HomeAdvisor

I had a very bad experience with a contractor and wrote a negative review on HomeAdvisor, but it was never published and they never contacted me.
Apparently the reason they only list contractors with good reviews is because they simply don’t publish bad reviews. Kind of removes the whole purpose, doesn’t it?

I joined home
for a housecleaner and tree removal. They sent me 3 contractors and all 3 did not show up!!! They would call to say they were on there way we would wait and no show !!! I couldn’t believe it all 3 … And no call back from house cleaners. I called home advisor to tell them what happen and how can they rec contractors like that. They didn’t do anything. NO HELP what so ever … Do no use them total scam waste of time… Use Angie’s list much better

Misleading screening process sends out unlicensed contractors to do plumbing and electrical work despite claiming to do a «Trade License Verification». The fine print shows the Trade License only checks on a State level, which in many cases does not exist.

Nightmare… beware…unless you love answering your phone all hours of the day and night!
They get your phone number from somewhere and give it out to contractors. After the last call, I I asked the contractor how he had obtained my phone number. He stated that he got it from
and suggested I contact them.
I tried their online customer service but it was fruitless. I would make a statement like «I didn’t make a service request» and they would answer «Did you make a service request?». Then they asked if I used a different phone number when I registered. I didn’t register!!! Besides that, how the heck did the contractor get my number from them? They stated that they would unsubscribe me but only if I gave them an email address. I told them that I was afraid they sell my email and they said they couldn’t help me. Yikes!

November 5^th 2015
DEAR HOME OWNERS
YOU HEARD ONE SIDE OF THE STORY
**** ONE CONTRACTOR HAS HIS OWN SIDE OF THE STORY ****
I’m a Licensed Contractor for 23 years in California
2 days ago I received a call from Home Adviser to join in with all the Heavenly Promises
Next day my first call came in and I excepted the call
(that means $ 33.50 Charge from Home Adviser to my account)
I did talk to home owner and He had many Questions since he was opening a Doggy Door to his backyard and Bump in to a Gas pipe in the wall to stop his project
Customer asked me if he could send me some pictures with smart Phone and I agreed

Here we go: There was a shear wall from Exterior (For Earth Quick Safety) I could see in his pictures and he was not suppose to touch by Code and I did explained everything I could
At the end he asked how much I would charge to move the 1 inch Gas pipe coming from attic and I offered $ 300 that I had to send a Tec. from Burbank to Downy about 23 Miles each way
Maybe he was thinks $ 80 ?
(Anyways he was calling the HOME ADVISER for advise)
But: Home adviser did charge my account $ 35 for the call they sent me
Today I received my 2^nd call and I ***excepted the call *** and the Customer said (Its been already Handled)
Now i’m thinking to my self, What is going on? am i Getting charged for this two calls ?
So I called Home adviser
YES there was about $ 68 charges, So i start explaining for 15 Minutes and the Representative on the other end ** DID A FAVER *** and removed the first call charge as a ***ONE TIME COURTESY ***
But he could NOT remove the 2^nd charge
So I asked for supervisor
Make the story short I end up talking to deferent department for 1 Hour to cancel my Contract after Initial Membership Charge of over $ 300 witch was NONE REFUNDABLE
My Advise to Contractors :
There are many other ways to Find Lead and expend your Business
One thing I have to Admit: Home Adviser Have Well Trained Soft Spoken and Polite Employes working for them
Thanks for Reading this
My Best Regards To all

Never, ever, use anyone from the Home Advisor or call them with Caller ID to speak with them. No matter how politely, emphatically, or often you tell them you are not interested in the myriad of contractors or specialists they list, you will never get rid of them. They hand your list apparently all their members who call anytime of the day or day of the week. Everything from remodeling to duct cleaning to solar. There’s no limit of types of calls you get. t get at least 15 – 20 calls a week. I have reached my limit on blocking numbers with ATT and still the phone calls pour in. USE THEM ONLY IF YOU ARE LONELY AND LIKE TO SPEAK WITH STRANGERS ON THE PHONE SEVERAL TIMES A DAY!

RUN from Home Advisor. This company doesn’t represent the consumer at all. I spoke to Mark in ratings team. He was no help at all. I had hired a professional from Home Advisor in July to find out in September that the pro wasn’t going to do my job after a signed contract. My rating was considered non published as the pro never started work on my job and my review was sent to the pro and never published. This pro only has high ratings because when he screws people over it isn’t published. SHAME on Home Advisor for not doing their job and protecting people. RUN RUN RUN from this untrustworthy company.

