ComplaintsforKodiak Snow Removal

• Initial Complaint

  20/01/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I paid for Kodiak's services and they are not doing the job as advertised. I have had to shovel the driveway myself because they are not sending out their plows until way after the snow fall has reached 5cm. A rep from Kodiak asked if there was a better time to come after the first time that I complained. I asked for the plow to come before 7am, if it has snowed and was told that they would mark this in my file. They still are not coming before 7am. I have had to shovel my driveway every time that it has snowed. The refund that the manager from Kodiak offered me was not enough. They have NOT been doing the job as advertised. I would like a refund of $250. Paying this company has been pointless, because I have been shoveling my own driveway.

  Business response

  25/01/2023

  Good Morning *********
  Thank you for your correspondence. Your claim that ‘Kodiak is not doing the job as advertised’ is
  inaccurate. I have attached a copy of our ‘Terms & Conditions’, which are visible to all clients on page 2
  of our digital contracts. They are also available on our website, and if you subscribe for service through
  our website, you are required to review and accept these terms before being directed to our Checkout
  page. I draw your attention to the first paragraph of these Terms & Conditions in particular, and follow
  that with an excerpt from our last paragraph, which addresses our refund policy:
  [Snow clearing services shall be provided for >= 5 cms of snow. One (or more) clearings shall be performed
  after city plows and/or sidewalk cleaners pass, depending upon the duration and severity of the snowfall
  event. The timing of service visits will vary from storm to storm, according to the timing of the snowfall.
  Kodiak Snow Removal (herein after referred to as the “Contractor”) shall be permitted to remove snow
  from your property at any time of the day or night. Only one clearing shall be performed for snowfalls < 7
  cms, and this will occur after city plows have completed their work or, once the snow has stopped falling,
  if the city plows do not pass. ...If the Contractor is proven to be in breach of any of the
  conditions herein, this contract shall be canceled as of the date of notification and you will be reimbursed
  for any amounts prepaid from that date for the balance of the contract period.]
  We try to do our best to fulfill timing requests, but we do not guarantee any set time for delivery of our
  services. The girls in the office put a note on your file, indicating that you had requested service before 7
  AM, but there are many circumstances that make your request difficult to accommodate. Specifically, if
  we do not dispatch our tractors until 7 AM or later, it is impossible to meet your request. Or, if we
  dispatch our tractors overnight, and you get serviced at the beginning of our route, your driveway will fill
  in with snow again by the time 7 AM arrives. If every one of our clients submitted a timing request, we
  would never be able to organize our routes in a geographically practical way, because we would be
  bouncing our drivers back and forth from every address to meet these timing requests. More
  importantly, what if everyone requested service by 7 AM? We cannot be everywhere at the same time.
  So, this is why we do not guarantee any timeframes.
  You never need to shovel. Your service will ALWAYS be delivered, but it may not be provided as quickly
  as you would be able to do it yourself. This being the case, you are expected to drive through the snow on
  your driveway, knowing that Kodiak WILL get by later to clear it. So far this season, we have not had any
  snow storms that have dropped enough snow to prevent anyone from being able to drive through the
  snow on their driveway with a vehicle. It may be unpleasant for you to do so, but it is possible. I think it
  is unrealistic to expect that any service you hire is going to be able to clear your driveway as fast as you
  want. You are on a route with over 100 other clients. Much like a Hosting Service Provider for a website,
  Kodiak’s snow removal service is a ‘shared’ service.
  Your comment that we do not send our “plows until way after the snow fall has reached 5 cms“, may or
  may not be accurate, depending upon the circumstances of each storm and where you sit on our route.
  For instance, it doesn’t make sense to send our tractors out at 5 cms on the nose, when we are expecting
  to receive 20 cms of snow or more. We have to manage our drivers in a manner that allows us to clear a
  maximum amount of snow within the timeframe of each snow storm, and within a reasonable duration of
  shift so that we do not exhaust our drivers. Per the Terms of our contract, for snowfalls < 7 cms, we only
  dispatch our tractors once the city plows have completed their work or, once the snow has stopped
  falling, if the city plows do not pass. In all circumstances, if we start our work at 6 AM, but you are
  situated at the beginning or half way through our route, the amount of snowfall will have increased from
  when we started your route until when we reach your driveway. So, 5 cms is a ‘trigger’ only, indicating
  that you will receive service for that particular snowfall event. Also, you receive a Service Notification
  from us by email, indicating what our expected schedule of activities will be for EACH storm, so why
  would you ever need to shovel? Having had our service in 2021, and knowing how we work, why are
  there such different expectations this year?
  Regardless of the reason, it is apparent that you are really dissatisfied with Kodiak this year. As such,
  ******** offered you a refund of $139.85, which was very reasonable considering:

  
  1. You were undercharged for your service both last year AND this year:
  It states clearly on our website that “*Note: Shared pricing applies only if BOTH attached neighbours
  subscribe for service with Kodiak.” Your attached neighbour has never subscribed with us, so you
  should have paid $400 + HST = $452.00, instead of $310.75, leaving a balance of $141.25 for the 2021
  Season. And, this year, again, you paid a discounted, ‘Shared’ price of $358.78 taxes in, instead of the
  market price of $500.03 taxes in, leaving a balance of $141.25 for 2022.

