue your requests for payment and sever your relationship with this despicable company.
Reviewed Feb. 20, 2011
I have spent hours on the phone on 3 different occasions convincing someone at Comcast to send a technician to help me with 2 problems-- wireless connection and unable to use my remote. I was able after many painful, humiliating, frustrating conversations to get service calls scheduled 3 different times. Each time, the service call was cancelled and I was notified via an electronic message saying the problem was fixed in my area. I have been paying for wireless service since December 2010 and was never able to use it. My TV remote does not work. I simply cannot fix these problems by walking through the solutions on the phone which Comcast forces me to do every time I call, until they finally scheduled a service call only to cancel it the next day.
Reviewed Jan. 23, 2011
Service Magic is making millions from the contractors and the home owner by scamming them and cheating people. Do not share your info with them. Be careful, trust me, I spend a lot of money. Do not do the same mistake. Do not give them your email because they will spy on you on line, also they have different company called Contractor.com. Many people are suffering right now but Service Magic doesn't care the only thing they care about is your money and your credit card.
Reviewed Jan. 19, 2011
I had an account with Service Magic as a residential designer. They never screened their leads at all. When I would call on a lead, the customer would usually say that they just clicked the submit button and they couldn't believe that I called so quickly. Out of over 20 leads, I met two people and signed one contract.
Finally, I received two leads in a row for patent design drawings. This has nothing to do with Home Improvement. When I disputed the charge, they offered credit for one but not the other. I swear if someone contacted them about how to milk a cow, they would send out leads and charge for them.
I also received another lead and charge after I canceled my account, and they would not give my money back for that either. Finally, they said they could not put the disputed charge back onto my credit card, they could only offer a replacement lead. Considering I canceled my account, this was of no use to me. I had to contact my credit card company.
In my last conversation with them, they told me they would look into it and call me back. I am still waiting for that call.
Do not use them. It's a scam. I lost over $250 with this company and they refuse to put credit back to the credit card claiming it is not their policy.
Reviewed Jan. 13, 2011
I was first contacted by a ServiceMagic representative who, at that time, had called me many times before, and the answer to join was always no. This time, he said that I could tryout the service for $99 one-time membership fee plus a start-up bundle of $200, for the cost of only $150. If i do not like the service, I do not have to use it and that I would only pay for leads I accepted.
When the first leads were sent, I accepted three of them. It seems to be okay so I called customer service and told them that I told Mr. ** that I did a handyman service and is busy in the summertime. They told me not to worry and that I can turn it off at anytime. Then, I got a call saying that I can't. At that time, I told the customer service to just stop the service, which was not done. I still got some leads sent to me but never accepted any of them because I had already told them that I don't like it when everybody is giving me different answers to the same question.
I then received an email saying that I could not receive any leads due to the fact there was no more in the account. I told them to close the account. Now, I got another email saying that my service was back on and I have an outstanding balance of over $400. Plus, it was being turn over to the collection department for service that I did not use. During the time they said it was off, I told them that I never accepted any leads but they wanted to settle for $290. Otherwise, I will have a bad credit report.
Then, their collection department called me and said that I can't win so I need to pay up. I have not used their service after the first three leads, so I can't do anything but let the court have the last word. This is a company you just trust on anything they say or do. Why should one pay for something that don't work for them? ServiceMagic is trying to rip me off. Thank you even if you can't help.
Reviewed Dec. 28, 2010
Service Magic is anything but magic. I chose a contractor from their referral suggestions. The job was not completed. The cost to repair (what was done wrong) is crazy. The contractor bond was all spent on legal awards to previous lawsuits. The contractor's license has been revoked. Now, you would think that someone who pre-screens their contractors, would know about this? On top of these issues, Service Magic will not allow me to post a review. They say it's too harsh and doesn't meet their guidelines. We are all better off throwing a dart at a list and use that contractor.
Reviewed Dec. 18, 2010
I have tried Servicemagic a couple of times and both times received such bad referrals or leads that it ended up being a waste of time. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. They don't qualify any leads at all. Getting in contact with the person is nearly impossible and that's how I know they don't qualify their leads. On one of the leads that Servicemagic sent me, I asked the person about how SM got their info and they said all they did was filled out a form and there was never any verification. It turns out they were just curious about how much it would cost to redo their kitchen. And I paid for this.I ended up wasting time and money for what turned out to be bad leads. I did find another company called Find Professionals Now and at least they verified their leads.
Reviewed Nov. 30, 2010
I signed up to get leads for my small business. They stole my likeness and name! They put their phone number with my name in search engines and websites without me knowing it and effectively stole my internet traffic and sold it to me and other contractors. I have lost thousands of dollars in leads and business by giving these crooks my info to use to rope in unsuspecting consumers! They thought they were contacting me, but got ServiceMagic's crooked sales people who lied to them instead.
Reviewed Nov. 19, 2010
We hired a GC recommended by ServiceMagic to complete a renovation in our home. He in turn hired a plumber from ServiceMagic, as his regular guy was busy. This plumber procured a new fireplace, installed a tank less hot water heater, and did a few other installs for us. We figured he would be fine because he was ServiceMagic screened. The renovation is over and all the bills have been paid. But the plumber did not pay the Fireplace Company for any of the products he purchased which are now installed in our house. The supplier has now put a mechanic's lien on our house. Our GC paid the plumber in full, even extra to ensure that all of the work got done in time. But this guy never paid his suppliers and we are getting dragged into court. The plumber will also not take out phone calls. So, we have had to hire a lawyer.
If that wasn't bad enough, we started smelling natural gas in our house and discovered that this ServiceMagic plumber installed our hot water heater incorrectly. Due to this incorrect installation, the company which makes the hot water heater says our warranty on the device is null. I’m not saying ServiceMagic should have foreseen it but what's the point of offering a service which screens contractors if it doesn't really mean anything? The reviews people give are useless because at the time, we gave the review of the plumber, we thought he was great. Now, some poor person on ServiceMagic is going to think this guy is a good plumber. I am sure there are many examples of this. Be honest. Just tell people that you are a simple service which connects homeowners and contractors, anything above is garbage because unless you have an internal quality screening process. A license and insurance doesn't mean you are connecting me with the best choices. I will never use this service again. Shame.
Reviewed Nov. 8, 2010
They do not check the qualifications of the people that they list for home improvement. They sent an inexperienced tile person who did a terrible job. The tiles are starting to crack just days after installation. The person took my money and left his worker there. He never returned to examine the job. Service Magic avoid them. They don't check out their referrals for professionalism and experience. They need to be shut down.
Reviewed Oct. 30, 2010
Beware: Service Magic is a rip-off organization. Regardless of their cutesy ads, this company rips off the consumer. Promises verified leads for work and produces false and misleading trails. This company is currently threatening because of non-payment on bogus leads.
I was told that the leads were generated by interested homeowners looking for remodeling work and yet none of the leads produced anything but paying for gas traveling to speak with the homeowners and lost time getting bids together, which were not even accepted due to the owners just "window shopping". If the leads were authentic, then why were the people just looking and we are getting them as "good" leads? Because every time I enter their site looking around, they generate it as a lead.
Now take those lookie loos and bill everyone who signed up with them who does remodeling by $45.00-$90.00 a pop and you begin to see the big picture. I am waiting for further developments from them and I am ready for a lawsuit. Simply put, this is nothing more than a bait and switch business.
Thought I would be able to pick up at least one job from the original 6. I paid over $200.00 for but nothing was the actual reality. I spent countless hours putting together bids for non-existent work. All homeowners said that they were just curious as to what it might cost and did not know that the company would be sending out contractors to bid the job. They thought that they were on a site which might be able to give them a cost breakdown for the work that they hoped to get done somewhere down the road or if they could ever come up with the cash to get the work done.
Reviewed Oct. 21, 2010
I contacted ServiceMagic in August 2010 to have a three panel fence installed, by J. Gardner Construction Company at 248-996-5199. What a joke! The owner of the company sent his brother to install the fence. The fence was uneven. He used the wrong brackets. The poles were uneven. What a sloppy job! The brother of J. Gardner took three weeks to complete the job. He was digging holes in the yard in the wrong place. I had to buy more cement because he had his measurements wrong. And he charged me additional fees because of his error. At this time, I contacted ServiceMagic to advise them of the poor workmanship. They stated that they would contact J. Gardner Construction Company. They made contact with the company which contacted me two weeks later. They stated that they would take a look at the work, which they never did.
I contacted ServiceMagic again. They stated they would try again to contact J. Gardner Construction Company. I did receive a call four weeks later. Now it is September. Anyway, Service Magic had me going around and around with this. They stated if J. Gardner Construction Company was not going to take responsibility for the damages, they would. They never did. And I have been told now that J. Gardner is only going to pay for the labor and not the materials that were damaged. It is now Oct. They said that J. Gardner is going to send me the labor money sometime in November 2010. ServiceMagic is stalling. This is one of the worst experiences that I have ever had. I will never recommend this company ServiceMagic to anyone. Homeowner, beware!
