Father & Son Construction Co

"Wow, what a shame that this member has mislead readers by her report. She originally contacted us on June 4,2011 and never bothered to call us back until The beginning of August. We initially offered the job at $2,00 with a $100 savings if she signed at the initial estimate, but she didn't sign and wanted the same price when she called back 2 months later. To be clear, we offer all potential clients an initial discounted price when gasoline is at $4 a gallon. This homeowner pleaded for us to do the job at the discounted price when she called back (again, 2 months later). We agreed to do so. Her claim is that we added $100 to the contract that she signed is unfounded. No one forced her to sign the contract. She also refused to sign a waiver to skip the 3 day rescission to have her job processed quicker as she was still getting other estimates. When we sent the Supervisor to her home to meet with her, she was not present. It was her daughter that told us that the existing skylights were leaking. That is when we questioned her previous roof work and found issues (again, before we started any work). Our roofer found a few issues with the roof on her home and skylights. The homeowner insisted that there was not a problem with her roof and got argumentative. That is when we offered a disclaimer as to her existing problems.; Experience has taught us better to proceed with a job that could have resulted totally different without citing her issues. Had the roof continued to leak, she would have blamed us for improperly installing the skylights even though we did our best to tell her to have her roofer return and fix some problems that were evident. In regards to the joke on the answering machine-that was a sales person's home phone number that was offered to her in case of any issue that may have arise beyond our normal business hours of 7 AM to 5 PM. We also offer our cell phone numbers for additional comfort with the company. Also, her claim of a different supervisor is completely unfounded. As she wrote this report, we had already agreed to let her out of the contract. We never charged her a dime (even thought she was beyond her 3 day rescission). Her claim that we are unprofessional thieves is SLANDER at BEST. I feel for any contractor that will work for this member only to experience a roof leak only for this person to claim "No one ever told me that there was a problem with my roof". She has been informed but claims to know better and is willing to place blame on anyone but her original roofer. Thank you for taking the time to read our response to this "claim"."

"This homeowner called us on July 6th and we saw him on the 8th. He was in a hurry because he was lining up multiple bids at once and would not sit down with our estimator. This person asked that we call him with a price. We did that on July 11th. He wanted 8 interior doors replaced, 1 pocket door, and 2 Bifold doors. The price that we quoted was $2,850. He wanted fieldstone added to the home and our price was $3,906. As far as the price for the bathroom work...The tearout, New tile on the floor, a new toilet, a medicine cabinet, drywall, and ceramic around the tub was $3,537. Hardly 7 times the price of his estimates. All of that work was going to be done by our company was LEAD SAFE in accordance with the RRP rules set forth by the EPA that we are bound by. Any contractor that cares to not only follow the new guidelines and protect the occupants of the home MUST adhere to the EPA's guidelines. With that said, his home was built in 1955 and he wanted the LOWEST price. I'd be willing to bet that he never bothered to shop comparitively...he wanted the cheapest person available. Had he said that from the initial call, we could have informed him that we probably were not the company for him. He wonders how we could survive for over 40 years....it isn't by being the cheapest, it is our goal to be the BEST. You can't be both. We don't send "Jack of all trades" to a customer's home....we send professionals that specialize in each of their professions. And we have licensed HVAC, Electricians, and plumbers. Our reputation for with the people that want the difference speaks for itself. Don't take my word for it, ask a Father & Son Construction customer about their experience. When shopping for the cheapest price, you open the door to be ripped off.....or you have issues after the construction that go unresolved. You never know how great (or bad) the work will be until it is all said and done. The News runs story after story about homeowners that shop like this member did.....and you have seen the end result."

"Thank you for your kind words regarding the experience that you recently had with our company. You were a pleasure to work with and we value you business. May your new Air Conditioners keep you cool in these hot summer months! We appreciate your patronage!"

