Complaints

• Initial Complaint

  09/04/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Date of initial service was 8/17/2022. Called out for a mole service. The technician provides a "service agreement" with no mention of moles or a service price (attached). Commences dusting my lawn and leaves; does not provide a report indicating what was placed on my lawn (how do I know it was not hazardous to human health?). I call customer service and am told I am not set up as a mole service. I ask for a callback once I see more activity. The technician returns, dusts my lawn, and leaves. Again, provides no written report of what is placed on my lawn. I'm stuck with a bill for $200, have no record of what was performed, and have a service agreement that doesn't indicate it's what I requested. I would like cancellation of service, including a write-off of the amount owed. There is no invoice for work performed. There is no indication of how they treated for moles. There is no service agreement in place for mole treatment. There is no agreement to pay $200 for the "service". See the attached document showing no service and no amount.

  

  Business response

  09/07/2022

  Hello Charleston,

   

  Thank you for reaching out with this feedback. Our goal is to provide 5-star service to all our customers, and it looks like we dropped the ball here. After performing an audit of your account, we did find that your initial visit was set up incorrectly. Appropriate action will be taken to ensure that the employee who mishandled your service will not do so again. We're also sorry to see that your service agreement was not filled out correctly; this too will be addressed to ensure that future agreements are handled more expediently. As far as the charge goes, we certainly don't want to bill you since you were so dissatisfied. We see that one of our Supervisors wrote off your balance after speaking with you yesterday. There are no other charges on your account and we will not be scheduling or performing any more services. 

   

  We thank you again for the feedback, is it exposes opportunities for us to grow and improve. If you'd ever like to give our service another try, we'd be happy to provide a one-time, complimentary pest and mole treatment, with no strings attached and no obligation to continue afterward. Please reach out to our office and ask for the ************************** or email ********************************* if you ever wish to take advantage of this gift. We wish you all the best!

• Initial Complaint

  08/31/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  Once again Bulwark is auto scheduling appointments without consulting us first. I have told them not to do this and to contact us before picking a date and time to show up. Picking a date and time and saying (this is a word for word quote from their email): "I will arrive Wednesday between 08:00 AM and 11:00 AM" is not consulting us first. There is no way for me to cancel either without calling them first. How does a company presume that they get to choose the date and time for them to come out to our home? This needs to stop!

  

  Business response

  09/07/2022

  ******,

   

  Thank you for reaching out. We're so sorry to hear that you're still dissatisfied with your experience with us and hope that we can make things right. When we spoke at the end of June, you expressed dissatisfaction with our scheduling procedures. To help remedy this, we agreed to give you a full two weeks' notice prior to all appointments. As an added safeguard against unwanted visits, we also require your explicit consent prior to any appointments. This means we text you two weeks prior to the suggested appointment time, and if we don't receive confirmation prior to the appointment day, we will not come out. This will also explained in our response to your first BBB complaint, when we wrote "We will make sure to provide a two-week notice for all future appointments, and also get your confirmation prior to coming out."

  
  As was also explained in our prior BBB correspondence, Bulwark will always schedule your appointments for you because pest and rodent control is more effective when we treat entire areas at once. Since we know what days we are servicing your area, we will create the appointments for you (again, it is entirely up to you to keep the appointment). If you wish to "turn off" auto-scheduling entirely, we do offer an ***************** plan. However, these plans are never recommended because they do not work effectively. Waiting until pests appear in the home will just make it more difficult to eradicate them. It is much more effective to treat preventively throughout the year. 

  After performing another audit of your account, we see that you were given the appropriate two weeks' notice for your latest appointment, as was agreed upon in our previous verbal and written correspondence. Again, we're very sorry to hear that you are dissatisfied with our service. We will not perform any future charges or services unless you reach back out requesting a new appointment. To do so, please call our office and ask for the Quality Control department.

  Customer response

  09/07/2022

  Greetings,

  One problem with the current auto-scheduling system that I am on is that in no way via the email I received or the corresponding text message was there an option to reject the date and time your system auto-scheduled for me. In the email there was only a "Please Click Here to confirm" link and in the text message it only says "Please reply 'Y' to accept this time". How does that present the customer with any kind of choice? I couldn't even decline or change my appointment from your website which explicitly says to contact customer service.

  You say that your auto-scheduling system is important to provide up to date treatment for pests, but even doctors who provide important treatment for health issues (which I would argue is much more important than treating a home for pests)...even doctors don't auto-schedule appointments for procedures or surgeries without engaging the patient. Bulwark is the only regular home vendor we have (among air conditioning maintenance, lawn maintenance, roof/gutter maintenance) that over-aggressively decides when they want to come to our home.

  I want someone to explain this "As Needed Plan" if it gets us out of this cycle. I can provide much more convenient scheduling for my family and I than your automated system could ever while still maintaining the regular treatment you guys insist on.

