Complaints

• Initial Complaint

  11/24/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  On 9/20/2022 I met w/ Austin Browne at our apartment to get an estimate for moving our belongings (furniture, electronics, household goods, clothing, etc) following a catastrophic flood in our apartment. The Mont County Fire Marshal deemed our apartment uninhabitable & we were forced to move into a hotel. Mr. Browne took photos of the contents of the apartment, measured all the rooms to come up w/ blueprints of the apartment & said he would provide an estimate to Travelers (our renter's insurance company). Mr. Browne also explained that their company did not handle artwork, antiques, & electronics and they used a company by the name of Prism. Both myself and Cameron *********** our insurance adjuster, had the impression that Prism was a subcontractor for Service Master & their costs would be included in the Service Master cost estimate. The initial estimate of $29,755.91 was approved by Traveler's. Mr. Livingston did mention that the prices quoted by Service Master were higher than other companies he has worked with in the past. Service Master came & packed up our apartment $ moved items into storage $ for cleaning. While contractors were working on repairing the damage to the apartment, Mr. Livingston received two invoices from Prism for a total of $10,746.56 ($7,678.00 for electronics and $3,068.56 for artwork). To his surprise (and mine) the work to be done by Prism was not included in the Service Master numbers. For the next 3 weeks, Cameron ********** and myself attempted to contact Austin Browne via telephone and email to get clarification on this discrepancy. I finally called the operator to ask if Mr. Browne had left the company and was informed he was on paternity leave. While I am all for companies allowing employees to take time off for the birth of a child, Mr. Browne was negligent in not having an out of office reply on his emails stating "I am out of the office until xx/xx/2022. In my absence please contact John Doe at ." Also on his voice mail he failed to leave a message that he was on extended leave and who to contact in his absence. I was referred to Mr. Browne's supervisor (Doug M)and left a voice mail message, but never heard back from him. Several days after his return to the office, Mr. Browne contacted me and we discussed the issue with the Prism estimate. He admitted that he failed to communicate that Prism was not a subcontractor, however, he made no offer to try an mitigate the high costs. Once the repairs on the apartment were completed, I contacted Mr. Browne to set up a time to schedule the pack back & I also contacted Prism to see when they could deliver our electronics and paintings. They informed me that their policy was to not return any property until payment had been received in full. Mr. Livingston confirmed that a check had been mailed to them more than a week before. My husband and I agreed to pay the full $10,746.56 to Prism, so they would release our property and Mr. Livingston agreed to stop the check to Prism and reimburse us. The check we got from Traveler's was for only $8,619.51, $2,127.05 less than we paid. The reason he explained is our benefits had been maxed out. My husband & I cancelled the last two days of Service Master coming to the house to help unpack boxes and coming to the hotel to help us move all or our belongings in an effort to save on costs. To our surprised, the final invoice submitted by Service Master did not show a reduction in cost, but showed a 25% increase, for a total of $35,941.67. This included additional man hours that were never requested or approved by either myself or our insurance adjuster. Since the amount of the final Service Master invoice was above the limit covered by our policy, Service Master sent us a bill for the difference of $1,159.98. This bill was sent via email and received on 11/21/2022. To add insult to injury, the Billing Department for Service Master Restoration called 2 DAYS later (the day before Thanksgiving) hounding us for payment. As a result of the excessive charges from both Service Master and Prism, our insurance company will not be able to reimburse us one penny for the $4,186.36 in losses we experienced from the flood.

