ComplaintsforThames Lawn Care & Pressure Washing

• Initial Complaint

  10/28/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Sales and Advertising Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  My 72 year old mother has dementia. I have power of attorney and i am currently making arrangements to live with her full time in order to better care for her. Her mental ability has declined and as a result she no longer has the ability to manager money. A few months ago i contacted Thames and told them that my mother would no longer be using their services as she could no longer afford. I let "Carla" know that i thought my mother would call and try to get them to come out to her home but not to come. I provided them my name and number at that time and let them know they could contact me if my mother tried to use their services. Carla agreed and was quite understanding. This week my mother contacted Thames came out 2x in one week. I called to remind Carla of our agreement as i thought she may have forgotten our conversation. I was not angry but felt that i needed to remind them that my mother was not in a financial position for their services any longer. Carla was extremely argumentative, berating and just shockingly rude. She said she would continue to provide services to my mother regardless. Unbeknownst to her, she was on speaker phone, so a few family members heard this conversation. My mother cannot pay for their services and i reminded her of this. Carla's response was "OH I WILL GET PAID!" This business is taking advantage of my mother.. she cannot afford their services and they know this yet they continue. Are there other elderly people getting taken advantage of by this company?? This really needs to be addressed. I am not trying to hurt their livelihood by no means, but compassion and understanding for the elderly and the families trying to take care of them is needed here.

  Business response

  11/12/2021

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2021/10/28) */ Several months ago I received a call from Ms **** telling me she would be moving in with her mother, Ms *****, as she was noticing signs that her mother was not recalling things appropriately. I expressed my sympathy and love for Ms *****, a customer of ours for many many years and recalling how Ms ***** would call me to chat and our many conversations through the deaths of her husband and her son, both of which were tragic events for Ms *****. Ms **** told me to cancel service, which I did. Then on 10/26 I was startled awake at almost 10pm, after barely getting to sleep from my 4am work starting time that did not finish until almost 9pm and the 4am start time coming for the next day, to accusations that I had taken advantage of Ms *****. I was taken aback by the tone of the daughters accusations. I explained that Ms ***** had called the week before, we spoke for about 30 min, during which she had described her and her daughter, who I assumed had moved in since that was the daughters information to me months before. Ms ***** said the leaves in her yard were a huge mess and the tree near her pond had long been an eyesore that she and Ms **** both wanted gone. She said if we could please get that taken care of for her then she thought she could make it through till Spring. She sounded quite lucid and, as I said, described their conversation in great detail. I had no reason to believe Ms ***** was not in control of her faculties as her daughter had not previously told me Ms ******** had dementia, she had told me she wasn't recalling things very well, and she was moving in with her. Now I am left to glean from reading this complaint that she was not quite so concerned as she states here in that she is still 'planning' to move in but is not so concerned with her mothers welfare that she has already moved in nor has hired help nor gotten assistance of some sort for her mothers care, even after so many months of 'planning'. After I was accused of taking advantage of a dear lady that I have listened to for hours on calls over many years and cried with her at the loss of her son and husband, and talked about sunny days and snow coming in, and God looking out for us, and grandchildren, and how things were when we were children, and her job at **** - the bank where I also worked and we knew some of the same people, and which water hose would be good for her to get so she could move and manage it a little easier, and my mother's fall that broke her hip, and my daddy's heart surgery, and the countless, countless other things over all these years to be shocked awake by a ringing phone at 10pm to be accused of purposely doing something to hurt this dear sweet lady that is a part of my heart was crushing, to say the least. I did tell Ms **** that I would never hang up on her mother, as she said I should have done. With God as my witness I NEVER said 'Oh I will get paid'. That is an absolute lie and I will swear to that on a stack of Bibles! We have never - and will NEVER!!! - take advantage of any person, particularly an elderly one and even more especially one that feels like my own mama! Ms ***** is a dear soul and a wonderful woman I consider my friend. These statements from Ms **** are absolutely untrue and not justified. I had not gotten this when I did the bill for Ms ***** this morning but after I completed the bill I texted Ms **** before I debited Ms *****'s payment to be sure her account had the $138 due for the 2 days work we completed there. I was told it was fine to complete that payment, which I then did. This, too, is something I do not do for every customer but Ms ***** had asked me if I would handle processing her payment ea month for her services and I have done that for many years. Never once in all that time have I taken advantage of her, never once has she been overcharged, which obviously at only $138 you can see this was nothing close to overcharging Ms ***** to clear this very large property she owns! I am sure Ms **** has a lot on her shoulders and, had she called me during business hours, or even if she had called before 7pm, all of this would have been taken in a whole different light. She called me in attack mode, I was asleep and startled awake by a blaring telephone so my heart was racing when I answered, and then to be so unfairly accused, well we both were in the wrong frame of mind to be having that conversation under those strained conditions. I wish I had never taken that call, but my own parents are 88 and 86 so I am very well acquainted with the stresses of elderly parents. I am also the only child to care for them and the full weight of that care, as is the case with Ms ****, falls completely on me. I absolutely sympathize with her plight and the desperation we both feel in our situations of now having to parent our own parents. Maybe I should have called her back the next day but after she slammed the phone down in my ear I thought it was probably best to not call and appear to be going out of my way to further irritate her. I see now that me not calling has possibly had the effect I was trying to avoid. Ms ****'s complaint is based on feelings rather than facts. And although I absolutely understand those feelings, I have them myself when I hear my own parents describe things that happen to them in line at a store, someone trying to get around them with a shopping cart, or even at their doctor appointments, her analysis of what happened and the reason for it is completely wrong. I adore Ms *****. Always have. And she has never been overcharged, discounted, or abused in any way.

*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. ↩