Reviewed Oct. 19, 2010
Service Magic has taking me through so much. Service Magic charge me for bogus calls. I didn't even received the leads, also I found out later that Service Magic charge you for leads that was assigned to other people. My biggest charges was $1,300.00 through Service Magic. I received disconnected number, unanswered phone information and people saying they didn't put in a request for cleaning. Also, you have some of their Sale Associate that is very nasty. Something needed to be done.
Reviewed Oct. 15, 2010
They told me that I pay them for the leads that they give me for work. They said they would give me 3 or 4 leads a week but they sent close to 23 in 3 weeks. Most of the leads did not pan out. I never got any work from them. I tried to close my account but they say I owe them money, so they won't close it. I refuse to pay them. I did not sign a contract or anything with them but they are threatening to send it to collections.
Reviewed Oct. 8, 2010
Do not use ServiceMagic. They are a horrible and mean company. They sent us fraudulent leads one right after another then took our money . When I tried to get talk to them and get credit, they would only ignore the situation that was happening. They are mean to me also. The contractor relations department treated me horribly. Finally, they took my money, took my credit that they owed me and cancelled my account. They said it was because I complained too much.
Reviewed Oct. 1, 2010
On the complete opposite side of things, if you are a "valid, trustworthy and completely legitimate contractor", I highly recommend that you use ServiceMagic, Inc. As a very successful owner of one of the premier interior design and building companies in Denver, Colorado, I have seen tremendous success by using ServiceMagic. Their business model makes perfect sense! If you can pass a background check, meaning absolutely no felonies, no liens or judgments and have no bankruptcies, then you are considered a legit contractor and have the right to become a part of ServiceMagic.
Homeowners do demand and have stronger expectations for legit companies such as mine. If you can't sell, then don’t attempt to join ServiceMagic. Their program is only for the best of the best throughout America. If you are a sub-par contractor that can't close business, or more so, looks to blame someone else for your misfortune or the simple fact that you are a poor businessman or woman, like I said ServiceMagic is not for you and don't apply. Again, ServiceMagic is only for solid legit business professionals seeking to better their business, close business. Talk to homeowners who only want to deal with the best and then want to grow their business. I have closed 80% of our leads, $40 leads turning into $4000.00 projects. No-brainer, I hope most would say, but then there are those who act prompt to criticize others for their own life and or business mistakes!
Reviewed Sept. 20, 2010
I am an interior designer in the Washington,D.C area. I signed up for trial service with Service Magic. The leads that I received were for contracting or landscape services, not interior design service. They sent me two months worth of leads but since they mistook my credit card info. they could not access my account. Now they have the credit collection company coming after me to pay up $379. I told them that I would only pay $200 for the leads that were given even though they were not for my services or people were not interested in my service as the lead indicated.
It was a waste of time. The original agreement was for 2 months at $99 per month and that the leads given would be filtered out for my company's type of service. There were one or two that were for interior design but when I called and emailed with no response from the customer. I do not even know if they need any service at all. I told the credit collection I would pay $200 and they responded by saying we will have our legal department deal with you. So what recourse do I take? I do not want my company's credit ruined or people calling to collect. I should not have to pay at all since the leads were not legitimate.
Reviewed Sept. 16, 2010
The only magic about this company is their ability to scam. I am a contractor, I have an ad on Google Place. Today I checked my Place page ad and found that Servicemagic had attached links to their website on my Place Page. They did this by placing false reviews in the reviews section that leads to their web site. They also placed photos in the section for photos of my work, when these photos are clicked on to enlarge they connect to Servicemagic web site. They are trying to steal potential customers from me. I am wondering if this is considered fraud. These photos were falsely submitted and the reviews have nothing to do with me. Servicemagic is just trying to steal my advertising. What honest company does this? I believe this just proves that they are dishonest.
Reviewed Sept. 16, 2010
I have used ServiceMagic for years whenever I needed a contractor for my home. I think if ServiceMagic would check my records in their database, they will see I have used their contractors in their database many times. I had a huge project I needed done and I contacted ServiceMagic to send me a list of contractors. I wanted to do some home improvements that consisted of drywall work, installing a bathroom so a plumber was needed, and someone to paint my home. After talking with several contractors sent to me by ServiceMagic, I decided to go with Drywall Masters and Repair. Larry ** is the contractor. Larry turned out to be very terrible. He has taken $2700.00 of my money and has not completed the work. It is not until I started to experience problems that I went online, and to my shock, were many complaints on this man. I was so disappointed that I had trusted ServiceMagic to screen their contractors that I did not even think to go online to check this man out because that was why I was using ServiceMagic. ServiceMagic was supposed to take that portion of the headache away so I could focus on deciding which contractor I wanted to use.
When I went online I saw the many bad reviews on Larry **. I could not believe ServiceMagic had sent this man to me. At present, I have hired Larry ** to do work for me and everything that was stated in the reviews by former customers of Larry ** is happening to me right now. I did ask him for references and he stated his work speaks for himself, and instead of giving me references, he showed me pictures. That was my second mistake. My first mistake was trusting ServiceMagic to do the screening properly. Larry ** lies and says one thing, then lies and says he did not say it. I have paid him most of his money and he still has not completed the work. He was supposed to come by my home (9/15/2010) and I had to call him to see where he was and he stated he was sick. This was the first time he missed an appointment which caused me to start doing some checking and found all these complaints.
Larry ** is very rude and unprofessional. He has yelled and raised his voice with me and has threatened to call his lawyer and put a lien against my home, too, which I knew he was lying there too because it takes money to do that, and he is too greedy to send money on a lawyer and court fees for a lien. At present, he still has work to complete on my home. He has been paid the bulk of his money and yet the work is not completed. Based on the reviews of former customers it is apparent he would start to back out in coming back to work on my home. I am so disappointed in ServiceMagic because as much as I know the Internet, the only reason I did not do a search on Drywall Masters and Repair is because I believed that Servicemagic had done what they said they had done, which is to research these contractors and make sure they were okay.
It is so sad that Larry ** feels he has to cheat people to get money. Just like the other reviewers, we were ready to pay him for the work, but Larry’s business model is to come in, make you think he has good experience and good service, then get as much money up front and then do some work, but not all the work and leave having gotten a lot of your money, never intending to do the rest of the work. Larry ** is not the person you want in your home doing any work.
ServiceMagic is partly responsible for all the people who have gotten taken by Larry **. We would not have known about this person except for ServiceMagic. ServiceMagic needs to have this man taken out of their database because he is a con artist. He gets folks’ money and then does not come back to finish the work. Now I have to find someone else which means I have to pay again and I now don't have the money because Larry ** got it all. Larry ** needs to be prosecuted and ServiceMagic needs to assist in making this happen. Larry ** needs to either come and finish the work on my home and do a quality job or I want a portion of my money back.
I need to be advised first about what ServiceMagic will do about this situation. Secondly, I need to know all my options to have Larry ** license revoked so he does not work again in Georgia or anywhere else. I need to know if the insurance contractors are supposed to have it so that it can be accessed to receive payment for what he had done. I expect to hear from someone today regarding this situation.Listed below are links that show other customers’ complaints on this person back in 2009 and yet he is still in their database, and now I have become a victim: **, **, **.
Reviewed Aug. 30, 2010
I have been a loyal customer of ServiceMagic since Sept. 2008. I am a painting contractor in Southern California. I, on numerous occasions, have tried talking with representatives from ServiceMagic regarding their unscrupulous practices of providing substandard and not verified leads to me, and can never get anything but apologies and **. I am amazed at how vague their screening process is and they beg to differ. I continuously receive bogus leads where customers don't own homes, are renters and have no authority to get work done, shoppers who want over-the-phone pricing and will not let you in there homes, bad contact info, and people who just try to get or think that they will get a price off their website and have no intent of hiring anyone.
My biggest problem is when I put in requests for credit, there is no reasonable explanations to why they deny credits. They will deny credit and say that the lead was verified and I have personally driven to vacant addresses to find that no one has lived at these places for years, but ServiceMagic will say they verified and another pro had completed the work.
When a customer doesn't want a quote (which by the way is not a lead), ServiceMagic does not accept that as a reason for credit. They say their pricing is such it compensates and is adjusted for a certain number of bad contacts. Great for them to assume the risk with my money. On the other hand, I had a customer not pay me for services I rendered 100% and when I sent the customer to collections, the customer called ServiceMagic to log a complaint and have them negotiate a lower price on his behalf. And while this was in the system, ServiceMagic turned off my leads, affecting my revenue while siding with a customer who didn't pay his bill. I have a 4.86 rating out of a 5 star rating and never had a complaint, but I was treated like a liar and had to prove I did the work correctly for this customer. ServiceMagic even recommended I take away the collection on the customer, over helping me collect my hard-earned money.
