Elite Paperhanging

This review is not for Jeff’s work (I have no idea if it is good, bad or anything else), but rather his business practices. On May 29th, 2018 at about 3:11 PM, I sent a “request for a quote” through Angieslist to Elite Paperhanging. I gave them my cell phone number, my email, my name and address in addition to the basic scope of work I was looking for. At 3:12, I received a call on my cell number from Jeff at Elite. I didn’t answer the call as I was in the Sacramento airport and didn’t want the distractions of the airport to get in the way of the call. He left a voice message asking me to call him back. At 3:40, I received another call from Jeff. At this point, I was on the plane but not yet departed. I again declined the call because we were taking off shortly and I knew I would call him back the next day. It seems a bit odd that he would call me twice in 30 minutes, but I know that in the world of lead generation for contractors, it is a “race to the customer”. That is, the first contractor to talk to the customer often wins the business. Annoying, but I understand. After landing at my local airport, I am driving home, and my wife sends me a text stating that, in the last 10 minutes we received 2 phone calls at our home number from someone she thought might be a business call for me (I work from home, but don’t give out my home number for business). She sent me the number, and it turns out those calls were from Elite Paperhanging. This is disturbing for several reasons. First, I NEVER gave Jeff my home number and in fact, our home number is private and unlisted. Second, he called at 5:56 PM and left a message, then he called AGAIN at 6:03. How did he get my home number and why was he calling me for the 4th time in just over 2 hours? My wife (who is at home with our infant daughter) is now scared to death and I’m left to explain that this was what I thought to be a legitimate contractor who has figured out a way to somehow track down our private unlisted number AND thought it was a good idea to call me 4 times in one afternoon. We were frightened, upset and angry over this whole situation. (As a sidebar, I “Googled” my name, number address etc. to see if I could find my own home phone number and I could not.) Being furious, I called Jeff and asked him why he would do this. To be fair, I called Jeff every four-letter name in the book I could come up with and he told me he didn’t appreciate my language. I told him I didn’t appreciate him calling me 4 times and scaring my wife. I have been in the construction business for over 30 years and work with contractors constantly. This is not the type of behavior I expect from a professional. I will not use Jeff and I hope you don’t either.