ComplaintsforRoxi & Co.

• Initial Complaint

  04/17/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I pay $***** a month for the service of every other week clean-up of my backyard for two dogs. On 03/31/23, I spoke to I'm assuming at this time Terry per email. I advised him that I was expecting refund for my charge of March since I knew they had been to my location and didn't even enter my yard. I know this because every other time anyone that has come over has at least checked the bucket I have for poop bags from walking my dogs. I found dog treats on my steps in front. When I checked bucket this was not emptied at all. All winter long, the person who has come over to my yard I've seen in my backyard and they have always at least attempted to empty the bucket even when it was frozen with ice. 03/28 weather had been good and a good portion of snow had started melting. Perfect opportunity to start full yard clean up. When I finally talked to Terry he interrupted me, told me to be quiet and tried man splaning to me how poop works in snow. At one point he asked if I was cancelling my service, I said no, it would depend on my service going forward. I have waited two weeks. No one has been to my house. I emailed him today 04/15 advising I was expecting someone at my location. I got a reply back stating my service was cancelled per our conversation on 03/31, Again 03/31 when he asked if I was cancelling my service I advised would depend on service going forward. A refund for bad service for one month does mean cancellation. The only reason I pay this price every month, per Terry when I first started, it was more cost effective to pay same price every month and not a springtime cleaning fee. He says "we did come to your house 3 times in March and I have GPS locating to validate it." Parking in front of my house is not the same as actually cleaning my back yard. I don't care he took picture of my back yard either. I am expecting a refund for his spring cleaning pricing since he cancelled my service and I have paid for spring cleaning all winter.

  

  Business response

  04/17/2023

  On March 31st, the customer called and left a message requesting a call back. I returned her call the same day and asked her how I could help. She immediately took on a hostile tone, and told me to check my email and that it was explained there. I politely responded that I did not see an email and asked her if she could explain. She then proceeded to explain that no one came to her house yesterday and she wanted a refund for March service. 

  We utilize two GPS tracking devices (one on the vehicles and one on the phones) to verify our service techs are at the addresses we assign to them. So I pulled up the service details and notes for the visit on March 30th. It indicated our service tech arrived at 11:15am and left at 11:28am. The service tech included a note for that service visit stating, "Lots of stuck waste couldn't even kick it up". They also included a picture (which I have attached) showing that lots of waste was embedded in the snow and ice and could not be broken loose to clean up until the snow melted in those affected areas. I tried to explain the service time, note, and picture to the customer but she became more belligerent and started swearing. At one point she said, "I don't give a **** what your picture says, no one came in my yard". She insisted that her dogs bark every time someone uses the gate and that no one came. I asked her if she had any camera footage that would show that and explained we utilize GPS tracking and it showed we were in fact there and that I'm not sure how we would get a picture of her yard without entering the backyard. 

  She then went on to explain that she has a bucket in her yard that holds waste bags from when she walks her dogs and that it wasn't emptied on the March 30th visit. In the rare instance we encounter a bucket like that in a yard, we do empty it at no additional charge to the customer and as a courtesy. That said, we have very few customers that do that. The service tech servicing her yard on March 30th was still fairly new, and likely overlooked the bucket of waste bags. That does not mean they didn't service the yard at all. They just simply overlooked that bucket as it's rare that we encounter them. The phone call continued to go down hill as the customer continued to be belligerent, swear, and talk over me. It made it very difficult to have a conversation with her because I was not being given an opportunity to explain or to try and resolve her concerns.

  I've been in business for 14 years now. In that time, I've serviced thousands of yards in all weather conditions. The 2022-2023 winter was one of the snowiest winters on record for our area. As dogs track through snow it packs it down, and as the snow starts melting and we get freeze/thaw cycles, the waste gets embedded/frozen in the ice and snow. We use rakes and hoes to try and break waste loose in those situations, but sometimes it's just not possible or practical. Most of the time it's best to simply wait for the snow/ice to melt completely in those affected areas so we can thoroughly clean up the waste. 

  Ultimately, I asked the customer how I could best help her. She said she'd like a refund for March service because she claims no one serviced her yard. Yet according to our records, we service her yard on March 1st, March 14th, and March 30th. I asked her if she wanted to cancel service and she said only if service continues to be ******. I went on to explain the service has not been subpar and that we are at the mercy of the weather and this time of year with the freeze/thaw cycles and the waste getting embedded in the snow and ice that it's a challenging and frustrating time because we can see the waste but we simply can't clean it up. Ultimately the customer ended up hanging up on me before I could finish explaining.

  After the phone call, despite providing the service, I went ahead and refunded her charge for March to try to satisfy her. I then made the decision based on her belligerent tone, swearing, etc to cancel her service. I realized that as a business we may make mistakes from time to time...after all, we are human. When we do make a mistake, we do our best to promptly resolve service issues. That said, I will not tolerate my team, or myself, being subjected to this kind of swearing or belligerence. 

