Homeowner Beware

Supporting Evidence

I am a Seattle contractor who advertises on Service Magic (SM). SM requires contractors to submit proof of insurance and to provide refferences before SM will give a contractor any recommendations...or so they tell their homeowners.

However, I would be worried if I was a homeowner using SM, that the contractors that they recommended me do indeed have such qualifications and here is why:

My business insurance expires every year and must be renewed. My insurance company sends notic to everyone listed on the policy that my insurance is about to expire so that they know to request a copy of my new policy.

Accordingly, when my insurance policy was up for renew this year I got a call from a SM representative who asked me for my new policy. My account was apparently on hold (I was not getting leads) as it should have been. I told him that I would get a new policy to him and hung up.

After reviewing my returns on SM I decided that I was not going to continue with their service so I never sent my renewed policy to them. My account was on hold, my policy was expired and I was on a pay per lead basis so I assumed that not turning my new policy into them would keep my account in a "suspended" state indeffinately.

Apparently this was not the case. They began sending me leads again without knowing if I was insured or not. When I found this out I went online and put my account on hold and paid the $300 some bucks for the leads that I got but never used.

Three months after my insurance expired I found out that I had again received leads from customers even though they did not have a copy of my insurance.

The only way that I can rationalize this is that SM really wants to sell their leads and will do so even if it means recommending non-insured contractors. SM tells their homeowners that they do their homework on the contractors that they hire but after my experience I have some serious doubts.

I am fully convinced that if I had not called their customer service department that I would have received leads for the remainder of the year. Although I am insured, I can only wonder if there are uninsured fly by night contractors who are being recommended for major home repair projects by a company who is suppost to protect against such haphazard events.

This notice is given as a public service.

 

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