  Business response

  12/26/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2022/12/03) */ December 3, 2022 Better Business Bureau Heather ****** Dispute Resolutions Specialist Re: Barbara ****** *** Sunny ***** ***** *** *** ************ , ** , XXXXX Mrs. Pigott, ServiceMaster is an international service provider for Disaster Restoration services. We are our a franchisee of the parent company ServiceMaster. I am the owner of nine franchisees in the DC metro area and have been in business for 31 years. In September of 2022 we received a request to provide an estimate for Packout services for Mrs.. Barbara ******. At her request we provided an estimate for packing out her belongings, cleaning her items, and packing back her items. Her insurance carrier, Travelers, has a national contract with our parent company. What this means is that we are held to strict standard in our pricing and what we can/cannot bill for on any Travelers job. We provided a detailed estimate(attached) explaining the exact services that we perform on the job. There were items (Prism) outside of our scope of work. We advised the homeowner and contacted the adjuster and advised that we could recommend a local provider for the electronics and artwork. In our industry the mitigation vendor(ServiceMaster) is never allowed to add them and bill for them under our estimate. This is because the carrier does NOT want to pay overhead & profit for another vendor when they can bill direct to the carrier. In simple terms we are saving the customer and the insured 25% of the cost for Prism to do and bill the work directly to the carrier. Furthermore, our detailed line-item estimate bills line by line and was reviewed by the adjuster and the customer before we began work and was approved by them. In that estimate there was never a mention of any charges for Prism's work. When we provided the estimate for our services we estimated the cost for the packback services. Typically, in our industry this would involve moving the customer back into their home which would include setting furniture and placing boxes in the appropriate rooms. In this case, the customer wanted us to unpack and place all of their item. This is not standard practice in our industry; however, we can provide this service. We try to estimate as best as we can in these cases, but it is difficult to give definitive costs because this amount is driven by how many man hours are required and it is an unknown. We were never advised that there was any limit issue on her policy until shortly before we began the packback. At that time, the supervisor on the job, Austin Browne was out on maternity leave. After Mrs. Thomas, was unsuccessful reaching him she placed a call to the office, and I personally spoke to her and was advised at that time that there was issues with limits and that she wanted to cancel her additional move from her temporary residence to her apartment. She was asking if there would be funds left to offset the charges for the Prism invoice. I explained that our estimate was based on projections for us to move her back and that I would let her know once we finished the packback what the charges would be and if there would be no additional charges or if there would be any funds left. As soon as we finished the job we reached out to her and advised that the packback actually ended up being more than what was estimated by $ 1159.58. I advise that we had spoken to her adjuster directly and were advised that her policy limits had been reached and that she would owe the balance for the packback. At the time of completion Mrs. Thomas was satisfied with the work and signed our statement of satisfaction(attached). ServiceMaster followed all guidelines and standards set forth by the insurance carrier. In this case, unfortunately, the customer did not have adequate coverage for the claim. We stand behind our work and our billing/invoicing that is agreed upon pricing with the carrier. The customer still owes us a balance of #$ 1159.58 and we pursue the balance. If there are any further questions or if there is any clarification needed please contact me directly @ XXX-XXX-XXXX **** Douglas ** ******* President Consumer Response /* (3000, 7, 2022/12/06) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) See attached response. Consumer Response /* (3000, 10, 2022/12/07) */ I submitted my response this evening and I tried to stay close to the original issues I have raised in the complaint. I struggle, however, because there were so many problems we encountered with Service Master. For instance, they never told us that they didn't or wouldn't store certain items. So, on the last day of the pack out I was confronted with 47 boxes of dried food, canned foods, candles, bug spray, lighters, cleaning supplies, etc. that I was told they couldn't store in their warehouse. The contractors were coming in two days and we had to scramble to find able bodies to move and places to store all these boxes. One of the women helping to unpack the kitchen in the pack back (I was there unpacking to try and save man hours) took 4 hours to unpack and place 22 cookbooks. The project that should have taken 20 minutes. Despite having photos of shelves and cabinets to aid putting items back in the proper place, the entire kitchen had to be redone because almost nothing was in the right place. And who puts plastic Tupperware under the broiler. What a disaster that was. I was forced to sign a form saying they had returned all of our items the last day the movers were there, however, 150 boxes were sitting in our apartment unopened. Now that we have almost finished unpacking we have a rather long list of missing items. I was told, however, since I signed the form, I had no recourse. My list of issues could go on, however, I think the icing on the cake was the arrogance of the President, Mr. Muscari, when in his response he said it wasn't his fault we didn't have enough insurance. We have a $100,000 policy. So what did he want was a larger policy so he could bilk us out of more money? This company may have been in business 31 years but they have lost their roots of customer service. The bottom line is the bottom line, not the customer. In your experience, do you think these matters really matter and should they be included in the complaint? If so, please let me know how I can file an addendum. If ,in your experience, you don't think this is going to make any difference to the outcome, then I thank you for your time. BJ ****** Business Response /* (1000, 13, 2022/12/07) */ ***Document Attached***

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