They actually have on the records of customer contacts showing that we the contractors are accepting these leads, in those exact words, and it is actually if a lesson logs on ServiceMagic as a customer just browsing and enters some info about their home, without notice ServiceMagic sends us leads unknown to this person and then when we call they say they were just trying to get some information from there website and didn't need to be contacted. Well to ServiceMagic this is an acceptable lead and all they tell us to do is keep their number and follow up with them in the future. But we pay $45 to $55 for this privilege. For that I can look in a phone book.
I would really like to find out what I can do to make sure these practices are stopped and we the contractors are not financially abused. The economy is hitting us hard enough, we don't need a company which is nothing without us taking further advantage.
Reviewed Aug. 25, 2010
Avoid Service Magic's lead program. They blatantly swindle business customers.
On May 19th, we (a roofing company) authorized a $450.00 package to try out Service Magics lead program. After doing so, we found that the leads were not good (at all) and decided to cancel. On June 9, 2010, we called and canceled. We were told that we had credit left that could not be refunded. We said fine, use it up; cancel us. Since that time we have been billed an additional $856.00.
On August 4, 2010 after receiving our July credit card statement, we contacted Service Magic and asked for refund, which was refused. In addition to that, they are trying to bill an additional $165.00 which will apparently not go through as they keep requesting updated credit card information (and are now threatening collections for).
On August 24, 2010 we called again, and re-explained that we had canceled on June 9, 2010. Not only were we refused credit, but they actually said it had been our responsibility to track the credit as of June 9th and call back after the credit was used to cancel. At no time was it related to us that we would have to re-cancel when our credit was used up. What kind of deal is that anyway? We canceled! We also found out that our account is still not canceled, but on hold due to the balance due. If for some reason the owing (in their mind) charge attempt went through, we would be considered active, up and running till we canceled again. However, they would be glad to process our cancellation once the outstanding balance is received.
Service Magic's excuse is their computer system, which they say cannot cancel you when you apparently have a credit, or outstanding balance due. That is absurd. The reality is they refused and are still refusing to cancel our account, along with refunding our money. We are disputing the credit card charges with the bank in hopes of getting our money back. We intend to file complaints with the Better Business Bureau and Attorney General of Colorado about Service Magic's deceptive business practices. I would encourage you all to take the time and do the same.
Reviewed Aug. 15, 2010
Mr. D. was referred along with 2 other painters for an exterior house paint job. The job was not done as discussed in the agreement. Service Magic was called in to mediate the problem. Service Magic is an advertising company pushing their clients. They could not mediate the many problems nor would they post my comment about the contractor. They have no credibility. I’m not sure whether I received a quality paint job or not since the contractor never came to see the final inspection and they did not send a representative.
Reviewed Aug. 12, 2010
I am (or was) one of the contractors that Service Magic conned into handing over my credit card number to them. I agreed to let service magic send me leads because they were offering a $99 credit for new contractors. I was told that the leads would cost $3 each after the credit was used. They also told me that many leads would be free of charge because service magic received so many leads that they didn't have enough contractors to return all the calls. It was as if I would be doing them a favor for handling this overflow work, & saving their reputation by returning the calls for them. Soon after accepting this "cheap or free" means of meeting new clients, the phone rang many times daily with new leads pouring in faster than I could deal with. My own well established clientele was also calling for work to be done as well. I had no need for this amount of new business and just didn't respond to the recorded calls from service magic.
The problem began when I found multiple charges on my credit card statements from service magic for referrals that I never responded to. They automatically bill your credit card every time the phone rings, whether you want the lead or not. If you go to their website and log onto your account, you will find no way to turn off the service. You can merely shut off lead acceptance for a maximum of 2 weeks. After that, the leads and charges start back up automatically. What decent respectable company has this kind of policy? They're like a disease that affects your credit card with no apparent cure! Once they get your credit card number, you will find hundreds of dollars in bogus charges that they will not remove. I just spoke to a Service Magic representative today, (8/12/2010). He said that my money could not be refunded. They could however issue a credit to my account for more leads! As if I want more of their bogus leads? Please. Get me an attorney.
Reviewed Aug. 12, 2010
I'm glad to see that other people have complained about ServiceMagic being a total scam company. I had been looking on-line for a carpet cleaning service in my area. I came across the ServiceMagic website and it appeared to be a legitimate service. I filled in the requested information and about five minutes after I hit the send button, my phone starting ringing. Thing was this was 12:30 AM on a Sunday!
My caller ID showed the calls were coming from other states. The one call I actually took, the man could barely speak English. When I told him my caller ID shows your number as being in Ohio, he said he just moved here and he was very, very aggressive I had to hang up on him and he kept calling back! What kind of legitimate business repeatedly calls customers at 12:30 AM! The calls continued for days. There is something very, very wrong with this so-called referral business.
Reviewed Aug. 4, 2010
I contacted Service Magic to help me find a contractor to install 3 exterior doors and 2 screen doors. I was given a contractor by the name of David **, DBA Right Choice Home Improvements. David came to my house and gave me an estimate for the work. I hired David ** for the job. After the 1st day of work David did not complete the job, and stated that he would be back tomorrow to finish. David came back the next day to finish, and when I started pointing out that the door did not close properly, and the there were holes in the screen door were he drilled incorrectly, and the doors were not level, and the handles on the doors that he installed were not working correctly, he said he would have to come back again to fix.
David never came back to fix the doors, and would not return any of calls. I did some research on David ** per the Department of Consumer Affairs. His license expired on 4/1/10. My work was done on 6/25/10. Also, his other business named Pro Masters Home Renovations, but his license was revoked on Sept 10, 2009 for too many complaints, and not addressing the complaints. David ** will give you a business card that states "David Redlo Construction, Inc. - Licensed and Insured", but he is not.
I called Service Magic on 7/1/10 and have been dealing with Holly. After 16 phone calls to Service Magic, I finally got holly to email the Settlement and Release form, but it was for only $200.00 which was not the correct amount. I have made an additional 9 calls to her and her supervisor Roni ** without 1 returned call back. This has been going on for a little over 2 weeks now that I cannot get anyone to call me back. Service Magic advised me on 7/1/10 that they can reimburse me a maximum of $500.00.
I told Holly that would not cover all the damages, but at least it was a start until my small claims suit is filed. I have provided Service Magic with around 20 or more photos of the damage to the doors and screen doors, proof that I purchased 3 new doors and 2 screen doors. For installation, and 2 more new screen doors that the new contractor installed, receipt for tear out and re-installment of the doors, and screens, copy of my contract with David ** that shows I paid him $200.00, and my new contract and proof of payment to have all the work redone.
I have proven my loss is well over $500.00 and now I cannot get Service Magic to uphold there service agreement. They will not even call me back anymore. They are blatantly avoiding me and making payment on my claim.
Reviewed Aug. 2, 2010
An online company providing leads to contractors nationwide have many on my side ripping us off of our hard earned money. A scam. Need help out right stealing from our banks. Contacting anyone that can help. I think you would call this racketeering.Thank you. Please respond.
Reviewed July 30, 2010
Service Magic contacted me by phone and led me to believe there were active business leads for interior decorating services in the Jacksonville, Oregon area. I signed up and agreed to a $99 activation fee. I cancelled my account with Service Magic by telephone and email within 24 hours of signing up by telephone with their representative, Keith.
The details of my cancellation are in their computer records. I made several phone calls to make sure of the cancellation. Finally, a female representative informed me that Service Magic has a non-cancellation, nonrefundable policy of the $99 activation fee. This information was not provided to me verbally, by email or in writing prior to my signing up. I registered online and began creating a profile. When I checked into the potential leads that Keith mentioned for my services in this region, there were no active leads. I immediately cancelled. I acted in good faith. Service Magic acted with misleading and possibly fraudulent information to entice my business into a nonrefundable fee. I would never have signed up if this information had been provided.
I registered a dispute with my Visa card. I am now disputing the full amount that has accrued and that has been sent to CMI for collections in the amount of $209.33. I sent an email to them today informing them of this dispute. I have sent a registered letter by Certified Mail to Service Magic. I want this debt expunged from my account with them. I demand that Service Magic notify all credit reporting agencies and get any bad debt records removed from my credit history. Damage to credit history with all three credit reporting agencies and $209.33 in collection as of 7/20/2010. The original $99 fee has increased with additional charges by Service Magic.
Reviewed July 29, 2010
Service Magic misleads contractors and customers alike. They say they offer free estimates. What they do is charge 3 contractors up to $100 each for your phone number and address. If all goes well great. The customer is happy and the contractor adds the $100 to the labor bill. As a contractor, many times customers get mad about me calling them, thinking they would get an email with an estimate. They have no idea they are not only taking money from contractors but wasting time.