HomeAdvisor rep Dan Kelly called me on my cell phone, and I asked to be removed from the solicitation list. I continue to recieve solicitation from this company, and I clearly would not do business with them. Also, look at the other reviews.

This is one of the worst advertising companies I have ever encountered in my professional career. We had two separate contractors sign up for this program and both were extremely unhappy with the results.
Frankly, we were promised false information and advertising services by our sales rep.
When we first signed up our contractors, our account executive, Ty, explained that if a lead with false or duplicate information came in they would refund the contractor for the amount (they ranged from $ 15-​$ 90 depending). I asked him what happens when a lead asks for the cheapest priced product. He explained, «We are not going to charge you for bad leads and will take care of any shoppers» and stated that Home Advisor provides only quality leads.
Within 24 hrs of signing up both contractors began receiving leads that were 70% bad leads. Not only were our contractors charged for these bad leads (people looking for the cheapest products, outside services areas calls, homeowners calling for non-​applicable services, contractors testing the automated system etc.) but once we contested these leads (which is done in an entirely different department) Home Advisor denied our contractors a refund despite what our sales rep, Ty, explicitly stated would be refunded.
Instead of refunding the lead charge, they stated that they wanted us to be happy with the service and would credit the account for 10 leads (within the first 30 days, of course) free of charge. Big mistake. We thought, «Great! Free leads. This company can’t be all bad…». Then out of the 10 leads, we received even more leads for random phone numbers/​emails that would not respond or hang up, calls from someone no where near the contractors service area or generally completely clueless, unqualified leads that were not looking for the specific services that our contractors offered, or again, just people that were looking for cheapest pricing (which we were guaranteed would NOT happen). In my opinion, this seemed like they were intentionally sending us unqualified leads, just to give us 10 leads for «free».
As a result of this terrible customer service both contractors attempted to terminated their accounts within 60 days, or have at least been attempting to do so with their atrocious account management office. Both contractors and I have called their accounting office and complaint office and were consistently given the go-​around («Sorry, please call the _​_​_​_​_​department for this matter») In the end, both have had to go directly through their credit card companies to terminate payments.
In short, this company is just like


; No bang for your marketing buck, a bunch of false promises and poor business practice.

My dog just got done barking at the door again thanks to HomeAdvisor. If you haven’t noticed they end their TV commercial with this really cute jingle followed by a doorbell sound clip. The latter is where my anger begins to fester. I’ve contacted the company directly to ask them to remove the doorbell part of their ad because it makes my dog go nuts! Totally do-​able! Apparently I’m the only person in the world to complain about this. What’s one person. Right? Well maybe they will hear me on Unilocal!Perhaps not judging by the other «glowing» reviews here.

They suck! Lucky contractors are all so busy from the bad winter. Now they cherry pick their jobs and blow everybody else off.

Stay away! When you call to cancel the service because you’re not getting any leads, they put you on a waiting list and then charge you for that. When you let them know that you called to cancel they still ask for payment. I refuse to pay this company when I have called to cancel in the past for the garbage service. I hope they go out of business soon.

Watch out contracters! Horrible company. basically stealing money. Got BBB involved and got them to stop collections. A lot of wasted time fighting the charges. Beware!