  Lastly, it seems the customer is claiming that she paid all winter for a spring cleanup. That is not correct. She was signed up for our Every-Other-Week Service Plan and that service was provided to her all winter long. The only service disruptions were those spelled out in our terms of service and related to inclement weather,  holidays, and/or obstructed gates. While maintaining a service plan over the winter months will certainly lessen the volume of waste necessary to be cleaned up in the spring, it does not eliminate it all together and has never been advertised or sold as any kind of payment plan towards a spring cleanup.

  Customer response

  04/17/2023

  
  Complaint: ********
  
  I am rejecting this response because: 

  1. I know he's a **** and here's why.  It took him 24 hours to callback from my original call placed on March 29th not March 30th.  He is correct he called me back but not right away or even same day.  Email I originally sent went to doody's email from old receipt I had.  Didn't realize that mistake until after talking with him and resent the email to Roxi email.  I started out the conversation professionally.  He started the hostility almost immediately and was making excuses for everything.  I originally let him know to see my email to see why I was upset.  I started to explain the situation and he cut me off and started talking down to me and telling me to be quiet he's talking.  I'm the customer.  I am not going to be talked to like he talked to me by anyone, especially someone I'm paying for a service from.  I may have said **** once but that does not account to swearing repeatedly in a conversation.  I'll give him that one ****.  He was extremely abusive talking to me, so I finally hung up and went to email and that's when realized was sent to old email.

  2.  The bucket as a courtesy is a new rule he just made up.  I have talked to people that have come around since I started service about * years ago and they have told me repeatedly that this was part of the service.  

  3.  Picture is a joke.  That picture is a close up of about a tiny portion of my yard where the snow was still in the middle of my yard.  Most of the snow was melted out of my yard as this was right around the timeframe we had the first spell of nice weather and snow was melting away.  One of his responses was that they didn't want to be walking in yards at this time because it would do damage to the yard because the weather had been nice. He came up with several reasons why they didn't come into my yard.  I don't need and didn't need on the phone call excuses as to why what I paid for wasn't done.  At no time did he offer to fix this he just continued to talk done to me.

  4. I didn't realize he cancelled my service till I reached out after waiting for my yard to be picked up on next scheduled date.  I went thru emails again and now realized when he issued refund he said he cancelled my service.  It took me 3 days to get my blood pressure down from dealing with him on the phone because of his ******** and talking down to me.  * **** **** ******* ******** **** **** *** **** ***** ******* ***** ****** **** **** ***** **** *** **** ***** **** *** ***** ** *** **** * ********** ** *********** ******* **** ********  *** ***** ****** ** *** **** **** ***   I don't ever want to deal with him again, but I do expect a refund for the spring clean-up charge he charges customers as I paid all winter for a servicer he did not complete.  He just randomly cancelled my service after I said I would see if the service would still by ****** from him knowing I wasn't going to cancel till after spring clean-up.  He doesn't get to take my money all winter for full price which has the spring clean-up included in that pricing and then just randomly cancel my service because I requested a credit for service I never received for one month to begin with.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  Nicole ********

  

  Business response

  04/18/2023

  There's a lot to address in the customers rejection of my initial response, so I will respond to them in the same order she did...

  1. I'm sorry to hear this customer is now resorting to name calling by calling me a liar. I'm sensing this is a pattern of behavior she likes to engage in. She is now claiming she called me and left a message on March 29th...to complain about a service visit that didn't occur until March 30th? I'm not sure how that's possible? As for the timing of my call back, I returned the call the day I received the note she had called. Depending on the time of the day that she called, it is possible I didn't actually get the message until the next day. I don't consider that an unreasonable time frame to respond to a call. 

  As for details of the call itself, it sounds like a case of he said/she said and I highly doubt we will come to an agreement on those details. What I will say is her claim that she started the conversation out professionally is completely untrue. She was hostile and belligerent from the moment she answered. I also find her claim that I was "extremely abusive" in talking to her slanderous and completely ridiculous. 

  2. The customer claims "the bucket as a courtesy is a new rule he just made up". It seems she likes to think she knows more about my business and our policies and procedures then I do. As I said in my initial response, we provide this as a courtesy to the few of our customers who ask. Sometimes we will also clean up trash we may find in a yard, but that too is not our primary service. It's simply provided as a courtesy...a way to go above and beyond for our customers. A new service tech overlooking emptying a bucket does not mean we didn't enter the yard or service the yard. 

  3. The picture that our service tech included of the yard was indeed a portion of the yard, but it was indicative of a larger problem of waste being embedded in snow/ice, or being too frozen to break loose for cleanup. That is not an uncommon occurrence when we get freezing overnight and thawing during the day. During the week in question, it was a pretty widespread issue with most of our customers so we focused our effort on the melted areas where we could actually get to the waste. Also, a distant picture of the entire yard would not provide the same level of detail as a closeup picture like the one noted.