As a customer you are able to leave reviews about contractors true or false, and the contractor has a chance to post a response to each review. But Service Magic never posts the response. That is just absurd. Why trick people like that? Anyone who is mad at a contractor for an unwanted phone call or no reason at all, can log on and post a bad review and it lives on the internet forever.
Reviewed July 24, 2010
When I tried to cancel this service because all the "leads" were [worthless], they wouldn't return calls or e-mails. They continued to take money out of my account every month. I had to close out my debit card, and get a new one. It was the only way to get these [people] from stealing my money. Service magic [is bad].
Reviewed July 21, 2010
I was given this name from Service Magic for chimney cleaning. They cleaned the chimney and then proceeded to clean out the fireplace with their vacuum that exhausted black soot into the house. Every surface area in the great room, dining room, upstairs hallway, kitchen etc. was covered with black dust. All upholstered furniture, carpets, hardwood floors, tables, bookcases, dining chairs, all accessories, windows, window sills and grids, everything! I was yelling at him about all this and he was yelling back at me! He claimed it was a faulty vacuum cleaner. But then he was going to charge me for the service and I told him "no way". Write no charge for service. I was left with a black dust interior and had to clean all surfaces! My sectional sofa and area rugs and upholstered dining chairs all need to be professionally cleaned! I did not pay but was left with all the labor for cleaning up after their mess(!) and cleaning supplies!
Reviewed July 20, 2010
I found a professional, screened and pre-approved wrought iron fence/gate contractor off the ServiceMagic site. It turns out that the contractor had recently started his business and was not very professional. They took my down payment and then took weeks before he showed up. When he finally did show up, he did unacceptable work.
Reviewed July 20, 2010
One year ago, we joined with this company to begin to accept leads from them. We run a small residential construction company. We accepted and were charged for 24 leads over the course of the past 12 months, finding ourselves increasingly frustrated that only two of the leads ever returned our calls or e-mails. While this company might extensively screen the contractors who subsidize this service, they do not screen the clients who call in. In several instances, the phone #, name, or emails were bogus. We only received one refund. $1200 poorer, I am attempting to discontinue our service altogether with this company.
Reviewed July 19, 2010
I went online with ServiceMagic to get names of landscapers to do a small job at my home. The search returned 3 contractors. I received 2 estimates and hadn't gotten the 3rd estimate from the suggested contractor. I received a phone call at work from one of the landscapers I had already gotten an estimate from. He stated that the job had been completed and went on to say how I could take care of the payment? I was in shock because I never agreed to give him the job. He simply did the work without my permission.
I contacted ServiceMagic the next day and was told there was nothing they could do as they are not lawyers. They recommend these fools and don't stand behind the people coming in contact with whom they have recommended. ServiceMagic sucks and I would not recommend them to anyone. Homeowners would be better off finding a contractor on a bathroom wall!
Reviewed July 18, 2010
I was a contractor listed with ServiceMagic. They were sending me all kinds of leads and billing me for all of them. When I returned the customer's calls, they usually had an answering machine. They never called back. I was getting hammered with bills every month and getting no jobs. Thank God the nightmare is over.
Reviewed July 18, 2010
Google and the above website are just two of many addresses on the Internet where ServiceMagic.com has used our name and address to direct our customers to themselves. We were a Contractor Pro with them until we noted that 95+% of the leads they sent us were not leads at all. Our attempts to contact their "Leads" were not fruitful and they continued to send us and bill us for leads for two (2) entire months after we requested to be deleted from their Contractor Pro rolls. We maintained their "Highest 5 Star Rating" the entire time we were with them. We did not have a single negative comment at all, nothing below their five Stars and yet they continued sending us "Bogus Leads." Every once in a while, they would "Pro Actively" credit us for a lead. We spent thousands of dollars with them and would be lucky if we even break even with them.
Reviewed July 15, 2010
Service Magic is a service referral company that claims they vet or "screen" their vendors. In fact they do not. Anybody who pays the listing fee can become a vendor.
I contracted a company, Service Magic referred me too to do some house leveling. The contractor not only damaged my house but never finished the job. Upon inspection, they weren't even leveling in the proper area. They were not qualified house levelers. They took my $4000, didn't complete the job, did damage to what little work they did do and left materials in my yard.
Service Magic claims they publish a $500 liability cap on their website. I can't find that claim. And in order to get that $500, you have to waive your right to publicly complain about them or to bring any legal action.
They should be prosecuted for interstate fraud, false advertising and false claims.
My house leveling is still not complete and I am out $4000
Reviewed July 10, 2010
As an electrical contractor, I used ServiceMagic to get some customers. I have noticed and complained with them for charging me fees for leads which I never accepted. I have stopped doing business with them for about three years. They are stealing my customers. I want them to stop using my electrical corporation with their phone numbers. People are trying to locate me for electrical work and they end up with ServiceMagic. This is illegal. I need help to stop them.
Reviewed July 8, 2010
I needed a new fence and I went through Service Magic and was referred to Joby B. Service Magic assured me that he was vetted and did excellent work. When he gave me a quote it was for cedar fencing. I told him I wanted this fence to be of good quality because the original fence the contractor put in in 2006 was falling apart and I wanted to put my house up for sale. The fence he put up lasted about 3 days and started to warp, split and twist.
We left for 2 weeks and it was much worse when we returned. I took an extra piece of the fencing to a certified cedar fencing store and they told me the wood used for my fence was hemlock and they told me where it was purchased. I found the place it was purchased and we were told it was the bottom of the barrel for fence wood and it was hemlock, not cedar fencing as was written in the bid. They even said it was not meant to last and it needed a third rail across so as not to warp. I have sent a registered letter to Mr. B. and he chose not to pick it up and it came back to me after a few weeks.
I gave a written review to Service Magic and they e-mailed me back and basically said they could not accept my review because it was derogatory and I could re-submit a better one. Service Magic should be put out of business! I paid $1517 for the fence Mr. B. built and in less than 6 weeks, I need to have it torn down and replaced.
I am a retired teacher and I can ill afford to pay for another fence but I honestly could not sell this house with this awful fence. I do not want Mr. B. to come back to my property as he lied about the kind of wood and would never trust him again. My fence needs to be replaced as it is warped, bowed and split. I can't believe it was only put up on May 22,2010. I am out the $1517 I paid for this disaster. Many neighbors have looked at the fence and can't believe the wood was such poor quality. It had a light cedar stain so it looked like cedar. I now know better.
Reviewed July 7, 2010
So, I did my due diligence when signing up with ServiceMagic. I am a small cleaning business and can't afford to waste my money. While most people said their leads were **, I didn't find this. Sure, not all of them turned out to be jobs, and yeah, you had to work to get some people's business. My beef is with their sales people. I didn't find their pitch to be that honest. They weren't upfront at all with how much of my time would be required to get business.
I don't mind that their leads are not qualified. I don't know if I would be able to afford a service with qualified leads. I just wish they had been more up front about it. Here is what I will say. I had my ups and downs with Service magic. They aren't perfect. They are a company. I appreciated how thorough the background check was. That way I was competing for business from other good pros like me. It wasn't that bad to get lead credits, I disagree with the other comments here regarding this.
I just want people to know that this isn't a company which is going to do everything for you as far as finding clients. You need to put in your own time and develop your own strategy. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time or resources to spend developing my business. I had to close a few months ago. So, beware. You will have to devote time to your business. Servicemagic isn't going to do it all for you. Compared to other people, they are the better of the services out there.
Reviewed June 23, 2010
I am the president of a licensed, insured, and accredited landscaping business with the BBB. I solicited Service Magic the first go 'round as a lead generating service. I was with them less than a year because they do not screen any of the leads. Anyhow, two years later, they contacted me and asked me to return as a client. The salesman had assured me that they were screening the leads that come in and stated that in the past, they did not. He admitted that previously the system had flaws and that they had been corrected. I didn't have to pay an annual fee or a first time fee, just return as a contractor. Well, I did. It was a huge mistake.
Once again, I only received one legitimate lead. They refused to refund any of my money. I repeatedly had people tell me that they were just curious to see if anyone would call them back, but they really didn't need any landscaping. I also had the experience repeatedly involving bogus email addresses, physical addresses, and phone numbers. Again, not one time did Service Magic refund my money. I tried reducing the lead areas to no avail.
Anyhow, if you are a legitimate contractor and want to use a lead generating service, do not waste your money and time with this bogus company. They will literally steal from you as they did me. They do not screen any of the leads. Essentially, they are merely a call center and website. They do nothing to ensure that you are getting good quality leads. That's $300 of lead generation down the drain - all but one were bogus.
Reviewed June 18, 2010
Stay as far away from this company as you can. I actually got an excellent contractor the first time I submitted for a job. I figured if this was the kind of contractors they had in their database, I wasn't going to hesitate to submit for bids to complete my concrete patio ($8200 job) and replace my deck ($9000). I went through the bid process, got all the info I needed and promptly fell hook, line and sinker for a concrete contractor that was horrible.