When running a small business there are a great many companies that will help you run smoother, meet new potential customers and hopefully grow. We as a company have been around 25 years and have seen it all. There are businesses that we partnered with that have lasted 7 – 15 years and there are bad companies that make promises they can not keep. Home Advisor is one of those bad companies.
We had been read out to from Home Advisor 3 – 4 months back to participate in their lead program. We don’t mind some lead sites, they give you an opportunity to take customers who don’t yet have an established relationship with a contractor and make them into your lifelong customer through great service and quality work. We were hesitant to get on boards at first because Home Advisor used to be called «Service Magic». We worked with «Service Magic» 7 years back and found them to be terrible. Our account executive explained that they are under new management and told me about a 3 month trial that would be perfect to prove his statement. If you have never worked with Home Advisor, they charge contractors around $ 20-​$ 80 per lead (dependent on the type they deliver ex: furnace install, smoke detector repair, etc). When we first signed up for Home Advisor we did so on a recorded phone line and Home Advisor records all their calls as well. We settled on a 3 month trial (a special they have been running) but told our account executive that we need to know what their policy was on bad leads. They explained that if a lead with false information or a duplicate came in they would refund us for the amount. I asked the account representative what happens when a lead states via email or on the phone that are only shopping for the cheapest price? My account executive explained on a recorded line «Dan, we are not going to charge you for bad leads and will take care of any shoppers». He went on to state that Home Advisor provides only quality leads. I told my executive that we would participate as long as they waived the automatic renewal at the end of the 3 months. He got approval from a manager to do so and even agreed that Home Advisor would read out to us 2 weeks prior to the end of our trial to review our results and talk about if we wanted to sign up for a full term.
We began getting leads the next day. We received around 6 – 8 leads over the week and deemed them all to have no potential for any work. If seemed that these prospect customers where just looking for advice, asking about projects that they may do if their son finally moves out of the basement, and last but not least they wanted only pricing over the phone for jobs that where impossible to give anything better than a $ 3000-​$ 4000 price range difference do to the lead not wanted to have us come out to their home. I called Home Advisor and they declined crediting us for the bad leads and went on to advise that we pause the leads for the maximum amount of time of 3 months. This surpassed our trial that we had so with no renewal agreed upon made our campaign cancelled unless we chose to reopen it again.
The rest of our trial term went with no leads as requested and all of a sudden out of the blue we got 2 leads over a weekend totaling $ 144 or so. I reached out to Home Advisor and they stated that they do not ever waive the auto renewal. I told them to pull the call on their end and listen to the agreements I made with the account representative. They explained rudely that they do not save their calls that are older then a month and no longer had the call available. I told them to make it right and waive the cost for the past 2 leads so we could part ways on a neutal note. The manager who I explained this to said he was sure thay could resolve this and would get back to me. 3 days later I had to call back whereas nobody reached back as promised. I got a different manager who was even ruder than the last and demanded that I produce my recordings to exonerate me of the $ 144 they had charged for leads I did no ask for. At this point I told him if they were going to make me dig into recordings that were 3 months old I was just going to expose their company for who they are online with them.
In summarizing: I will be posting the recordings to youtube, vemio, wordpress and every other social site to advise great small businesses to stay far away from Home Advisor. They use illegal practices and would rather suck $ 144 out of your blood then deliver decent service.

Why does every company they recommend suck so bad? Restoration company #1 Project X’s Luis & Maria showed up pretty quick, but *never called back.* Still better than who Esurance recommended — Property Doctor — horrible reviews here (kickbacks?). Still working with Good Hands Carpet Care who HomeAdvisor gave me for a restoration company. They’re probably great at cleaning carpets, but leave your restoration job to professionals. I won’t Unilocal review them until they’re done, but they may very well have cost me more in damages than they’re currently trying to (over)bill me for.
Research the HomeAdvisor recommended company’s reviews before they drop by. Get an estimate/​invoice and certifications before any work begins, esp those you find through HomeAdvisor!

This is my final follow up for the Review below. Home Advisor Reviews are BOGUS. They do not post Negative Reviews on a business. I reviewed Ford-​Dotson Construction with a 1 star, emails to back up everything I stated and it was never posted. That’s how Home Advisor does their Reviews.
I recently submitted a request for a Quote through Home Advisor web site. What I’ve found out.
After a week I had no responses from any Contractors. I received a call from HomeAdvisor asking about the service I received. I told them No responses at all. About 4 days later I received a call from a local ??? Contractor. This is where it get even better.
Contractor gave me a bid that I accepted but didn’t follow through. I suppose that was because he wanted me to hand 80% of the $ 26,000 to him before anything was done. I agreed to pay the supplier COD or by Check in person but apparently that didn’t get him the CASH he was hoping for.
I filed a review on Home Adviser and they have not posted it. So this tells me the reviews and rating are BOGUS. Anyone can have good ratings if the truthfull lower ratings are not published. Not even the business address for their so called Screened Contractor is legit.
Protect your information and just do a YP search. Your just as likely to find a reputable Contractor.

