Honey Do and More

Service Provider Response

This job was to remove an existing pre-hung door and frame and the section of wall it occupied. Next, create a new small wall in a different, perpendicular position and install the door and frame for a new entry to the room. This was not a simple project. It included shopping for $177.34 in materials, demolition, rough carpentry, moving of an electrical switch, sheet rock, taping, 3 coats of mud, dry, sand, and paint to finish. Our guy accomplished it in 20 hours over 2 days. We had told her to allow 2 days and she agreed to the schedule. As is our policy, upon leaving, our guy asked if she was satisfied with the job. She said she was happy, and paid the invoiced amount with a check. She then stopped payment before it cleared, now claiming we had given her a bid of $569.00. We state in our introduction email that our pay structure is hourly. We do many “honey do” lists that simply don’t lend themselves to a bid. The poor paint match? She provided the paint! And the color is so similar that differences were not evident until after drying. What she did is fraudulent and simply wrong, ultimately paying $772.34 less than the fair cost. But sometimes it is better to move on. It’s shameful that she is also allowed to trash us in a review that won’t go away.

Service Provider Response

I am Jerry Robb, the owner/founder of Honey Do and More. We try very hard to not only provide great and personable service, but also to do the right thing with both our customers and the subcontractors we use. Reviews are important as they represent the satisfaction of our customers. There Is nothing with which to argue here. This customer has every right to be disappointed and/or angry. From time to time we need to add new people to our subcontractor list. Finding those we can trust with our customers is a difficult process, and despite their claims of experience, there is ultimately only one way to know; assign a job to them. Neither of these subcontractors has received further work from us. As for pricing, since our jobs are frequently a list of smaller things, we’ve found the fairest, most transparent method is hourly. We attempt to estimate when asked, but make it clear that it is an estimate, and final labor cost won’t be more or less than the reasonable time it requires to complete the task. Bidding is sometimes not fair. A firm bid will necessarily be high, to cover the possibility of unforeseen problems. Should problems not be encountered, the customer pays for unperformed work. Conversely, should unanticipated problems occur, the contractor loses and is forced to try to make it up on the next job. On this job, the subcontractors directly invoiced the customer for their time spent, and after the fact, our only recourse was to reduce the charge. I didn’t try to negotiate this reduction; I simply told the customer to pay what they thought was right.