The guy running the company has had several different company names--he changes every time someone submits a lawsuit against his bond, or he uses someone's name in his family and when they end up with a complaint against their name, he switches to another "owner" but it's still the same guy, Royden ** in Washington State (Seattle area). This guy is a piece of work--he didn't want the checks made out to the company, he wanted to be paid in cash. He called me on a Friday and begged for $2000 to make his payroll and promised he would be back on Saturday to finish my job. No call, no show.
I contacted ServiceMagic numerous times...never heard from them after they took my complaint. I haven't had my deck done yet, but I did go through his background information and he seems very clean. He has numerous references and many repeat customers. If you are crazy enough to sign up with ServiceMagic, do not pay for any service and check out your pro thoroughly before you sign any contract!
Reviewed June 16, 2010
Service Magic has the worst service in the world. With their hook, line and sinker approach just to nab the sale and not caring about either side of their client base. This company has been reported to the labor board in six states and needs to be abolished. Thanks, Service Magic, for keeping it fresh in all of our minds that there are great scamming businesses that reside right here on our own soil taking advantage of the poor American small business. Do not use their services! Service Magic prodded and prodded me to use their services, so when I finally broke down and agreed, seven months after hearing from them at least once a week, they took my money and cancelled my membership for reasons unknown. What a scam.
Reviewed June 11, 2010
While completing a couple of repairs for which this person was hired, he broke off eleven inches of my front stoop that I had just paid someone else to stain. Mr. ** said he would fix it. That was about six weeks ago and whenever I call him, he makes excuses. But he never shows up as promised. I will now have to pay someone to redo the entire front porch. I am a senior citizen, physically disabled, without family or any help, and was laid off this past January. I am furious. I have had it with the ineptitude that seems to pervade this state.
Reviewed June 10, 2010
I have the same story as all of the others. Service Magic referred this company to me that completely lied to me and took my money. They did a horrible job and agreed to redo the work. Instead, they sent me a check for $100 to service as a refund. But to redo the job was going to be around $1000. I got five different estimates to support this and mailed it to Service Magic.
They made me look like the guilty person and took up for the contractor. They said $100 was plenty to replace the flooring. They act like they are mediators but they are going to take the contractor's side because they are the ones paying them. Everyone who has used their services were not satisfied with their referrals. They don't care who they refer to you as long as they are getting paid. The employees there have a bad attitude and are heartless. I paid the contractor a total of $4000 and he send me a refund of $100.
Reviewed June 5, 2010
I gave my info to Service Magic and within minutes Phil ** called and came with his father. I felt that Service Magic would refer a quality and trustworthy concrete installer. I signed a contract and within 10 days the work was started. They dug up the concrete driveway and replaced it with a stamped pattern. I had chosen a different pattern but Phil strongly suggested changing it. In the contract he agreed to overlay my porch and also changed the color and broom finished instead. The driveway was satisfactory but the porch looked like amateurs did it and what can you do with it. I contacted Service Magic and they did nothing about my displeasure. To top it off, I am receiving bills from Maryland Concrete Co even though I paid over thousands to Phil ** for the complete job. To say I am disappointed in Service Magic and the Bailey Bros. is an understatement. If one person hesitates to use either of these services, this note will be worth it.
Reviewed June 4, 2010
I'm an accredited Chicago painting/remodeling contractor with good record on BBB and many solid customer referrals. I have been in business for 15 years. I heard of ServiceMagic and decided to check them out to see if they could generate more business for me. I started the sign up process, but quit because ServiceMagic, an advertising company, is collecting social security numbers supposedly for background checks. I know better than to divulge such information to anyone, especially some advertising company. So I did not sign up. What happened later is what prompted me to write this complaint.
Next day I get a phone call from ServiceMagic sales talking about my attempt to sign up. I explained that I did not finish the process because they want my SSN. I told him I disagreed with collecting such information and would not sign up for fear of identity theft. I suggested there must be other ways of verifying background (references, BBB, reviews, etc.). The representative went on the offensive and asked whether I had something against criminal background checks, filtering out child molesters blah, blah, blah. The question sounded completely as an accusation. He acted all surprised as if I was a criminal who just didn't want to get his background checked. He said that they are a Fortune 500 company (as if a Fortune 500 company is infallible and doesn't have low-paid unhappy humans working for it who would get disgruntled one day and take my SSN, or their database is hacker-proof, or they never lose anything, etc.). I tried to object by saying that exposing SSN for reasons other than taxes or banking is just asking to get identity stolen, but the rep wouldn't listen. He yelled at me over the phone, at which point I asked them to never call again and hung up. I'm not even sure he heard it, he was busy screaming.
But it wasn't over yet. Two days later I got another call (they just don't get it, apparently). I immediately said "I'm not interested" and hung up. The phone rang again right away. I said "what part of 'not interested' don't you understand? please stop calling!" and hung up. It immediately rang again! Same number! I lost it at that point and said "do you people want to get reported? I just told you to stop calling. Twice!" Even though I didn't lose any money with ServiceMagic, I felt deeply offended by their rudeness, accusations, complete disregard of my rights and requests for privacy. That is why consider other reviews on this site, whether you are a homeowner or a contractor, stay away from ServiceMagic. They are rude, incompetent crooks.
Reviewed June 1, 2010
Their leads are predominantly bad, unqualified leads. Over and over again they charged or attempted to charge us for leads that were wrong address, wrong phone number, and wrong email addresses. Often the "customer contact" didn't even own the property in question and had no authority to make any improvements to it. When we finally gave up on these losers, they refused, yes, refused, to stop sending and charging us for leads after we told them several times that we no longer would be using their service. I finally had to change my credit card number so that they couldn't charge it anymore.
They routinely sent and billed for more leads than we authorized to be sent each month. They continued to try to charge us for leads even after I changed the credit card number, then have continued to send threatening emails and make threatening phone calls if we don't pay for leads they send literally months after we discontinued their service. Under no circumstances would I recommend that anyone do business with these crooks. You literally do better going door to door than using their leads, and you won't have the aggravation of having them try to steal from you the entire time. We spent a lot of money with these guys that was just wasted, plus we wasted many man weeks of our time trying to track down and quote their worthless leads. Dealing with ServiceMagic almost put us out of business, literally.
Reviewed May 31, 2010
In September of 2008, I typed in my info to look for a builder. Service Magic contacted Albert ** of Hicks Renovations. We signed a contract for him to build a two story house with a basement. One month after digging, he told me he spent my $85,000 on another job and had no money to continue. He asked me for another $50,00 loan. I refused. He continued to dig out the basement but had no idea how to do the foundations or underpinnings. So he left me with an 18 foot by 43 foot hole filed with water.
The DA's Office of Economic Crimes refused to take the case. Service magic wanted way too much proof from my end (not his) even though I sent photos and a copy of the cancelled check for $85,000. Now we find out he never was even licensed! So much for their Ten Point Checking system! I advise all to avoid building within City of Philadelphia limits, run from Albert ** and never ever trust anyone listed with Service Magic!
After Hicks has gone though four lawyers and his insurance company has given him up, on the eve of our hearing he filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy. I am working round the clock to get the building done by others, keep up the loan payments, and legal fees.
Reviewed May 31, 2010
I am a general contractor that used the services of the firm Service Magic, a provider of job leads to contractors. My experience with Service Magic is no different from the many complaints already listed about them on the Consumer Affairs website. My personal complaint is that I agreed over the phone to authorize them to charge me $150 a month, directly out of my personal checking account, starting in February 2010. This would pay for about 3 or 4 job leads. By the end of April, they had over-drafted my account by over $1000, by charging me extra fees that I had never authorized and was unaware of. I tried to resolve this issue directly with them with no success.
I am asking you to please stop these predatory practices from continuing to target thousands more contractors out there in California and the rest of the country who are desperate in finding work in this tough economy. I urge you to investigate this company and take action against the injustices against contractors who are already suffering from the weak construction industry and economy. Overcharged and over-drafted my personal checking account.
Reviewed May 28, 2010
They give false construction leads and charge for it. One time, we contacted customer asked to have his home vinyl sided. The customer laughed stated that he is a siding contractor, did the work himself in 2008 and sold the home. Service Magic gave us a lot of deck estimates to do along with 3 or 4 other contractors, also gave us leads that we did not apply for and were charged.
Reviewed May 28, 2010
Waste of money, unqualified leads only generates for ServiceMagic. Any fool can fill out requests online and hit "enter". How young are the people you know who go to the internet? And then you get charged $90 for whim, no returned phone calls. Also they bait with requests for leads "over your market" quote and then charge for an extra fee!