This review is the result of attempting to identify contractors using the HomeAdvisor website for screening purposes; note that I am a homeowner, not a contractor waiting for leads.
Outlined within this review then are the more significant comments that I believe could be beneficial to other homeowners:
HomeAdvisor as a «Search Engine»:
As a homeowner, your ability to seek out and select a contractor should not be predicated upon HomeAdvisor. Contractors who are under an agreement with HomeAdvisor may, in fact, require that relationship in order to acquire new business other than to list themselves locally. Following up with legitimate references, other than relying on HomeAdvisor direct, would be in your best interest.
It should be noted that the HomeAdvisor contractor has paid a fee to receive leads from prospective customers. Hiring them would certainly preclude receiving unbiased references from other homeowners other than relying solely on the list that HomeAdvisor provides.
Finding Your Own Contractor:
You may want to search your own town or city for the contractor you need. An ideal source would include your own towns’ local news journal. Contractors will post ads for work performed within your community. You could then request references from those contractors. Google and word of mouth, including Unilocal, are other sources. Talk to your towns’ construction dept for leads as well. Always insist on being provided with no less than 3 references who have done business with the contractor your looking at; make certain they are not related to the contractor and were legitimate customers.
Ask for proof of Workman’s Comp insurance as well as liability coverage. Interview the contractor. Have them provide a written estimate and schedule, if applicable. If they are unable to do this, look elsewhere. If possible, look at their truck. Their business name should be displayed on the side, not a magnetic sign. If blank, look elsewhere. Have them give you a business card; if not, look elsewhere.
My Exposure to HomeAdvisor:
I needed a small plumbing job done at my home. I filled out the scope of work requirements on-​line and indicated that my project was not a priority and not to call me; the site offers those choices. I wanted to limit this first step to check out the names of contractors in my area that HomeAdvisor provided me. As soon as I closed my browser, my phone began to ring off the hook; several plumbers began calling me as a result of my inquiry via HomeAdvisor. It appeared that all of them were sitting by the phone waiting for leads.
I also received several e-​mails inviting me to return calls from plumbers who had obviously seen my inquiry, despite my indicating not to contact me. I did, in fact, return one call to extend the courtesy of stating that I was not yet prepared to move forward with my project.
To my dismay, that contractor asked me to call HomeAdvisor, advising them to have a credit issued to the contractor because they could not report to HomeAdvisor that I had hired them. Clearly, I thought this inappropriate and reported same to HomeAdvisor. I also requested that HomeAdvisor delete all of my information from their servers to prevent my receiving further calls and e-​mails.
In summary, I am of the opinion that HomeAdvisor contractors are not doing very well with their business and are frantically awaiting for leads as they compete with each other for new business. Moreover, HomeAdvisor appears to disregard any request for not having their contractors contact me until such time that I authorize them to do so. I am not willing to relinquish my own method of qualifying a contractor prior to hiring them. Therefore, I cannot recommend using them.

Very dissatisfied with Home Advisor’s services. I found a terrible contractor through them who left me hanging and never came out to do the work. However, when I went to post the review, they called me and told me they wouldnt post the review, because the contractor never did the final work. So the months of communications and bad business etiquette gets hidden from future prospective clients. Makes me feel like maybe the contractor paid to have my review removed.

HomeAdvisor referred me to a landscaper for a moderate-​sized sodding and planting project. HomeAdvisor claims to pre-​screen contractors, but their fine print exculpates them from any failures of the contractors they refer. Bottom line: HomeAdvisor creates a false sense of security. The «experienced» and «pre-​qualified» landscape company I hired had done only two small jobs before and had been in business for 5 months. That’s what HomeAdvisor calls experienced? The contractor was terrible. The list of their shortcomings is extensive; ranging from not grading my property to laying mismatched turf to running a week over estimated completion and making me chase them for a month to clean up their mess. I will deal with that contractor separately, but beware when considering anyone HomeAdvisor recommends. They work for the contractor, not you.
This company has managed to stay off of Unilocal’s radar because they’re national. If you have experience with HomeAdvisor, good or bad, consider publishing a review to help your fellow Unilocalers.
Let me know what you think of this review by clicking a button below. Thanks.

This review is being submitted not only as a Home Advisor homeowner, but also a business owner a «service professional».
As Homeowner:
Submitted a request for TV repair — they referred 4 contractors — none of them do TV repair (though HomeAdvisor website says they did.) Contacted customer support — they stated they the currently do not have any contractors for TV repair and referred the next closest/​best thing. They actually charged the contractors to be referred to me — though they don’t even provide the service.
As a Service Professional:
Home Advisor’s screening process does minimally to really protect the home owner.
Most contractors are not properly insured for the work they do, Home Advisor only checks for a general liability policy for minimal coverage — which typically does not cover the contractor or the home owner when working at the homeowners home.
Also, if the contractor has employees, in most states they should legally have workers compensation — Home Advisor doesn’t check for that — if something goes wrong the homeowner can be on the hook.
Background checks are only done on the owner of of record for the contractor, many times it’s not the owner doing the work. Easy for the business to get past the screening process just by having someone else on record as the registered owner.
The first 3 – 4 reviews should be discarded on the Home Advisor site for each contractor. The reviewers are hand selected by the business owner and provided to Home Advisor.