The Basement Guys

I’m in the process of remodeling a house and knew the crawl space and foundation needed some work. I reached out to the basement guys to get a quote on foundation repair and crawl space encapsulation. I had an appointment scheduled at 5:00 on a Wednesday so I only needed to leave work an hour early. The guy called and said he had an appointment run late and let me know he wouldn’t be there until much later, I told him since he was going to be late and I’m sure he wanted to get home to his family let’s go ahead and reschedule. He said he appreciated it and would call the next day to reschedule and give me really good pricing to make up for things. That was the last thing I ever heard from him. So some time has passed and now I’m ready to move forward with getting the work done but I thought I’d reach out to the basement guys to give them another chance. I filled out the appointment request online and mentioned they never called me back. I get an appointment and a guy shows up and introduces himself as Tim Seacrest the General Manager and lets me know his family owns the company. I’m thinking sweet I can finally get a quote from these guys. He looks in my crawl space entrance and decides he needs to either have one of his guys or himself come back out to actually get in the crawl space and take some measurements to get a quote. I know my crawl space has a dirt floor and told them that when I submitted the request for appointment so I’m slightly confused why he didn’t come prepared with a Tyvek suit to do the measurements and provide an quote but whatever I’ll deal with another appointment. So we reschedule for the following Wednesday and I leave work early to meet them at our agreed upon appointment time and they no show no call once again. Call me old fashioned but I rather like the philosophy of doing things right the first time and these guys can’t even do an appointment right the first or even second time so I don’t see trusting them with a $ 20,000+ project.

I called the Basement Guys when researching contractors in the city to do our basement. I talked to a couple of individuals who then promised me a call back. I never received a call. I called them back a couple more times and left a few more messages then gave up and went with someone else. A few months later, they started called ME with spam calls to try to get my business, after they wasted my time months previous. I kept letting these people know that I already tried to get their business and they never got back to me. I asked to be removed from their lists. They kept calling. I JUST received another call after asking to be removed at least 3 times. They must be desperate for business since they don’t rate good reviews, have terrible customer service, and generally don’t respect the individual public.

We signed a contract with The Basement Guys because their price seemed competitive and timing met our needs. Unfortunately for us however, TBG’s grossly underestimated project timing by ~6 weeks, pulled the crew off multiple times without explanation or prior notification, refused to give us the 10% Angie’s List discount they advertise (claimed they gave us all possible discounts). We asked to see documentation of discounts but they refused to provide any to substantiate their claim. In fact, the way TBG’s price a job makes it nearly impossible to compare with other companies. Throughout the process, Luke and Tim Seacrest were great at making excuses, pushing blame everywhere else and not showing empathy or concern for customer dissatisfaction. I was seldom able to get get through to anyone by phone. On at least two occasions, Tim said he would look into my concerns and call me back the next day, but never did. To top it off, Tim had the nerve to ask for our final payment before the job was even completed. Do not use The Basement Guys unless you like to deal with the stress and frustration of a company that doesn’t care about their customers, only the money they can get from them. If there is a silver lining in all of this, it is that Derrick and Tom (the sub contractors they hired for our job) did an excellent job, were very professional, and always went the extra mile for us.

Unfortunately, I am not in the position to review the quality of their work. As of this evening, we have had our THIRD appointment scheduled with them for someone to come inspect our basement and give a design and quote for complete finishing. The first appointment was a few years back, we had a scheduled appointment and my husband and I specifically came home from work by the pre-​scheduled time and waited, and waited, and waited. No call, no show. I called the next day, they apologized and said they were over-​booked and couldn’t make it out. Me, being the optimist that I am, decided to reschedule. Well, the same thing happened again. This time I called the same day as rescheduled, approx an hour after the appointed time, the customer service person on the phone said that she was sorry, but the driver/​basement specialist had something come up and he couldn’t make it? Are you serious??? Not even a phone call to let me know that I was wasting my time waiting around? So needless to say, we cooled it with the basement guys for a couple of years. Saw them again at the home and garden show, and foolishly decided to register for a free design session/​waterproofing inspection. (I know, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me…) I shouldn’t really be surprised that they didn’t show up as scheduled. Appt time was at 6pm, I called by 6:20, rep said she would call back after talking to the driver. Rep called back at 6:40, said driver was running behind, would be there in half an hour if we were still interested. Um no. I have better things to do at this point. He should have called us himself when he knew he was going to be late, that’s common courtesy and good customer service. Needless to say, we will NEVER be doing business with the Basement Guys. If they can’t even bother themselves to make it to an appointment after the third try, I have no confidence in them, nor would I trust them with a $ 20 – 40,000 basement refinishing project.