  Regards,

  ******************************

  

  Business response

  09/12/2022

  ******,
  
  Thank you for the additional response. We see that you spoke with one of our Quality Control supervisors and came to a resolution regarding your scheduling. Going forward, we will only schedule you on Fridays and Saturdays. You also do not have to reply to future service notice texts if you don't want the appointment. We will remove you from the schedule if you do not confirm your appointment windows. We would also like to thank you for the suggestions you have made regarding our procedures. These will be forwarded to the appropriate members of leadership for further discussion and review. If you have any further questions or concerns, please let us know.
  
  Thank you!

  Customer response

  09/15/2022

  
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.  I will wait for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.
  
  Regards,
  
  ***************************
  
   
  

• Initial Complaint

  08/23/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Been with the company about 3 years. Since moving south (and transferring services) the service has been less than great. In the last 3 weeks, *** had 3-no call, no show appts despite scheduling 2 of them with actual ppl. All I get are excuses about traffic as to why no one showed up. When they have shown up for past treatments, my patios are always left with what looks like dirty water trails that I have to clean up. For the price and customer service, Im sure theres a worthy competitor.

  

  Business response

  08/31/2022

  Jada,

   

  Thank you for taking the time to provide this feedback. We're very sorry to hear that you've been disappointed by our service. Your account will be reviewed, and appropriate coaching will be done with those who contributed to your dissatisfaction. Any time Bulwark does not arrive within our scheduled service window and we don't notify you of the delay, we believe you should receive that service free of charge. Since it sounds like we dropped the ball multiple times, we won't charge you for your August treatment and we'll also refund you for the service you received back in June (please allow 5-7 business days for the refund to be processed). We'll also refrain from contacting you in the future and your account will be closed with no future charges or calls. Please let us know if this does not fully resolve your concerns and we will be happy to assist further. 

   

  Thank you.

• Initial Complaint

  08/02/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  Date of Service 8/2/22 Bulwark Exterminating showed up for quarterly service. Technician begins to exterminate but only does one side of the house leaving out the other side and the back of the house covered patio. Before exterminating the home, employee takes my water hose without my permission and plugs it into his water tank. The water was hooked up for over 8 minutes. I asked that I be compensated for the unauthorized usage of public utilities.

  

  Business response

  08/08/2022

  ******,

   

  Thank you for your message. Our records indicate that you have spoken with our ************************** and resolved this matter. To reiterate what was discussed over the phone, we will be mailing you a check for $98.00 as compensation for the eight minutes of water usage that occurred on August 2nd. We have also provided a full refund for the treatment that was done on August 2nd. Thank you again for your feedback and please let us know if there is anything else that we can do to assist you!

  Customer response

  08/08/2022

  
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.  I will wait for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.
  
  Regards,
  
  *******************************
  
   
  

• Initial Complaint

  04/28/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Sales and Advertising Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I have been with the company for over 5 years and havent had a more horrible experience just a few weeks ago. I was in ******* and Bulwork charged my account 2$200 plus dollars without my permission. They come to my house and service my home without permission and they are aggressive with their tactics. I called there office a couple times and I was hung up on. Eventually speaking to the manager. I was fed up when they only refunded 1 month. Then following the phone call I was getting harassed on the phone. The customer service use to be very good however its horrible now. Its so bad I need to report this.

  

  Business response

  05/05/2022

  *******,

   

  We are so sorry to hear that you had this negative experience with Bulwark. It is our goal to treat all of our customers like family, and it sounds like this didn't happen for you. The most important part of our pest service is the outside power spray; it's what stops all the new bugs from coming in. We treat every three months because it's ideal to spray the house whenever seasons change and bugs move around. For these quarterly treatments, most of our customers don't need to be home for the service - however, if you had requested that we didn't come out because you were out of state, then we definitely should have honored this request. We have requested that the second payment of $109.33 be refunded back to your credit card. This should go through within three to five business days. A Quality Control supervisor will also follow up with you to make sure the refund was successful and that we handle your account according to your wishes. If you're willing to continue service and let us make things right, that would be great - if not, we will happily close your account with no further charges or contact. Please let us know if there is anything else that we can do to make things right for you.

  Customer response

  05/09/2022

  Hello BBB & Bulwark,
  
  Thank you for the reply however as a 5 plus year customer I havent had such a bad experience and it caused my account to go into the negative and I had overdraft charges from my bank and return fees for insufficient funds. Even though the first charge would be refunded I would like to ask for the other payment to be refunded as well due to the severity and extent of the monies it cost to reinstate my account. I would like to end the customer relationship because the staff hung up on me and was rude and argumentative. I cant come back from that so thats my request and that would satisfy my complaint. If you have any questions please dont hesitate to contact me.
  
  
  Respectfully Submitted,
  
  ***************************

  

  Business response

  05/11/2022

  *******,

   

  Thank you for your response - we will close your account effective immediately as requested. There will be no future charges or services performed by Bulwark.We have also refunded both of your prior charges. The first refund was initiated on 4/12 and the second was initiated on 5/6. It may take just a couple more days for that second refund to go through. Thank you so much for allowing us to make things right for you. Please call our office at ************** and ask for the ************************** if you have any further questions.

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