  
  2. We are NOT in ‘breach of any of the conditions’ in our contract.

  
  Please indicate how you’d like to resolve the issue. 
  Thank you,
  Kodiak Management

  Customer response

  25/01/2023

  
  Complaint: 18869179
  
  I am rejecting this response because: i was not undercharged at any time. I was charged for and fully paid the amount KODIAK advertised and told me that I owes. If Kodiak made the mistake with the charge, this does not concern or involve me in any way.

  I do have to shovel! Telling me that I don't need to shovel is pure ignorance! How am I suppose to get to the garage. I need to shovel a place to walk. It is also an inaccurate assumption that we can drive over all of the snow fallen before the tractor has arrived. I do have to shovel because Kodiak is not doing the job that I hired them for.

  I did not request before 7am, I was asked by an employee of Kodiak if there was a preferred time that I would like the tractor to come. Why would I be asked this, if Kodiak could not follow through. Extremely bad service! I would like a refund of $200 at least and cancel our services wirh Kodiak.
  Sincerely,
  
  ******** *********

  Business response

  25/01/2023

  In reference to the undercharging, you signed up for services online through the website as a single shared driveway. When signing up on the website, it clearly states that single shared pricing only applies if both homeowners of the attached driveways are getting service. This was not the case in your situation. As a courtesy to you, we did not charge you the extra for the neighbor not being signed up and as a further courtesy, we kept your pricing at the single shared price for this year as well. Please do not say this is not advertised because it comes up when signing up on the website as per screen shot attached.

  We have done our best to explain how the service works via this complaint as well as in our terms and conditions located on the web site. Because we are not in breach of service we do not typically offer a refund but for the sake of customer services in this case we are willing to because there seems to be no compromise. A refund was offered to you based on the calculations that were accurately put forth to you. At this point we are willing to offer to waive the administration fee of $35 which would make your refund $179.39. 

  Please let us know if this is acceptable to you.

   

  Kodiak Snow Removal Management

   

  Customer response

  25/01/2023

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

  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID 18869179, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  ******** *********

• Initial Complaint

  20/01/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  We have complained to Kodiak Snow Removal only twice so far this winter season about their shoddy snow removal service which included, filling our cleared walkway with blown snow on 2 occasions, forgetting to clear our driveway altogether, being sarcastic when we called them to complain, clearing our driveway extremely badly following our complaint and leaving mounds of snow in the street. We haven’t complained every time they have done a bad job as it seems there will likely be retribution when we do. The company appears to try and intimidate users where they complain so they will not complain in future. They seem to not care given that they already have our money. Their stock reply is we are busy when it snows - why can’t we understand that. We wish to terminate our agreement with them for lack of industry standard service , and hire someone else. However, we are afraid they will ignore our request for pro-rated reimbursement and if they continue their service they will ensure shoddy service, as retribution for our complaints. We will be powerless to do anything. Is there no way to hold them accountable for providing the industry standard service we signed up for with them? We await your reply

  Business response

  20/01/2023

  Thank you very much for the opportunity to respond. Please see attached the emails between the customer and Kodiak Snow Removal on the 2 occasions there were complaints. I am surprised at the complaint and the feeling of intimidation and fear of retribution. This was certainly not the intention in any way. I do agree that the agent that the customer spoke to on January 20th at 1:10 PM should not have been sarcastic in any way as that was a poor choice on her part. I do feel like my responses though were more than fair and favorable to the customer. Once we were aware the driveway had a city plow ridge, we had a driver there within 10 to 15 Minutes of the phone call. The driver was certainly not mad when doing the driveway. I told him (because I am the dispatcher, not the person that was on the phone) that there was a plow ridge and the customer needed it cleared as soon as possible so he was taking care of it quickly for them. There was absolutely no anger in that. We then received the email service ticket saying that the driveway was not done properly so I then sent a different driver to ensure it got cleared. There is no retribution or animosity on our part what so ever. When a customer has an issue, it is very important to us to rectify that. 

  There was no mention of wanting a refund. I was not aware that the customer was seeking that as that was not expressed. That was a discussion I would have been happy to have should the customer have chosen to. A pro rated refund is something we could have certainly entertained.

   

  There was a service notification sent this morning to let the customers know that we would be starting at 7AM and doing one pass on the driveways because we did not get the amount of snow expected. We were expecting 10cm and received just under 5cms. Unfortunately we do have follow our routes. We wish we could make everyone 1st on the route but in the nature of the business we are not able to do that but the customers were notified of the service plan today and the service plan was followed. We are not able to help how the competitor does their routes so sometimes they will arrive before us on a street and sometimes we arrive before them. We have no say in when they perform their duties.

  This was our service notification sent to all customers at 1:30AM 

  On Fri, 20 Jan 2023, 01:50 Kodiak Snow Removal, <*************************> wrote:
  
  
  Friday, January 20, 2023 @ 1:30 AM 
  
  ** THIS IS A DO NOT REPLY EMAIL **
  
  
  
  
  
  Service Notification:                                                                                  Emergency Contact :  ************
  
  
  Good Morning,
  We have about 4 cms of new snow on the ground at the moment with another 1-2 cms to fall by daybreak.  For such a light snowfall, we will do one cleanup pass in the morning after the city plows go around. 
  
  
  
  
  
  Thank you,
  
  
  Kodiak Dispatch

   

  I am not sure what other information is needed but please let me know if any other information is required or desired.

   

  We do not in any way want the customer to feel intimidated by us.

   

  I hope this clears things up a little bit

   

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

  Kodiak Snow Removal

  Dispatch/Mananger

*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. ↩