SERVPRO of Kent

This review relates to the ServPro branch located in Kent, and does not reflect upon the service of any other ServPro branch. Our complaint has many facets, including misrepresentation of insurance coverage, inflation of costs, poor communication and response time, and the threat of adverse action against us in response to our confrontation of their misrepresentation. In August 2011, we had a drain backup in the kitchen of one of our apartments due to an excess of food waste. The backup resulted in the contamination of the entire kitchen, and flooring in the kitchen, dining room and part of the living room. ServPro was called on behalf of our insurance company to remediate the water damage and reconstruct the apartment. They were also placed in the position of estimating the scope of work for the claim and advising us of what would be covered by the insurance company. During this process, Bill Shackelford and Elliott Carr both represented to us that the cost to move much of the tenant's personal belongings out of the way of the construction, to store those items at an offsite location while the work was being performed, and to replace the items once the construction was complete would be covered under our insurance policy. When we attempted to confirm this with the insurance company they referred us initially back to ServPro, who they said would be creating the scope of work for the claim. Based upon this information we allowed ServPro to perform the described services. They proceeded to charge our account $1,700 to move, store and replace furniture that occupied less than 300 square feet of the apartment, and damaged many of the items when they were replaced. We have vast experience in the real estate field, and have previously paid moving companies $1,700 to move and pack an entire house worth of personal items, hence the inflation of costs. ServPro then apparently had some kind of major computer crash, which resulting in a total lack of communication or response to our inquiries about the final bill and scope of work for a period of SIX MONTHS. Hence our complaint about poor communication and response time. When the claim was finally paid out, the cost for the removal, storage and replacement of the tenants items was rejected by our insurance company. This caused quite a problem for us, because we had already gone through the process of involving the tenant's insurance company but had not submitted this portion of the cost due to ServPro's assurance that it would be covered by our insurance company. We subsequently asked ServPro to re-issue the bill in our tenant's name so that it could be submitted to the tenant's insurance company for payment, and confronted them with the fact that their employees had assured us that this portion of the claim would be covered. Elliott Carr also told us that he would issue the bill in the tenant's name. Apparently Elliott left the company, and in response to our last request for the bill to be re-issued to the tenant's name, they threatened to send us to collections if we didn't pay within 14 days. We have excellent credit so were forced to pay this bill and are still attempting to work with the insurance companies to sort out the mess.