Peter in Downtown Toronto

I booked Troy for an Ottawa-Toronto move in September 2011, after extensive online research, and then rebooked them for a local Toronto move in February 2012. I can strongly recommend the company as honest, reliable and thoroughly reputable. The Ottawa move, once begun, went smoothly, but it did involve two hiccups. First, the move was delayed by a day; and secondly, after taking delivery, I received an invoice that was significantly higher than expected. Red flags started going up, and I began to fear the worst--that we were being taken for a ride by shady movers. Fortunately, that was absolutely not the case. After Sofia explained the charges, I could see that there had been miscommunication, but no attempt at jacking up the price. We ultimately "agreed to disagree"--I felt that I should have been given a better explanation of the costs beforehand (specifically, extra charges for boxes and packing, which are calculated according to a cost structure for long-distance moves that is different than for local moves), whereas Troy felt that I had not provided an accurate estimate of the size of the move and the additional packing required. You might ask, then, why would I give a rating of '10' after two hiccups like that? Well, two reasons. First of all, Troy agreed to refund me $350 after we discussed the difference on the bill. They did so even though, as I suspect, they felt they hadn't made a mistake. The fact that they would agree to a refund under those circumstances made me feel that they are very reasonable, and it speaks highly of their professionalism. Secondly, it was clear after we resolved the issue that Troy is an honest company. That, for me, is worth its weight in gold. I understand that snafus of various kinds can happen, and nobody can absolutely guarantee a flawless move. But Troy addressed my concerns fairly and honestly, and knowing that relieved me as a customer from all sorts of stress. For that reason, I have to give Troy the rating I did, because I was very satisfied with their service. It was also for that reason that I booked the second, local move in February. That move went off without a hitch. We had a great crew of friendly, hardworking guys, and they did an excellent job. The only thing that was broken was a single drinking glass. Sofia was also very flexible in accommodating a final "mini-move" of six items to Burlington. All-in-all Troy did a great job, and I can absolutely recommend them without hesitation.

I hired this company to steam clean my wall-to-wall carpeting and specialty clean my Persian rugs. The steam cleaning of my carpeting was adequate, if somewhat perfunctory, and took about 20 minutes. Several hours later, I entered my bedroom to replace the furniture, and discovered that a chunk of plaster had been knocked off my wall. Worse, the chunk was nowhere to be seen--it had completely vanished. Normally, I would have simply been annoyed (the walls are painted in two colours that will be very hard to repair), as I recognize that accidents do happen; but given that the technician had obviously seen the damage and decided to conceal it (as bone-headed a move as anyone could possibly make), I was more than annoyed, I was positively offended and insulted. I called the company the next day and told them about the damage, and they refunded the full amount of the steam cleaning. I told them, however, that the issue wasn't money, it was honesty; and that as a result of this incident I wanted my Persian rugs returned immediately, as I didn't want to do business with them. Then their next big step into a cow pat: "Sorry, we can't do that--they've already been cleaned." (!!) Given that the technician had told me it takes 10 to 12 business days from pick up to return delivery to the customer--AND that this was the busy Xmas season, as I was reminded by the technician when he made the sale--I knew that this was simply absurd. So I decided to give them enough rope with which to hang themselves. I called their office the next day and asked how long it takes to deliver rugs once they've been cleaned, and was told that it takes three days (basically the drying time). Sure enough, my rugs were not returned after three days. Nor after, 4, 5, 6, or 7. In fact, it took them the 10 business days they said it would take, which confirmed what I believed about their claim that the rugs had "already been cleaned" within a day. When the rugs were finally delivered, I challenged the technician about this; and after turning beet red, sweating profusely and stammering a few awkward responses, he lamely told me that he thought that "you didn't seem to be in a hurry to get them back." How he knew this I'm not quite sure, and why you wouldn't want to exceed customer expectations by returning the item much earlier than promised (especially after having damaged my wall) is another Fresh and Clean mystery--but that was the only explanation he could manage. The next week I wrote a polite but blunt three-page letter to the president of the company. I got a phone call about a week later in which the company offered to have a contractor repair the damage, which I declined, as the it didn't merit a contractor and the problem was not repairing the plaster but finding the matching tones of paint. I then explained that the issue for me wasn't the damage at all--it was the (ridiculous) attempt to conceal it, followed by the bold-faced claim that my rugs had already been cleaned when they obviously hadn't been. The woman I spoke to then claimed that she had checked the invoices and that the rugs had been cleaned when they said they had been. When I pressed for an explanation of why they took so long to be returned to me, she told me that "Oh, G______ often takes two weeks to return his carpets." Well, another fanatastic claim, and one that begs the question: if Fresh and Clean is able to return its carpets that quickly, why is it offering customers "rush" cleaning for an extra price, i.e., charging a premium for "rush" cleaning on the same schedule (i.e., the next day!) as regular cleaning? This is an ethically challenged company that doesn't know when to stop telling fibs, and is too thick to recognize that in doing so they are provoking disgruntled customers into action. For run-of-the-mill poor service, I wouldn't bother writing a letter or posting a review like this; but this wasn't run-of-the-mill poor service. They took a minor issue and escalated it into a full-blown incident, by showing that at a very basic level they do not respect the customer. Avoid at all costs.