Buyer Beware

PLEASE!!! take the time to read this….

“I took the time to write it because of the large volume of calls we get from customers who have become a statistic…after the fact, (I can’t help you after the fact) Maybe this can prevent you from joining that ever growing list”.

The garage door business…..is chock full of scammers, fly-by-nighters, con artists and a whole cast of shady characters who’s job it is to relieve you of your hard earned money and they are very good at convincing you that they are legitimate. So we’ve drawn up a checklist to help you along in the process of finding someone in your area that has morals and charges accordingly. So whether your looking to get something fixed or replaced this should help you. But if you get in a rush and veer off the path…be prepared for what will come next!

#1-If using the phone book, steer clear of any ads that don’t list an address yet have a picture of twenty vehicles lined up and ready to go, same goes for P.O boxes, (P.O boxes can be changed in mere minutes) Pay careful attention to the first 4-6 ads, chances are they are all the same company with different names and slightly different ads, by having that many ads in a row they want to make sure  you will end up with them. Instead look for the smaller ads behind the double page ads and look for a showroom address, that tends to lean towards a company that’s been around for a while, the last thing a scammer wants is you confronting them at their place of business, so they typically don’t have one, yet claim to have been in business for forty years.

As I look through the 09 yellow pages right now, I see warning signs everywhere. The first ad I see says “Over 60 trucks serving your area” yet they have no address, where do they park all of these trucks? The next thing I see is that they are “Rated #1 in customer service”…rated by who? The last time I asked them that they hung up on me, and how can a company that claims “The Guaranteed Lowest Prices” have so many complaints of overcharging? Then they say “over 40 years of customer service” yet they have a license that’s only a few years old, now I pull out the 2011 phone book and see that corrections have been made, and another new license number…why?  Now they’ve changed their award looking slogan to “our goal” is #1 in customer service, but the “our goal” is in fine print, next I see the 60 trucks serving your area has been removed and still no address, but they typically will not remove false statements unless forced to do so. So be careful using the phonebook !!!

#2-If you use the internet… don’t rely on the reviews from any of the online yellowpages or search engines, most of the time if you look closely at the review it will be the only review ever given by that person, in other words the garage door company gave themselves a review, and a good one at that !!  If at all possible use a more reliable reference source such as “Angies List”, places like this tend to be more reliable simply because you have to sign up and register, no one does that for one fake review.

#3- Check the contractors state license board, look for complaints, make sure the company you are looking at has only one name, in other words if they have a dba and 6 other names its simple, they have wrecked the reputation of the other five names and are using a new one, its just easier for them to use a new name than it is to do business ethically so check out how many names they are doing business under and there should be only one. Most of these “companies” when asked why they have several different names will tell you that they bought out all of those other companies…nonsense, and a lie.

#4-Another source you can look into is the BBB, I don’t often recommend the BBB because often times a companies rating doesn’t match with the number of complaints they have, I once looked up a painter who had 3 complaints and had a “B” rating yet there is a well known garage door company up north of San Diego that has 180 complaints yet they hold an A- rating and when questioned about that the BBB rep said its all based on “Algorithms” now if you can’t use a more reliable method than an algorithm…chances are  your ratings are not accurate, but if you use the BBB along with some of the other tips given in this section you should be ok. Keep in mind the BBB is in the business of collecting dues and when that’s the case…” strange” things can occur.

#5-Radio ads…forget it! They cost a fortune and you’re the one paying for it. I hear the same two ads on the radio that you do and both companies have racked up more complaints in a year than we have in 22 yrs, I personally never…ever call on a radio ad because I know how it works, its designed to generate calls, from there its sell..sell..sell, like I said its expensive and you are expected to cover those costs. It doesn’t matter what the ad says…there simply is no deal, don’t believe me? run a check on the next one you hear and see how many complaints they have, although you might find it a bit frustrating trying to find out what their real company name is…usually its not the one they use on the radio, most have several dba’s.

So to sum it all up, check  your ABC’s (Angie’s list) (BBB) (Contractors Lic Board) and do your homework, by using the combination of these websites it will start to paint a clear picture for you and  it could save you a lot of frustration, time, and money.