Panhandle Cleaning & Restoration

Panhandle are consummate scam artists. They are dishonest, untrustworthy, greedy, deceitful, unethical, unprofessional, unscrupulous, and the most despicable ghouls I've ever personally dealt with. In February 2019 a windstorm damaged a small portion of my roof, tearing off shingles from an area no more than 6ft by 6ft. I immediately called my insurance agency, who recommended, given a $500 deductible, having someone perform an emergency board-up and provide an estimate for full repair before filing a claim--the idea being that if the area affected were small enough, repair work might not even meet the deductible. Not knowing who to turn to, I asked for a recommendation, and the agent I spoke with unfortunately recommended Panhandle to me. On 27 February I called Panhandle at 9.30am; shortly after 11am, two individuals arrived on behalf of Panhandle to install the tarpaulin, and within 20-30min the job was complete and they left. It was then TWO MONTHS LATER that I finally received a bill from Panhandle--not a free estimate for full repair as was promised to me when I first called, but only a bill for the board-up--for almost $1,500. Moreover, the bill provided no details whatsoever as to a breakdown of costs and charges, only "taxable" and "non-taxable." (If this already sounds like a transparent attempt to arbitrarily invent numbers to grab as much money as they can, you're absolutely right. Read on.) Of course I contacted my insurance agency again to file a claim. An insurance adjustor came to my property, and sent me an estimate: board-up, labor, removing old shingles, replacing with new shingles, total cost: $729. On the phone with Panhandle again. After sending their adjustor the insurance adjustor's estimate, they agreed to reduce their bill to $729... but insisted, despite obvious language to the contrary, that the insurance estimate was only for board-up. After 2 more months of going back and forth between my insurance company and Panhandle, including phone calls from Panhandle's corporate office in Wheeling and some yokel who hounds consumers about bills but apparently knows nothing about those bills, things came to a head and I spent an entire day on the phone back and forth once again between Panhandle and my insurance to try and come to a sensible agreement. During this horrible day I learned the following things: -Panhandle's breakdown, on their own computer, of the $729 that they "ever so graciously" had reduced the bill to, included $30 for the tarp, $193 for "emergency fee," and $580 for labor. Nevermind that the two individuals were at my property for a grand total of 30min at most, during the late morning and what are, by all accounts, normal business hours. -Panhandle refused to provide me with this detailed breakdown for my own records, stating that to give information like that out to consumers would hurt their business. (Gee, I wonder why?) -My insurance indicated that unfortunately, since the contact between Panhandle and I was a contract, there was nothing that they could actually do to help me - they could (and did) try to talk sense into Panhandle's adjustor, but at the end of the day they could (and did) bill me whatever they wanted. -In effect, I'm out more than $700 *just for a 30-minute board up and a $30 tarp,* and my roof still needs to be fully repaired. A repair which I will have to pay entirely out of pocket since the very reasonable estimate provided by my insurance company, and the payment exceeding my deductible which they provided to me, covers only the amount that Panhandle, that I was unlucky enough to be duped into contacting, has swindled from me. I hope it was worth it--I hope Panhandle is happy with the $729 they conned from me, because if they had treated me honestly, fairly, and reasonably, I may well have contacted them in the future for other jobs. As it is, they'll never get another cent from me, and I'm doing everything I can to ensure everyone knows just how awful a company they are. Panhandle Cleaning & Restoration will find every anti-consumer nook & cranny on the books to swindle you for as much as they can, and at the end of the day there won't be anything you can do about it. AVOID PANHANDLE AT ALL COSTS.

Once everything was approved by the insurance company, everything went well.

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