ComplaintsforRed Oak Landscaping Inc

• Initial Complaint

  12/07/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I received and agreed to a $310 quote for yard work. However, I was billed $440 which is $130 over what I agreed to. This company charged me for services I did not agree too and will not refund the additional amount paid. This is bait and switch and I requesting the amount not agreed to refunded.

  

  Business response

  12/20/2023

  The client had contacted our office about getting weeds taken care of in her lawn and finishing out the year with our fertilization program. 

  The office had sent over an estimate to finish out the program from where we are at in the season and that was to finish steps 6 and 7. After the estimate was sent it was realized that she actually needed to have step 5 added and a weed spray since we were just finishing step 5 with our clients and it would be the step to take care of the weeds and the rounds 6 and 7 would not do that. So she emailed the client a new estimate with the added step. The client responded to the email with what we thought was acknowledgment of the extra steps but the estimate that was signed was the original that did not include the extra steps.  

  We scheduled the work based on the email approval and did round 5 and sprayed, we also came back to do a follow up spray (at no charge) because she had hard to control weeds that needed back to back sprays. Free re-sprays are typically only extended to clients that do a full service fertilization program and prepay as a value benefit, but we extended this to her as a new client and did not charge for it. 

  Amy initially paid the balance in full when the bill was sent and we credited her account and that was it. Then she contacted us a few weeks later asking for explanation of the difference in costs. We explained and share the communications with her to explain the first estimate did not include the service she needed for the weeds. It was then that she stated she had never agreed to that but at that time did not ask for a refund. I personally reached out to her by email and went through with her all of what was explained above and apologized for any misunderstanding and offered to to split the added services with her. She had made the complaint to the BBB the same day of my reaching out resolve this with her in a mutually agreeable way. 

  We performed 5 steps on her lawn in 4 visits, one of the steps was free re-spray so we only were charging here for 4 steps based on the second estimate we sent her and thought she approved by email. This was not bait and switch but was some misunderstanding and miscommunication. We agreed we should not have proceeded with out clarifying what was actually signed for and deviated from our protocol and got the work going. 

  After trying to explain this series of events and offering to split things with her she filed the complaint and asked for a refund of the $130. We since have sent her that money last week. 

• Initial Complaint

  12/14/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I called Red Oak Landscaping to get a quote on leaf removal. I had a lengthy conversation with the person who answered the phone and explain their process and fees. At this time nothing was mentioned about a drive time fee. What was mentioned was disposal of leaves and the time spent. They said they sent out two men at $65 per hour per man and that the leaf removal would be based on quantity. I was told that disposal of leaves started in $50. She told me they had one client with four acres in their disposal amount was $400. Considering my yard is small I couldn't imagine my charge for leaf disposal would be much. I received an estimate of $440. I placed a $200 deposit. Two men showed up and we're here less than an hour. This would be a charge of $130 for time for the two workers. I was sent a final bill of $400. This was a charge of $270 over actual time spent and their charge for 5 yards of leaf removal. I felt this was an absorbent amount for time actually spent on the job and for only 5 yards of leaves. When I called the company to ask why my bill was so high I was told that I was also charged for drive time to and from the job site to and from the leaf disposal site. She said that charging for drive tme was standard company policy. At no time during our phone conversation nor on the estimate was there any mention of being charged for drive time. If charging for drive time is standard company policy you would think it would be mentioned during a conversation and at the least on the estimate. I do not feel it is appropriate to be charged for drive time when it was not mentioned nor included within the estimate. I would have thought that my deposit of $200 would cover the $130 for man hours and $70 should have been more than enough to cover disposal fee for the leaves.

  

  Business response

  12/27/2021

  Good afternoon, 

   

  I have attached the estimate and the invoice provided to the *********'s. It is stated in the complaint that were were only there for an hour but the crew sheet and gps verifies we were there for 2 hours on site. We have GPS in our trucks and the time logged into the job was 8:55 am and the time out was 11:00 am. ****** who was the crew lead has been here for over 7 years and has never had an issue with his times matching GPS but we have it in every truck for just this type of inquiry. We are able to verify our truck was there for the time period listed on the sheet. Regarding the volume of leaves and disposal,  5 yards of vacuumed and shredded leaves is a large amount of debris. It fills a 5500 dump truck and the fee for dumping those leaves is over and above our time on site, this is why we separate the charges in the estimate. The dump fee includes the fee from the dump and our drivers time to haul it there we calculate that up front in the estimate and nothing more is added for that time. This job was quoted in the original estimate at $440 and the amount billed was $400 so we reduced the dump fee by $40 because we were using a larger trailer to vac the leaves into and was able to combine her dump with another one and we passed that savings on when we sent the original invoice. 

   

  We are as up front as we can possibly be by sending a written quote and not only did we not add anything to the quote but we passed on a savings we did not have to do based on the tiime on site and the original estimate. 

   

  In an effort to rectify this for Mrs. ********* I would be happy to extend her a 10% discount for any misunderstanding she might have had. It is not our intention to make this process confusing. We want our regular and new clients to refer us to others and have had this philosophy since 1993. 

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