"Responding to this 11 year old report is challenging at best. We shred all of our files after 8 years to protect our client's information. Given that this job was done 11 years ago, I had hoped that some of our personnel may shed light on it. The Supervisor of this project left in 2006 and the salesperson retired at the end of last year. We were able to find an old computer record of this job in our archives. At the time that this job took place, we had a backlog of remodeling projects so we decided to branch out and hire another Rough Carpentry crew. We interviewed them, checked their references, and looked at their workmanship. Everything seemed to check out. Even with all of the safeguards in place, they fell short of our expectations and we parted ways after this project. Unfortunately, this does little to repair any bad feelings that this member has for our company. I am interested in the "changes" that came about. We have always had a long standing policy that any changes in a project must be approved in writing by the homeowner and the company. The only exception would be a Building Code that necessitates a change to the project. Also, this project would have required a Blueprint which would have been signed at the time of the plan review (preconstruction). 11 years have gone by since we were at this project so there is little that could be done to rectify an injustice. Had we known about this in a timely manner, we could have done everything within reason to address the situation. We encourage feedback (positive or negative) so that we can continue to exceed a customer's expectations. Fortunately, we do receive a lot more positive than negative feedback, but we take it all to heart. Thank you for taking the time to read our response to this report."

"Angie’s List contacted Father & Son Construction so we could offer an opportunity for their members to receive a 3-D kitchen design for $50. We worked hand in hand with representatives at Angie’s List so no member would be mislead on what they would receive for the money. Furthermore, we went over this offer in our sale’s meeting in order to iron out any confusion that our representative’s may have with this offer. Mike (our sales rep.) met with this homeowner at the scheduled appointment time and went over her design to complete a new layout. I have all of Mike’s measurements as well as the design from the cabinet company on hand. We normally do not simply “drop off” plans and place a price on them, but our representative was having difficulty in meeting with this member to go over the details. According to our representative, he did try to contact this member to provide a window price for her…being that we offer several different types of replacement windows, we wanted to know if she wanted wood, vinyl, fiberglass, or a clad replacement window but he never heard back from her. After reviewing Mike’s measurements, the cabinet company did make an error on a cabinet dimension that affected the overall layout. Had we been able to meet with this member, we could have addressed it right then and there. We are still willing to provide a revised layout for her. Had this project moved forward, this mistake would have been noted and the cabinets would have been revised accordingly. When I read this report, I was disappointed that there is a member that has hard feelings with our company. I printed the report and shared it with our sales manager (Bob) so that we could make this right. Bob tried to contact this member on March 3,6, and 7th to offer either a reduced price on this job or a full refund of her $50 for the design (as well as a corrected version of the layout). We have left messages and have never heard back. I will stand by this offer so if she is reading this, she can contact us and we will act accordingly."

"Thank you very much for the kind words regarding our presentation. We would love to have a chance to earn your business and would very much welcome you to the Father & Son family where you will have peace of mind with any work that you'd choose to have performed by our company."

"After discussing this report with our staff, these are the facts behind this situation: In reading this report, one may think that this was "just a window" like I first thought. We repair windows and that is why I was surprised to see this report. Instead, this was a custom made glass atrium with curved glass. Our sales representative had met with this individual's wife...he was not there during the initial presentation. Darrin (our sales rep) had informed her that these units are almost impossible for anyone other than the manufacturer to service, but we would do our best to assist her. Darrin contacted the manufacturer that is located in Iowa and asked if they would give us some assistance in fixing this unit. They declined because of the "exclusivity" of their products. The manufacturer gave us the local dealer's name and phone number that is located in Taylor, Michigan. After contacting them, they refused to service a job this small. The last effort was to tell the homeowner that the last option would be to hire a window glazer to see if they could solve the problem. We went so far to give them the glazer's phone number that we use. This option was somewhat of a long shot, but we made certain to exhaust all of our available options to help these homeowners. Darrin did his best to stay in contact with our findings. According to Darrin, Joanie (sp) was aware and very appreciative of the efforts that were done to solve their problem. Perhaps this report was made in the frustration of the manufacturer or Manufacturer's representative's unwilling to service their own product. Makes you think twice about purchasing a Custom Built Sunroom!"

"THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR EXPERIENCE THAT YOU HAD WITH FATHER & SON CONSTRUCTION. I AM GLAD TO SEE THAT YOU WERE SATISFIED WITH THE WORK THAT WAS DONE TO YOUR HOME. I AM DISAPPOINTED THAT THE CLEANUP WAS LEFT TO BE DESIRED. I INTEND TO PRINT OUT YOUR REPORT, SHARE IT WITH THE SUPERVISOR OF YOUR PROJECT AS WELL AS THE CARPENTER AND THE ELECTRICIAN SO THAT WE CAN SERVE BOTH YOU AND FUTURE CUSTOMERS BETTER. AND AS ALWAYS, SHOULD ANY PROBLEM ARISE, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT US BECAUSE WITHOUT CUSTOMERS, WE ARE MERELY A COMPANY WITH A CATCHY JINGLE! THANK YOU AGAIN FOR THE BUSINESS AS WELL AS YOUR INPUT!"

"This report seems to be without merit. After reading this report, we went through 20 years of our records and found nothing that matched his name or his address. I phoned this member after Angie's List said that they had reconfirmed this member's report with the author. This member stated that he had some work done in the 1980's and when he saw how good our reports were, he wanted other members to know of his dealings with "Father & Son". I asked him if he was 100 percent certain that he dealt with "Father & Son Construction" as we have had A LOT of confusion with people thinking that when they are dealing with a company that has the "Father & Son" prefix in their name, that they are dealing with us. His words were "it was some Father & Son" company. He said "if you can prove that it was not your company, I will remove my report". On May 12, 2008, our Office administrator checked all of our records dating back to 1985 and there was no such record with his name or address. On May 13th, I called him and left a message because he PROMISED to remove this record. This member never returned my call. On May 19,2008 I finally got back in touch with him and his answer was the following "I checked with my City hall and they have a record of all the work that was done to my home". So on May 19, 2008, I went to his City Hall and spoke to Susan in the Building Department. I explained the situation with this homeowner and she checked with all the other employees to see if this member even bothered calling to check for themselves if they were right. No one in the Building Department received a call from this individual. She went through a list of people that did work on his home...none of which was our company. I thanked her for her time and called this member one last time to make the following offer which was "If they could show me ANY proof that OUR company did his job, we would fix it for free (even if it was done 20 or so years ago) and he could leave his report on Angie's List". I have never heard back from this person. Bottom line is that Metro Detroiters have seen Fox 2 News track down 2 people in the last 8 years claiming to be us. Be sure to do all of your research before signing ANY agreement for home repair or what have you."

"I AM SORRY TO SEE THIS REPORT. THE SALESPERSON THAT HAD THIS LEAD HAS BEEN TERMINATED. I WISH THAT THE HOMEOWNER WOULD HAVE CONTACTED US ABOUT THIS ISSUE BEFORE POSTING THE REPORT BECAUSE I WOULD HAVE GLADLY HAVE ASSIGNED SOMEONE ELSE FOR THEM TO WORK WITH. BOTTOM LINE IS THAT EVERYONE HAS A BAD DAY. THE SALES REP FOR THIS APPOINTMENT JUST HAD TOO MANY "BAD DAYS" AND THAT IS WHY THEY ARE NO LONGER ABLE TO SELL FOR OUR COMPANY. AGAIN, I AM SORRY TO READ THIS REPORT AND I WOULD STRONGLY ENCOURAGE ANYONE THAT WISHES TO LEAVE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK TO FIRST CONTACT THE COMPANY AND INFORM THEM OF A PROBLEM WITH A REPRESENTATIVE BEFORE POSTING ANYTHING NEGATIVE ABOUT A COMPANY."