Reviewed May 27, 2010
I contacted ServiceMagic to grow my business, but ended up losing money with this company. The leads they gave me were also given to 5 or more other companies and some of them were bogus leads and they still charged me money. Absolutely refused to credit my account even when the customers informed me they made a mistake! Not only that, they took their time in responding to my complaints and then it was only a computer generated one! Never had the decency to speak to me anymore once my account was setup and they were taking my money. This company is horrible! I lost money and time and overall it was a bad experience. I cannot recommend them to a consumer or buyer. This company appears to be a big scam.
Reviewed May 25, 2010
I foolishly used Service Magic. I ended up with Schaefer Remodeling for siding and window job. I signed a contract on April 20, 2010. I paid 30% upfront. May 7th, he was to start the job. He took the money and I have not heard from him. He gave me the copy of his license, his insurance and a copy of all customer's rating (by which are all false, I discovered it later).
Reviewed May 20, 2010
My mom was referred to H.E. Rogers Construction through ServiceMagic. He did several projects at our second home in Steamboat Springs, a few of which we did not authorize him to do. Every single project that he did needed to be fixed. Most projects are still incomplete and were already paid for. Considering how much over budget he went, we were really hoping for top quality work. What we got was the exact opposite. He tried unsuccessfully to refinish our hardwood floors 4 different times. He is clearly an incompetent contractor.
After contacting and reporting him to ServiceMagic on many different occasions, they did finally post our negative review. Unfortunately, that review has been taken down and he is left with one "5-star" review. Very questionable enterprise. Do not trust what you read on ServiceMagic, and do not trust H.E. Rogers Construction! We lost $10,000 down the drain. Not a single project was completed properly.
Reviewed May 20, 2010
I foolishly used the internet to schedule a window and gutter cleaning. Tonight the man called to say he could come tomorrow to do the gutters since he "would be in the area.” Trying to penetrate his fog, I replied that we already had an appointment for tomorrow. His brain was not even tracking enough to know what day it was. Needless to say, I cancelled before I let this person case my house. Do not trust this company!
Reviewed May 17, 2010
I used Service Magic to hire a contractor to build the three beddings around my patio and plant some trees, which was a very simple job. As a result, I had a bad experience with the incompetent contractor, GroundTec, LLP. Michael * is the president and the only employee from what I have seen. This job was completed poorly and not the way I told him to do it (I just didn't have time to babysit him). I would not recommend this contractor and/or Magic Service to anyone. Their "pre-creening" process is nothing but a part of sweet talking. Make sure every small task is listed in the contract (even if this is not signed one, as per Service Magic view). I will never will use the Service Magic again because they are useless! There is nothing they can or will do if a contractor screwed up. So I wasted over one month of my time by trying to e-mail and call them to complain about Groundtech Inc. from Warminster, PA. Watch out for this contractor!
Reviewed May 14, 2010
I would say don't blame Service Magic for an incompetent contractor. Search out the contractor on your own. I made mistakes and listen to sweet talking contractors. One, look at the equipment and his employees before you hire. Two, don't give any upfront money, even if the contractor says, "I need some upfront money." Say no and look for another if he disagrees. No money down whatsoever. You will pay all when the job is complete.
If contractor doesn't like that, let contractor go and look for one that will work without pay until finished. I too got suckered in a deal with a Service Magic company. I may now try Angie's List. Service Magic contractors are too many poor. Sorry, Service Magic, but your contractors are lazy and lay around the job but they want to be paid upfront or at least half. Don't give a dime. Hold to your terms of once finish then pay. You got to look carefully at their operations. Have them give some clients for you to call.
I find out that employees of the contractors don't want to work. They don't take pride in any work. So, advertise your job and give accurate duties of the job. I had to go look for another contractor. Work was delayed one month. I lost upfront funds. It was a sorry job. It did not pay to fight them in court and they know it. I just cancelled the rest of the contract. Pay for what they did and get them out.
Reviewed May 13, 2010
I had purchased the tile, hardi board and grout for my kitchen floor which is approx 13x24. I went on servicemagic.com and they gave me names of qualified tile installers. I had David ** to do the tile work. My floor is ruined unless I can find someone to take up and put back down quite a number of tile that are not level and are approx. 1/4 inch higher on one side and I keep tripping over them. He also did not use spacers as the grout areas are all different sizes. I had to also speak to this person about leaving my stove 1/2 half inch slanted to one side and my refrigerator is also slanting to one side. My floor was level and plumb before he started and I have a witness to that. I also had to call him back to seal the floor properly over again. He did not start work when he promised to and he also showed up late and with a girl friend that after I found her on my premises he brought in and said she was his helper. I am a woman alone and a senior citizen and don't feel I can trust him to come back into my home ever again. I would be grateful for any assistance I can get. Thank you for your time. I find this extremely nerve racking and stressful. I have tried to find a telephone number for Servicemagic but there is none.
Reviewed May 8, 2010
I get a call from a service magic rep offering "quality leads" and that I can limit the amount I spend. I spoke to a customer rep and that other companies had a 70% to 80% closure rates. After several months, I decided to join. First mistake, I received four leads in two weeks and I could not even get a hold of the customers through the phone or email. I called customer service and they told me that a 1 of 10 is normal and they would not refund my fees. Stupid me decided to hold off a little more and got three more of same and called to cancel. At that point, they credit me the last three leads. Shortly after that I received three more crap leads and cancelled finally. This company has great advertising but the quality of the leads are nothing but lies. I got hit either seven or eight leads at $13 each. I cut my losses after my wife made me see the light.
Reviewed May 7, 2010
I was approached by Service Magic with a convincing sales pitch. After a few months I started seeing the truth through their convincing but misleading sales pitch. Details are below:
Pitch: You can set your own limits for as much as you want to spend for leads. Truth: They have monthly minimums that you must agree to.
Pitch: Your leads are only given out to a few other service pros. Truth: Your leads could have been given out to many Pros from different depending on what categories the work fall in to
Pitch: Quality leads. Truth: Very few customers actually complete the projects you are paying leads for. Ask Service Magic what their leads sold to jobs completed ratios are.
Pitch: Exact Leads cost more buy they are much more successful because they connect you directly to the customer. Truth: Ask Service Magic how many of these Exact Matches you will get vs. the much lower producing market match leads. You get many, many more low quality leads than high quality leads.
Pitch: You control your leads. You can start and stop leads any time you want. Truth: They will only let you stop leads for a period of around two weeks. If you want them stopped longer, make sure you stay by a computer because they automatically resume whether you are ready for new leads or not.
Reviewed May 6, 2010
A rep from ServiceMagic somehow had taken information about me and has attempted to create an account with my company name and phone number to solicit service and goods without my consent. I received an email with a password and phone number via email without even visiting their website and or signing up for such! During a job search, they have collected information and called me to solicit their service trying to get credit card info to purchase services, good, advertising. I explained that I had not contacted or wanted their predatory practices or be involved in such due to the information about them on your website (consumeraffairs.com) and my fellow small business owners, contractors who also have complained about the predatory practices of this website, ServiceMagic.com and reps. I would hate a bad rap for surfing the internet due to lack of work in my area. Again, I did not sign up for an account, emails, services, newsletters, etc. yet an account was created without my consent.
Reviewed April 29, 2010
ServiceMagic provides mostly junk leads from people who do not respond to phone calls or email or are not serious about going forward with a project. Over the past two years I have gotten 20 plus "leads" from ServiceMagic for architectural services. Exactly one resulted in an actual job. I was only able to actually speak with 5 of the leads and those were only tire kickers. If ServiceMagic would contact the lead to verify they are real and actually interested in the service they inquired about, the lead quality would be vastly improved, but obviously they take in much more money by providing junk leads to their "service professionals". ServiceMagic is a complete waste of time and money. I spent $700 for one lead and spent a lot of time chasing people who had no interest in my services.
Reviewed April 26, 2010
Does ServiceMagic really screen their contractors? What if a contractor referred through them and commits fraud? Can we hold ServiceMagic responsible? They are a big firm. Would their high paid attorney save them even when a home owner is robbed by the contractor ServiceMagic refers?
I've been drained of my life savings by the contractor referred by ServiceMagic.
Reviewed April 8, 2010
Service Magic contacted me a few months back, and I was not interested in their service. After two months, I reconsidered base on the statement that there are no long term contracts, and the membership can be discontinued at any time. This is false and misleading. They will drag this out for months. This is what I found. Service Magic promises quality "pre-screened" leads, but this is completely bogus. None of the leads I received was valid. Either the consumers never responded to phone calls or emails, or the one that did answer the call was ** off, because of all the calls they had received from other Service Magic providers.
I was charged nearly double for the leads, as opposed to what I was quoted for the leads. I notified my credit card company not to process any more fees from this company, and I am registering a complaint with the CA Attorney General's office. Avoid this company, and put your advertising money elsewhere. I'm out the registration fee, and $350 in worthless "leads".
