SERVPRO

unknown

Our basement flooded on Sunday, 6/30/13. We called our insurance agent and he urged us to call ServPro and gave us an 800 number to call for assistance. I called the number and asked exactly what services could be provided, how much it would cost, and how much money we would be expected to pay up front. The services were explained to me and I was told the cost would depend on how much needed to be done, but we need not pay anything up front because we had insurance and ServPro had a working relationship with State Farm and they would bill State Farm direct. I was then told they would have someone in my area call me and arrange to come out and help. Meanwhile, my husband and I are furiously working in the basement to remove the wet carpeting and padding. I am a severe asthmatic and the possibility of mold growing in the basement, as a result of the backed-up sump pump, could be life-threatening for me. So it was critical that the soaked carpeting and padding be removed as soon as possible. Within 60 minutes a ServPro agent from Cedar Rapids returned my call and did his best to try to talk me out of him coming out to the house on a Sunday. He kept saying how it was going to be so expensive and could we possible wait until Monday to avoid extra charges. I declined this service. I was not interested in someone who was not interested in helping me TODAY when I needed it. I called the 1-800 number again and told them what had happened. The man said he would try and find someone else to help us today. Meanwhile, my husband and I were working to remove the soaked carpet and padding from the basement. We were successful in removing all the carpet and padding before another call came from ServPro. Later that afternoon a call came from another ServPro agent that said he and his team was ready to come out within the hour. At this point, we already had all the carpet and padding out of the basement and had windows open and fans blowing everywhere AND the sump pump had been repaired, so we opted to wait until Monday for ServPro to come out. When the ServPro truck arrived we thought our problems were over. Little did we know that our problems were just beginning. The guy who was the leader of the group got out of his truck and asked my husband two questions: 1. did we have insurance and 2. what were the limits on this insurance. We now know that we should have told ServPro to leave our house. They took this information and then systematically worked to ensure a mitigation bill of close to 1/2 of our insurance coverage! Over the course of the next week, we were berated and verbally abused by the 'team lead' of this group. Behind his back, other workers would tell us negative things about him and would tell us to call the office manager and talk to her about how poorly we were being treated. We did this on several occasions...the woman NEVER returned one call. She was either always in a meeting or was not at work at that time. Industrial sized fans and dehumidifiers were turned on in an effort to dry out the basement. We would told that the basement was 'as wet as it could get.' Yet, we were also told that on Tuesday, July 2, the moisture numbers were beginning to drop. On Thursday, July 4, when a different technician came out, he informed us that the moisture levels were still very close to the original levels when all the drying equipment was first brought in. He said that we would need to have the dry-wall cut out up to 2 1/2 feet from the floor. During the week, we found several instances when all the equipment was not even turned on or plugged in...yet we were being charged for the rental and use of this equipment. We kept meticulous notes and tried to complain, but the office manager would never returned our call. There was another guy who was the 'Project Manager'. We spoke to him many times on the phone. He never once did what he said he would do. He would repeatedly tell us that he was going to get us an estimate of the charges the next day; the estimate would not come and he would tell us (in phone calls) that he was almost finished and would get the estimate to us that day or the next. When we talked to him on Thursday, July 4th and confronted the Project Manager with the news that the drywall was not, in fact, drying out, he said he was not going to charge us for all of the days of drying and he was also going to take another deduction from the final bill because of the poor customer service from the lead technician. The Project Manager told our insurance adjuster the same thing. Our insurance adjuster said that the industry standard is if the numbers aren't falling dramatically by the second day, you pull the fans and cut out the wet drywall. This action would have reduced our final bill by thousands of dollars. We did not receive the estimate until over 10 days AFTER all the equipment was removed. And then the final bill came within 48 hours of receiving the estimate. We wrote and disputed the charges, explaining what we thought we owed. We received NO response from the company other than another phone call from the Project Manager, who did nothing but lie repeatedly to us, and a notice to sue if we didn't pay the bill within a specified amount of time. We have perfect credit and did not want this to affect our credit, so we paid the bill. We are now investigating other options with the Iowa Attorney General Office for fraud and the Better Business Bureau for poor business practices. This company's slogan is "Like It Never Happened". I wish this were true. When they left my house, I had 2 1/2 feel of wall missing from two rooms in the basement, baseboards and wall trim and doors strewn all over the basement. It was a total mess. This was an incredibly stressful time for us. We were dismayed by the continuing unprofessional behavior of the ServPro employees. They left surveys for us to fill out and when we did and they didn't like the answers we gave, the surveys were given back to us with instructions that we hadn't filled them out correctly and to do it again! The Lead Technician had a flare for acting superior to everyone and making condescending negative comments about his workers and our home. Tempers often flared when he was around and for this I am sorry, but the guy was just so annoying. He was not the least bit helpful. He would say that he had called to give us an update, when he, in fact, had not. Our only phones are cell phones and we have accurate logs of incoming/outgoing and missed calls. In short, the entire experience was stressful and dissatisfying. The work they performed was substandard. The employees, with the exception of the guy who came out on the holiday, July 4th, were difficult to work with, didn't follow through on what they said they would do, and worked to increase their bill, rather than mitigate our water damage. My advice to anyone wanting to use a Water Damage Mitigation Service is to run as fast as you can from these guys. You will regret the day you called them! We certainly do!