A salesman by the name of Steve was in my neighbourhood and came by my house to ask if I wanted my driveway sealed and some minor repairs done (the asphalt at the bottom of the driveway needed to be repaired and the asphalt at the top of the driveway needed to be built up to be level with the garage door). He came back a couple of days later and we agreed on a price of $290. It took a couple of days for the job to get done and when I came home, he showed up a couple of hours later for payment, which I gave him. I pointed out a couple of things (the workers had put down the asphalt at the top of the driveway so that on the ends it sloped towards the grass instead of sloping it down the driveway. In addition, the asphalt was higher than the concrete pad leading into the garage so now any water would flow into the garage instead of down the driveway) and he told me that he would be back in a couple of days to fix the small issues. It was pretty hot out for the next little while so the asphalt did not cure (not sure it was an issue of the quality of the asphalt or the heat) but we were told that after 24 hours, we could walk and drive over it. Well, it’s been three months and he and his company are nowhere to be seen. I have called and texted countless times and despite promises that the issues would be fixed, they have never shown up. At one point in time, one of the owners (Mike? – 905-806-9920), told me that since I was harassing the company by calling (I’d call every couple of days since they never returned any call that I ever made), they would bump my repairs back a week. Well, that did not sit too well with me and I respond that I would keep on calling and calling and calling and calling until he did the repairs. By now, it had become a matter of principle but at this point in time, it’s now a question of WARNING anyone and everyone not to do business with this company. I made a mistake by buying a product/service from a door to door person even though he had done a bunch of jobs in the neighbourhood. I made another mistake by paying him before I was completely satisfied. Lesson learned. I don’t think that I would ever buy another product/service from someone who comes to my door. I could probably pursue this for a while and get what I want but the $300 is gone and I doubt that it is coming back (I texted the company to just give me back my money but, no surprise, they did not respond). However, the best thing that I can do is to post this review on HomeStars to warn other people and also send it off to the Better Business Bureau (it’s not a perfect ending to the problem but at least it will serve as a warning to other people). I figure that these types of companies pop up and disappear quite frequently so the word does need to get around not only about the company’s name but also the phone numbers of the various people involved at the company since it’s easy to change a company name but more of a hassle to change your phone number. I would also say that if the company does not have a proper e-mail address like xxxxx@companyname.com (in this case, the company had an @gmail.com e-mail), web site (they did not have one) and you cannot find them on a site like HomeStars or on the Internet when you do a search (this company doesn’t exist on the web nor do any of the phone numbers that I have), it’s probably a sign that you should be pretty careful. All in all, a pretty miserable way of doing business.
Update September 23, 2012
I did file a complaint with the BBB and about two weeks later, a person from the company showed up (no advance notice, no phone call) and did some repairs to my driveway. The repairs were OK and I can live with them although the experience with this company was awful. I am not sure if the BBB was the cause for the company to complete the repairs but at least the repairs got done. However, I'm pretty confident that the two year warranty that is written on the receipt from this company is pretty useless.