Reviewed April 7, 2010
I have had nothing but success since signing up with these folks. One bad lead that had nothing to do with my services and it was corrected. I found the customer service people to be pleasant and courteous. My leads have been good and my customers have been happy.
Reviewed April 7, 2010
Like almost all of the other complaints and stories listed to date, my experience with Service Magic mirrors the rest.
What sounded like a good start and possibly a new beginning, nothing transpired. I was immediately given leads for photography and it stopped there. From the very first "lead," not one single call or e-mail was ever returned or verified. Several of the "leads" were from people not even interested in service for as much as a year in the future. When I inquired about the first lead not responding, I was immediately offered a replacement lead; then I was notified that the first lead was true and for real and billed again and told basically, "too bad".
I again tried calling "SM" to ask about ways to improve, follow up, verify, and even relaunched my website to absolutely no response from potential clients. Just more leads, more time to call and e-mail; and not one single reply. Service Magic maintains that all of the leads were true and correct and they continued to apologize. I was told how each and every one of the leads that I was given have gone on to success with other photographers since they were passed to me.
Again, I called and asked how I could improve my client base and was offered an increase in leads and their "professional" assistance in building and marketing my website; for an additional fee of course.
Finally to add injury to insult, I called and personally spoke to a representative and stopped all leads for the time being, only to still receive leads and billing that overdrew my bank account on three separate occasions! Over a month later and many angry calls, they told me that they are not set up to return money to bank accounts, just take it.
I know that they send the same leads to multiple clients like myself; therefore, they make money regardless. I still do not know of a single person or company that this service works for.
Reviewed March 24, 2010
I signed up with Service Magic about less than 2 months. I pondered for a while whether or not to give it a try. Then I finally made my mind up to just do it. So I started off by doing the minimum of $250 a month to receive leads from them. Long story short, three leads got no answers and then on the fourth lead the lady was wondering why Service Magic was still having contractors to call on a project she changed her mind on doing 4 months ago.
So common sense tells me Service Magic is regenerating washed up leads from months earlier. So believing this was just an odd misfortune, I called Service Magic and told them this seemed a little weird. They told me that unfortunately they couldn’t replace the leads because it didn't fall within their guidelines. Yet they convinced me if I was to raise my spending level I would see results. So I raised it to $1000 in great hopes. Same thing: about five and no answers. One person didn’t know who called from their own house. Another changed their mind and did it themselves. And the last two leads already had between 8-10 contractors bid the project. They said it was way out of their budget.
For the record I am very good at my profession. I have a lot of knowledge and I love my profession very much. But I really (for the first time) felt more scammed than ever before. By the way, I spent hours on the phone trying to explain all this to some guy at Service Magic and got absolutely no where. I cancelled my membership. For the record I was the perfect Service Magic person. I called all my leads back (5 times each) ASAP and emailed all of them at least twice. I lost $100 membership fee and $1000 in no leads costs and about a week of my life chasing dead end leads. I’ve been looking into BidClerk: $50 a month and a lot more action.
Reviewed March 23, 2010
I submitted request for lawn aeration and as promised got three companies to return phone calls. After talking to all three I chose one and set up a specific time and date for them to come. Well, they showed up 2 hours early after I told them that no one would be home and that we needed to be home so that they could get into the back yard. This company only finished the front yard. I attempted 5 times to make appointments with them to finish the work and every time they missed an appointment they had some new excuse.
Ultimately my complaint is in the ratings system used by ServiceMagic. I gave a real accurate description of the company (TGD Property Services) and the experience that I had and even allowed ServiceMagic, via a checkbox option on their ratings and review form, to contact the company to get their side so they could post a response to my rating. Low and behold, 2 months later my rating is not posted on servicemagic.com. So I sent an email to ServiceMagic. The response was a legally cleansed auto-response with generic language: "We will investigate this for you, thank you." Sure enough a year later, we are looking to do the same work again and wanted to contact the one that came and completed the work, and still no rating from me on TGD, which was an average of 2 stars! So this is how these contractors all "look" good on the ratings from ServicMagic! Omitting the bad ratings and only keeping the good ones. Well, I have lost all confidence with ServicMagic after seeing this complaint a few times from other people; of course I didn’t believe it to be true until it happened to me.
Reviewed March 20, 2010
After canceling their service (and canceling my credit card), they started using my registered business name and address with, yep, their phone number on search engines. And since they pay for these ads, they get listed first. I have called them. They assure me it was an accident. Bull! It has only gotten worse. I have filed a complaint with the Attorney General and everyone else who has been ripped off should, too. I have screen shots of my registered business name and my address with their phone number and a link to their site.
I have spent hundreds of dollars and countless hours promoting my business online, only to have them use my name and address and substituting their phone number. We are talking tens of thousands of dollars worth of damages in lost work. There is no way to know how much they cost me. Then they sell my jobs to countless other contractors. I am not the only one they have done this, and worse to. Someone needs to stop them and I have the proof to nail them. Do a search of Service Magic complaints and collect names.
Reviewed March 19, 2010
We submitted our information to Service Magic in February 2010, to get bids on finishing our basement in Commerce City, Colorado. We had several calls right from the start, and bids that came along with it. Then yesterday, March 18, we received a call from Simmons Construction to set up a bid. The problem is, we are already done with our basement! One month later, we get a call for scheduling a bid? The worst part of it is when my wife told the guy, that we no longer need bids, and that we are done. The guy got rude with her, saying it costs them $75 to call us, and that we are at fault! That is totally unprofessional! Dude, you snooze, you lose! Don't wait 1 month to call me, when I'm interested in finishing my basement right away! You'll never get the sale that way! I would need to reconsider ever using Fast.Service Magic again in the future, because of that **.
Reviewed March 12, 2010
I am a painting contractor in Northern California and found this company through some advertising. We contacted them in hopes of drumming up some business and were sold a service we thought sounded very good. Boy, we were wrong! We were told that if we pay the onetime fee of $99 dollars that it would get us up and running. Well that part was true but the rest has taken us for about 300 dollars and they are still trying to take more even though we have the so called leads turned off.
We signed up for the "market match" which is supposed to match us and at maximum two other contractors to a prospective client or that’s what they sell you. We received 10 names and I repeat names because two of the people were not even real (wrong numbers) and the other 8 did not answer the phone or call back. I did finally talk to one client and he was so upset he did not want to talk no less discuss a painting bid. I finally cooled him down to find out that he had received 22 phone calls from no less than 11 different painters.
This "service (scam) magic" is a complete rip off. They sell you a good lie and proceed to take your money and shop a lead (if the lead is even real) to I do not even know how many contractors profiting off of every one. We have been calling them for two weeks trying to cancel the service and they will not call back and are continuing to send us names and charging us for them even though we have had the leads turned off. We are printing out the consumer affairs document and going to our bank tomorrow 3-12-10 to try and stop this. This company is a complete scam and needs to be stopped. We've been burned for 300-400 dollars and they are still trying to take more without our consent. Do not use this service and any help for us would be appreciated.
Reviewed March 6, 2010
I went online to Service Magic. So John ** called at my home, and I told him I had a problem with my flood light. He said that I need a sensor and I said okay and that I want him to put a new door handle on my storm door. He said okay and I said how much would it be to fix them. He said $125. So we went outside. As he started up the ladder, the light came on.
He said there is nothing wrong with it. Then, he tried to fix the door handle and he could not fix it. So I said, "how much do I owe you?" He said $125. I said, "even though you did not fix anything?" Then he said there is a surcharge. And I said, "you did not tell me that on the phone." Now he is threatening legal proceeding against me, because of the rating I gave him.
Reviewed March 5, 2010
I've been with ServiceMagic for several years. Yes, they're not perfect and constantly doing dumb things, but still it has value if you use them with limited expectations. I have noticed that with my Handyman and other designations, someone inside the company has deleted an internal link that would send these leads to me. Well, go figure. The national and international trade companies must be buying their way inside the workings of ServiceMagic.
ServiceMagic makes it difficult to see what you are getting charged for. I have paid dearly for leads that were never designed to produce an active job. Now I feel that large companies have usurped the rest of us by funneling leads to them without us knowing. I talked to a SM rep on live chat, because calls just quit coming in for jobs like Handyman and others. This is strange because the phone usually continues to ring. Well, the rep said some of my job categories had their service areas discontinued and that he would hook them back up. Well, the phone still isn't ringing for those jobs. I am losing time and money each day because of this. ServiceMagic is not performing as advertised.
Reviewed Feb. 26, 2010
Service Magic is a registered scam. They are currently being investigated by the District Attorney in California. Beware of any agreements you make with them. They are dangerous.
