Malcolm in East york

I posted a "quote request" here on Home Stars. Joe from Snap called me almost immediately, and left a message (a lot of companies don't leave messages anymore). I explained my situation to Joe, and he knew exactly what was required to remedy my situation. Joe broke down precisely the equipment, materials and time required for the job. And the price was very reasonable. Highly recommended!

I hate writing negative reviews, especially at a time like this but I feel strongly that my experience today needs to be shared. Over the weekend, my washing machine started leaking. It would gush water from the bottom of the machine as soon as the machine was turned on. My husband and I tried to troubleshoot a few times, with and without clothes in the drum, and each time it would leak heavily, right away. With the local coin laundromat ordered closed, we were in a jam. When our old and trusty washing machine died about a year ago, we were faced with the added dilemma that many Beaches and East York homes have; the basement stairs was too narrow for most standard new machines. On a recommendation from a neighbour, we contacted Atop Appliances on Gerrard and Woodbine, as we were told that they were “experts when it comes to old basements”. Owner Gohar convinced us that a refurbished second hand machine was the way to go, as new machines are not worth the cost and don’t last as long as the older models, adding that either way, the replacement machine would have to be disassembled and reassembled to fit it down the narrow basement stairs. Taking apart a new machine would void the warrantee, so we went with his recommendation. We bought a second hand machine that Gohar said that he ”replaced all the parts, top to bottom, and that it would last us for years”. My husband called Gohar yesterday, and explained that the refurbished machine that we bought from him was leaking water. Gohar diagnosed it over the phone as a possible cracked plastic water pump, and he agreed to come over and fix it if possible, for $200. Gohar said that he already had another appointment right beforehand close by and said that he would come over once he was finished with the other one. When he arrived today, I was by myself in the house (my husband is an essential service worker) and Gohar couldn’t find anything wrong with it. He ran the machine twice and both times, the water wasn’t leaking. I felt terrible that he came out and had already decided that I would give him some money for his time. I figured $40 was adequate for 5-10 minutes of his time. Unfortunately, he became very rude, raised his voice and complained that he had to come all this way for nothing. He kept saying “What do you want me to fix!? There’s nothing wrong here!” I repeatedly apologized and said that when we called him, there was definitely a problem that seems to have corrected itself. He then said “Give me $80 and I’ll leave”. I was surprised by the amount, so I asked “$80?” and he again complained that I had brought him here when my machine is working fine. He then repeated loudly “Give me $80 and I’ll leave”. It was an intimidating demand and considering we were alone in the basement of my house, I was made to feel very uncomfortable. I gave him the money and he stormed out of the house. My husband and I try very hard to support local businesses, but I have my limits. If you are a single woman or senior citizen, I would think twice before having him in your home.

Not happy with the service at all. I bought a coupon on Buytopia for eaves trough cleaning and inspection ($149 value for $59.00). Normally I would clean the eaves myself, but figured that for $60.00, it would be convenient to have them done by someone else. Well, convenient it was not! Setting up an appointment was difficult. Not only did I have to deal with an answering service, but when I did speak to someone, they didn't have very many dates available, and they wanted me to be at home when the service person came. Once we found a date that worked for the both of us (4 weeks later), they called the day before to cancel and re-schedule, saying that the service person had a "family emergency". Life is life, and problems do arise, but when we tried to rebook, the next available date was another 3 weeks away. Normally at this point I would cancel the whole thing, but the coupon was non-refundable. With a 4 hour window of the service person coming, and weekends were booked solid for months, I reluctantly agreed to have them come on a weekday, and said that I could meet them during my lunch break from work. On the day of the "cleaning", I arrived home for lunch just as the serviceman was packing up the truck. We stood on the sidewalk as he told me that upon inspection, the troughs were in pretty good shape, and that there were no real issues. He handed me the reciept, and left. Now I got to see the work that was done. Sure my troughs were debris free, but it looked like he just used a leaf blower or a power washer to blast everything out. No cleanup what so ever! Everything that was in the eaves were now all over my porch, my walls, the ground and the windows! I spent about an hour cleaning up my property, and also discovered that he blasted a bunch of my shingles right off my porch roof! Made a mess and damaged my roof! Now, I left a message for someone to call me back, but no one ever did. No follow up calls, nothing! So, I guess the moral of the story is, $60.00 cleaning will get you $60.00 of quality service. You get what you pay for! I will never use Home Pro Exterior Services Inc again! UPDATE: After I initially posted this negative review, Home Pro tried to hide this review by contesting it with HomeStars. "This review has been flagged for verification." They tried to claim that I was not even a client of theirs, and that I must scan and email a copy of the invoice to HomeStars to prove that I was indeed a client. I could not find the original receipt, so I called Home Pro to request a new one. I was told that a manager would call me back. I did not get a call back, but I did get an email stating that they did not have any service records with my name or address, and that I must have them confused with another company. Well, luckily I later found the original invoice, and sent it to HomeStars, and my negative review was posted. A few days later the company added the nice response under my review. At the time of this update, there are 3 reviews that say "This review has been flagged for verification." I can only assume that they were negative reviews that Home Pro is trying to hide, and that they do this for every bad review. Responding to the verification check is a hassle, and I'm sure there are a lot of bad reviews that were deleted because of this. BEWARE!!!!! Read the reviews beyond the first page!