James was exceptionally rude on the telephone, and actually hung up on me when I was trying to discuss the charges. The fellow he sent out was actually fine, but I would not recommend this company to anyone based upon James' attitude. I did not feel that he was helpful or completely honest regarding the specific level of services provided and subsequent charges.
In response to the numerous misrepresentations posted by James:
1. James himself came out to our home to provide for an estimate. At no time did he mention anything about custom rain caps. One would think that someone with so much apparent experience would be able to tell with a few simple measurements. The fellow they sent out consulted w/ James on the phone after he apparently ran into some problems. He relayed the information from James that custom fitted caps would be req’d. I declined at the time due to the $1200+ estimate. At no time did this person mention the damage that was done to our chimney. I did not scale the house to check on the work that was completed on the roof, ie. simple flashing repair. So while I have not had the pleasure to have met James in person, he has assessed the worksite & was well aware of what was going on.
2. I called James as I had some questions about the bill & the quote, as $150 for flashing seal (ie. globbing on some poly) seemed a bit ridiculous, & to review the $1200 quote. James proceeded to mock me for inquiring about this, swore at me & hung up. James did NOT offer to change the whole top of the chimney and “everything else under the sun”, as he now claims. He did not apologize; he simply became exceptionally defensive, rude & 100% unapologetic, & hung up on me.
3. It is only after I called the Shell Busey team to follow-up with this phone, that James sheepishly called me back to “apologize” AFTER I had spoken with the Shell Busey folks. He would have NEVER have called to follow-up, had I not gotten in contact w/ the Shell Busey team. James again did NOT offer to compensate me at all, and I do clearly recall him saying that he “[did] not need to get any more customers”, ie. he did not care about retaining me as a customer. He stood by his original bill, the work that was done, & the $1200+ quote.
4. I decide to call ONE other company (not “several other companies” – and why would that matter how many I called?) after considering the $1200+ estimate from James. This other company offered to come out to provide an estimate. To my surprise, there were several deficiencies noted in the work that was done + major damage to the chimney itself on the roof. They took dozens and dozens of photos to show me what poor work was done, of which only the worst will be discussed here. Please see the attached for before photos that were taken by our home inspector in JULY 2012 (I did not go “so far as to have a home inspector come out” after Father & Sons were there OCTOBER 2012; but again, why would that matter if I did call one?) that were taken as a part of a routine home inspection prior to the purchase of our new home, and the after photos taken a couple of months later after Father & Son Chimney Services were done. It is absolutely mind boggling how James insists that this was just “my guy trying to fix something extra at no charge”. This is patently false. Father & Son purposefully did NOT tell me about the damage that they caused while simply trying to do a simple repair of the flashing + put on a cap, and went so far as to further suggest that another $1200 would fix their grossly negligent work.
5. I went with this other company and lo and behold, custom caps were NOT required. I paid $150 for regular caps – WE DID NOT REQUIRE $1200+ CUSTOM CAPS. These other folks (who were wonderful!) felt so bad for us that they did a lot of extra work at no cost to us. There was a substantial bill due to the repair required from the damages caused by the negligence of this company. I had to take another 3 days off of work to be available so that all of this repair could be done.
6. James never offered to reimburse us. His MOTHER was the one who refunded our money. Again though, we had to go through the Shell Busey team to get this done. I had to submit the photos and a synopsis of what happened. James never called us to apologize, to own his company’s mistakes, or to offer any sort of compensation.
My purpose in trying to provide further explanations, is to prevent other people from having to experience the same ordeal. I would have had absolutely no clue as to the damage that was done to our home, had I not pursued this situation. We would have had significant water damage to our home (water ingress to the roof, the chimney, the interior and exterior wall structures...) as a result of the negligence of James. This is not my opinion, as suggested by James, these are facts. Should anyone have any questions about this, please let me know and I would more than happy to provide the contacts at Shell Busey, our original home inspector, as well as the other company we went with, as they will be able to further refute James’ misrepresentations. If you have had work done by James and his team, or if you have suspicions that he is grossly over-charging you. have it checked out. Do not presume that the work has been done properly. Do not let James bully you into not following up on his work.