Reviewed Feb. 23, 2010
My husband is a remodeling contractor. Due to the economic downturn, work was slowing. We were contacted by ServiceMagic and offered a package deal for leads on jobs in our area. It would cost us $450 [non refundable], our first mistake. Not a single lead panned out. Bogus phone numbers and emails. One woman agreed to meet him and then wasn't home. He would call promptly when a lead was offered. No one ever called back. I would email these people and ask politely if they had chosen a contractor or even changed their minds, if they would kindly let us know since we were being charged for their lead regardless. Nothing.
We repeatedly attempted to cancel the service and were given the runaround that we still had a credit. OK, we agreed to stay on until the credit was used. This weekend, we owed $112. I turned off leads and immediately sent an email to cancel, no response. Monday, I went to our account to see if they had canceled our account as requested. The amount is up to $138 with the leads turned off. I then faxed a letter to their corporate headquarters stating my great displeasure with their business practices and again told them to cancel.
The only upside is the credit card number they had on file had been compromised and a new number issued so they have no way to withdraw the ever mounting debt. I told them I would send them a check as soon as I was assured the account was closed. I also let them know I didn't trust them with credit card information. I would urge contractors to stay far away from this company. They are a scam, preying on hard working individuals during tough economic times.
Reviewed Feb. 20, 2010
I have become overwhelmed with complaints of what ServiceMagic gets away with and how much they charge. Our small company spent nearly $95,000 in advertising in 2008 and part of 2009. Out of all the advertising we've done, and we've done it all, ServiceMagic was the biggest waste of money. I would be the contractor that had my account set up for automatic calls and I would be talking to the homeowner while they still sat at the computer. We averaged "maybe" one appointment out of every 10 leads. Thousands upon thousands of dollars were wasted with ServiceMagic and our leads averaged $50 a pop!
What can we do about it? I tell you what. I took my shop to FastPoolQuotes.com and spend $99 bucks a year. They also have FastConstructionQuotes.com as part of the same deal. They have a $1,000 guarantee not to charge me more than my membership and they have the same set up as ServiceMagic with emailing me leads. Can't beat the deal! A guarantee. Go figure that!
Reviewed Feb. 14, 2010
Service Magic was selling my leads and customers to my competitors. They sell bad lead. Contractors beware. We’ve lost business and customers that were redirected to competitors.
Reviewed Feb. 14, 2010
They are a contractor referral service. They have charged me for bad leads and would not issue credits. They are taking my good name and selling it to my competitors. They need to be stopped. If you are a contractor, beware. They will rip you off. They are bandits. I have lost business, lost work.
Reviewed Feb. 13, 2010
Service Magic took 413 pounds out of my account and it should have been 150 pounds. I received 26 leads but 16 of them did not reply to any phone calls, emails or text messages. I phoned Service Magic and was told the leads are correct and I will not receive any repayments. The next step will be court for fraud. I lost 263 pounds for untrue leads. Service Magic are con men do not use.
Reviewed Feb. 11, 2010
Service Magic charged me, the contractor for bad leads. I repeatedly called the rep that "credited the account", never did they refund. We had several calls, several bad leads and they were not qualified leads. Some prospects screamed at me for old (one as much as a year old lead) leads and not soliciting the request. Service Magic after threatening press and attorney involvement assured me they would refund and clear the debt. I am now in collections with no end in sight.
I have disputed the claim repeatedly without success. They have a long list of qualified, decent business people and contractors all in the same position, all launching the same complaints daily. They will not clear the debt as promised and re-route me, and I would like to investigate the possibility of a national class action suit against the company for grand theft and fraud. I am convinced there are hundreds like me, whose credit has been significantly impacted, and who have had nothing but anxiety, headache, frustration, hardship and heartache from this company and the employees. I would venture to guess the number of people like myself, willing to come to the table to launch a suit is substantial.
Reviewed Feb. 9, 2010
I stupidly put my number in their system because I do need help, but not realizing that I would get harassing calls from the people they picked. In the small print, it said that I would receive the list and call the people myself. Well, these people are so annoying, they will not stop calling me even though I asked them not to and have resorted to blocking some of them off my phone. I may need help, but I'm not about to be murdered for letting a stranger inside my home, that is what I fear due to the calls.
Reviewed Feb. 8, 2010
I am an actor in a commercial for a company called "Service Magic". I was paid a small fee for the shoot day and told it would only be airing in the Chicago area. To my surprise, I started getting calls from friends of mine in Seattle, St. Louis, New York City, Kansas City, and Detroit saying they had seen my commercial. I then realized they were playing this commercial nationally, and it is still being played a year later. This was a non-union commercial and normally there is a "buyout" for this type of usage. It varies anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000. If this had been a union job, I estimate I would have been paid $25,000.
After many talks and complaints to my agent, Service Magic agreed to pay me a measly 300 bucks, which I still haven't received after a year. They agreed to stop airing the commercial as of Jan 31, 2010. Then, to top it all off, my agent called on Feb 4 and said Service Magic wants to use my commercial for another week for $100 and I said no. I thought that was the end of it, but my mother just called and said she saw it again on Feb 8th, 2010. They showed it again without any compensation! This company is the lowest of the low. They deserve to be sued for every cent they are worth. Do not use Service Magic. Ever.
Reviewed Feb. 2, 2010
I signed up for Service Magic which is a website company which acts as agents to introduce people who need building companies to builders. I signed up, and they promised to provide services to me. I have had no work from them. As I wasn't receiving work, they said that I wouldn't be changed, only when they send me work.
When I went to my bank to try and withdraw money from the machine, it was showing credit but not giving me any money saying not enough funds in account. After two days of this, I made an appointment to speak to the bank. They said that there was money waiting to go out the bank. I asked them who it was for, and they said Service Magic. I told the bank that I hadn't given them authority to take any money out of my bank and that I'm on benefits and the money in the bank was all I had to live on.
After a long conversation and the lady on the end of the phone saying that the card was a visa debit card and that they had to honor payment, she agreed to credit the money back to my account, which she told me to take out of the cash point machine whilst she waited on the phone. Then she cancelled my card and arranged for a new one to be sent out.
Then I get a phone call from an American man who seemed to be a long way away (that much that we had problems communicating) saying my account is 99 OD. And when was I going to clear the balance, I told him the situation, but he said there was no record of my conversation on record. I started to put on record what I had said, then we lost connection. And when I tried to call them back on the number he rang from, it said, "This is HSBC call centre. You can ring this number back."
It seems that this company has offered to provide me with services which they haven't. I spent days deliberating about dealing with them after having the same problem with one of the competitors. They assured me that they wanted long-term business with me and that they would only charge me for leads. Can you help me, please? I'm in serious financial difficulties, and this company seems to be stealing what little I have left for food and electricity.
Reviewed Jan. 25, 2010
I am a contractor who agreed to pay for leads and referrals. I also agreed to pay up to $42. They now charge $52. Many leads are bogus--bogus name and telephone. Unable to contact, this resulted in dead ends. When calling to complain, they act as if it's part of the deal. It's hard to get them to stop charging your credit card. It's hard to turn them off. As a consequence, I spent money on nothing, and I have low-quality referrals with much too much competition.
Reviewed Jan. 22, 2010
I started with Service Magic and got lots of leads in 2 months. Only one of them turned into work. Many times I would call, and people would not answer phone or e-mail. Most of their leads are people "just playing around on the computer" to quote one of their leads.
The people that use SM are flooded with calls. If I did not call the lead within seconds, my chances of talking with them is zero. Please do not use Service Magic. It costs the contractor way too much. SM knows that a high percentage of their leads are worthless. Service Magic is to line their pockets and not help the contractor.
Reviewed Jan. 14, 2010
Service Magic is a complete scam. I agreed on a 300 a month limit with them before Christmas. They sent through lots of supposed leads and I followed every one up. Not one came to anything so I canceled the contract with them after a month. They kept on taking money from my account and wouldn't respond to my calls and emails. I reported them to Trading Standards, the fraud department at Barclays and am now pursuing them through the courts to get my money back. Beware! They're still taking money from my account!
Reviewed Jan. 14, 2010
ServiceMagic is a scam. They tell you only four contractors will get the lead you pay for, but the truth is they give it to as many as they want. On the second lead I went on, the customer said he got six contractors calling him within 30 minutes of calling ServiceMagic. When I called ServiceMagic to complain, they lied then tried to spin it like a sales person. Then they transferred me to a supervisor who, after arguing with me, admitted that more than four get the lead, then backpedaled and denied that he said that. Then he said it didn't matter if 10 people got the lead even though that's not what they tell you to get you to sign up. Do not use this service. It is a waste of time and money.
HomeAdvisor (Powered by Angi) Company Information
- Company Name:
- HomeAdvisor (Powered by Angi)
- Year Founded:
- 1999
- Address:
- 14023 Denver West Parkway
- City:
- Golden
- State/Province:
- CO
- Postal Code:
- 80401
- Country:
- United States
- Website:
- www.homeadvisor.com
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