Complaints

• Initial Complaint

  12/01/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  6/2023 - Hometown Garage Door ("Hometown") sent ***** (contractor?) with Service Request. Amount was $770 deposit, $770 or remainder upon completion. 7/15/2023 - I gave the $700 deposit by certified check to ***** - ***** left with garage door parts, left garage door area a mess. 7/17/2023 - I reported garage door raised approximately 4" from floor. 7/18/2023 - Reported the raised door again - ***** said fuse in fuse box (house electricity) needed to be removed. 7/19/2023 - ***** returned well dressed - not dressed to work on the garage door. I found ***** on his cell phone highly agitated and nervous, pacing up and down my driveway. I followed him into garage. He informed me my garage door was broken and I would need a new door. The supervisor in ********* **, ****, suggested I use my home insurance company (***** ****). She said ***** **** would pay all expenses (which ***** **** did). **** said the check would be in my name and I was to cash the check and call her when I had the cash. They would pick up the cash and order the garage door. Because I was not comfortable with these methods, I instead, hired another company which reported they only needed to replace parts in original garage motor and I definitely need not need to replace the entire door. Hometown's work ethics are very questionable and I would rate their performance very low. I am still trying to collect my $770 deposit originally given to them.

  

  Business response

  12/18/2023

  BBB Complaint # ********To Whom It May Concern:The customer called us to come out and give her an estimate for repair. We booked the appointment for July 5th, 2023 between 8-10am. The technician gave her the estimate. We spoke to her again and she had decided that she wanted to have the estimate work done so on July 19th, 2023 we booked another appointment between 5-7pm to pick up the deposit check to order the springs that she would need as the parts would need to be special ordered due to the size of her door. The customer wrote us a non-refundable deposit of $770.00 on invoice number *****. As you can see on the Invoice, it does state non-refundable and she signed the invoice. The office called the customer to let her know the parts had come in and we booked another appointment to install the parts on August 11th, 2023 between 9-11am. When our technician arrived, he discovered that the customers door had been damaged because someone had tried to open the door using the motorized operator while the spring was still broken. I explained to her that a power surge could have caused this as well. She mentioned that her neighbor had come to look at the door as well so I explained to her that it is a possibility that the neighbor tried to operate the door with the motorized operator. When a garage door with a broken spring is opened with a motorized operator it will, in fact, rip the garage door section. With that being said the springs that we had ordered to fix her door would no longer work due to the damage the door received from the power surge, the neighbor or the customer themselves until the door was replaced. We spoke to the customer several times to try and help her possibly get a new door from her insurance company as we could not say if they had torn it up themselves or if it was a power surge/weather related issue. We spoke to several people with ***** **** which is her insurance company. The customer continued to call us over and over wanting to know the status of her new door and as we explained to her, we had everything ready to order the new door and was just waiting on ***** **** to get in touch with her. After talking with *** and ***** with ***** **** they had stated that when the contacted the customer about the claim she filed with them she had told them that she was not ready to do anything at that moment so ***** **** closed the case. The customer continued to call us everyday to the point that we were even staying over after the office had closed to talk on the phone with her for hours. We kept trying to help her and found out after more conversations with state **** that the customer had filed the initial claim that got closed for saying she wasn’t ready to do anything yet that she filed it with the wrong department so we were able to help her get it to the right department which was the weather department with a claim agent named ******. After ****** got the estimate that we provided them for a new door and the technician spoke to state **** they did approve the claim and said they would be sending out a check and she would only be responsible for her deductible which was 1000.00 and we had told the customer she had already paid us 770.00 non-refundable deposit for repairs and that we would apply that towards the new door and that she would only owe 230.00 for a complete new door and opener. The customer called again on November 9th 2023 wanting to know the status of the door again. Yet again, we told her we were just waiting on her to let us know when she got the check from ***** **** so we could order it because we do require half down to place a special order. She stated on the phone that she had not gotten the check yet but in the same sentence she said “Well yes, I did get the check on 10/31/23” but she wasn’t sure if she was going to actually get a new door or just keep the check for herself. We informed her that we were not going to be part of any Insurance fraud and that we would have to call ***** **** and let them know that she would not be getting a new door from the estimate that we had submitted to state **** and that she was thinking about keeping it. She said that she wasn’t going to do anything illegal and told us to come out and pick up the check and also, she would go ahead and write the other $230.00 that she would still need to pay on her deductible instead of waiting until the door was installed so we scheduled an appointment for that evening between 6-8pm to pick up both checks and told her we would order the door the very next day but when the technician got there that evening to pick up the check she told him no and to leave. That was the last communication we have had with her. The customer states she had another company look at the door and said that all she needed was to fix her opener. We know this is false because the opener will not lift a door with a broken spring much less a torn section. We have gone above and beyond to help her with her situation but it seems to us that she is just wanting to keep the insurance check and not have her door issue fixed correctly. Once again, we were more than willing to put the $770.00 non-refundable deposit towards the new door that she needs but seeing that it was non-refundable we are not willing to refund it but will be more than happy to apply it towards the estimate for a new door that the insurance company approved and paid for.If there are any other questions or additional explanation needed, please do not hesitate to contact our company at ###-###-####.Sincerely,****** ** *******, President*******

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