  The customer is now claiming that I said "they didn't want to be walking in yards at this time because it would do damage to the yard because the weather had been nice." I did not say that. What I likely said is that when the waste is frozen in ice/snow, we will try and break it loose but if we can't do so with a rake or hoe then we need to wait for the snow/ice to melt. If we were to try and hack at the ice with an ice pick we would risk damaging underlying surface, whether that's grass, landscaping, or pavement.   

  4. The customer is also claiming she didn't realize I cancelled her service. I addressed that when I was on the phone with her, but since she hung up on me she likely missed that. I was talking to her and suddenly there was no one on the other line. I figured she likely missed that, so when I immediately processed her refund for March service I let her know we cancelled her service. It's not my responsibility she overlooked that detail in the email, or that she also hung up on me and missed it then. 
  

  I do not cancel service whenever someone has a service concern. Again it seems the customer is making slanderous claims about me and my business. Our service team is human and despite their best efforts they may occasionally overlook something. When a customer brings it to our attention we do our best to address it. What I will not tolerate is a customer being belligerent or rude to me or a member of my team. For that very reason, like most businesses, we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone and I exercised that right in dealing with this customer.

  The customer went on to make the following statement, "He doesn't get to take my money all winter for full price which has the spring clean-up included in that pricing and then just randomly cancel my service because I requested a credit for service I never received for one month to begin with." As I said in my last response, the customer signed up for our Every-Other-Week Service Plan (see copy of invoice attached). We provided that service over the winter months. The cost of a spring clean-up is NOT included in the price of that service plan. Furthermore, there was no oral or verbal contract here. Service can be started or stopped at anytime. 

  Let me conclude by saying the customer requested a refund for March service from the get go as she insisted we weren't there. However, our records show we were there three times in March - March 1st, March 14th, and March 30th. I have no record that she contacted us with any service concerns regarding our March 1st or March 14th visit. Her refund request was unreasonable from the start because we actually serviced her yard in March. Despite this unreasonable request, I provided a full refund for March service and cancelled her service. Now the customer is saying that's still not good enough. Now she wants a refund for a service we provided all winter long, in which she had no complaints about?

  I have already provided a refund for March service that was not warranted. I consider this issue resolved and will not be providing any additional services or refunds to this customer. 

  
  

  

  Business response

  04/21/2023

  The customer is claiming they are due for some kind of refund for a spring cleanup because they paid for service all winter long...

  As I've said in some of my responses thus far, the customer signed up for our Every-Other-Week Service Plan and that service was provided through the end of March. There is no contract (written or verbal) for any of our service plans, they are all on a month-to-month basis. As such, a customer can start or stop service at any time. We see customers cancelling in different seasons for a multitude of reasons. For instance, given the amount of snow we received this winter, we saw a lot of customers stopping service due to their gates being obstructed by snow drifts and us not being able to access their yard. In doing so, they knew they would have to pay us for a spring cleanup when they were ready to resume service. 

  When a customer maintains a service plan year-round we cleanup any accumulated waste that may reveal itself once the snow melts. Winter service is not perfect, so it's not uncommon for waste to get buried between layers of snow over the winter months. Ultimately, we are only able to clean up what we can see and access. That said, the service they are maintaining over the winter months is not a prepayment or guarantee of a spring cleanup. The key here, is we only do the cleanup in the spring IF the service plan is continued. If a customer cancels service before the snow melts, we will not cleanup any accumulated waste that may reveal itself as the service plan was not maintained. Also, we retain the right to refuse service to any customer at anytime so if we exercise that right and cancel a customer's service before the snow melts completely we are under no obligation to clean up any accumulated waste that may reveal itself. 

  With this particular customer, she was rude and belligerent on the phone and demanded a refund for March service claiming we did not service her yard. That was not true, as our GPS records show we serviced her yard 3 times in March and we have service notes and pictures to validate that. Despite that, I did go ahead and issue a refund for March service to try and appease the customer, however I also exercised our right to refuse additional service and cancelled her service. Since the service was not maintained (even if it was our choice), we are under no obligation to provide any additional services, refunds, etc. 

  Customer response

  04/21/2023

  
  Complaint: ********
  
  I am rejecting this response because:

  When on the phone he asked if I was cancelling service.  I specifically said no.  He was extremely condescending and not offering anything but excuses so that is why I hung up on him and went back to contact by email.   His continued lies about the conversation does not make anything he has done right.  As I am the customer and this is the first time I've reached out to complain about anything, his actions in no way are a valid response to one phone call.  As I've stated before, when he originally sold the idea of paying monthly for bi-weekly service it was a selling point that there would never be a spring clean-up charge.  Since he took upon himself to cancel my service after I specifically said I wasn't cancelling my service when he asked if I was, I am now wanting a refund for the charge he charges other customers for a spring clean-up.   His continued abuse in his responses is not okay either.  I haven't personally attacked him in these responses and want his abuse and lies to be stopped.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  Nicole ********

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