We used Brooks services for yard maintenance. The company pushes you to sign a contract that specifies a $250 termination fee, yet offers you no way out if they're not performing. They're unreliable, require continued follow-up to determine if the work's been done, and charge for "man hours" that seem to increase over time despite the actual amount of work. Additionally, they re-did invoices changing the amounts, insist on facilitating all payments as re-occurring credit card charges and are profoundly difficult if you don't, and their communication borders on harassment to the point that we had to file a police report.
If you're interested in the details I've provided them here. This company is a time soak just dealing with them, and I'm losing more time doing this review. I wish I'd been warned before I invited this company into my life and I'm trying to prevent someone else from making a similar mistake.
JT, the owner, seemed like a nice enough guy during the initial meeting. He said his rates fluctuated based on duration of commitment. I told him we were looking to lock in with a good service for the long-haul, including snow removal. So he quoted his rate based on that, we shook hands and agreed. He mentioned a contract would have to be signed and gave the option to put a credit card on file. I told him explicitly that we preferred not to have a credit card charged without our approval for each bill and would rather mail a check. He said that would be fine and started the next day.
Service continued, before he finally sent his contact a couple weeks later. When I read through it, I noticed he had a termination clause that said they'd charge $250, plus possibly prorate the previous services to a higher rate. I understand the reasoning but didn't like that there was no verbiage that gave me an out without being penalized if they didn't perform. At this point, they had been performing the service for 2 months and I suggested we just continue on as we were.
This is when the real problems began. Every time sending payment came up, I and my partner would receive a barrage of repetitive, inconsistent texts from JT. He kept pushing giving him a credit card number to keep on file. We reiterated each time, that we preferred check. He finally gave us a mailing address, the one posted on his website. After a week, he started bombarding my partner and I both with text after text, complaining that he didn't get the check. We mailed another immediately... asking him to keep the previous on file, if he got it, and post a credit to our account. We sent 3 checks, each of which was returned from the post office undeliverable.
During this time, JT was continually inundating us with rambling texts, harassing us about payment. We sent a photo of one of the mailing envelopes, asking him to confirm the address, which he did. Puzzling! JT blamed bad mail service and again, pushed us giving him a credit card number. When we again refused, he said we could pay electronically manually. Why he didn't say that in the fist place, I don't know! Payment was sent.
We thought Brooks Services would keep cutting our grass. Weeks would go by that it didn't get cut, so I'd call reminding them to please take care of it and to bill us. Then the texts began again, long, incoherent, and often aggressive separate texts to both my partner and I, once again trying to bully us into signing a contract. It was so perplexing as he'd tell us in one text, it was fine he'd just bill us, and then, hours later, he'd be back on getting us to sign a contract.
Then, twice he communicated, that he could no longer work with us and that he was done. The second time it happened, we hired a new lawn service and when they showed up to cut the grass, it had already been cut. I texted JT and he confirmed that yes he'd just cut our lawn, so, I had to reiterate, that he himself had said he wasn't going to service our yard anymore. I then clarified that we hired a new service and would no longer need him, and to send a final bill.
After that, both my partner and I received multiple, convoluted invoices. Some we'd already paid. The invoice numbers were identical, only the amounts had changed. I told JT that I had to review them. He filed a "Notice of Intent to Lean" on our property. The statement was under $200 so my partner and I just said to ourselves, none of this is worth it, let's just pay him what he wants and get him out of our lives.
The whole experience was dizzying, and then, it escalated to my partner having to block him on her phone, and me having to file a police report because the tone of the texts had gotten darker. I was trying to work out personally delivering a final check at this point. Our attorney, whom we had to call when JT filed the notice to lean, told us we needed to pay by check to protect ourselves legally. I was finally able to give JT a check and I hope that no one else ever has to go through something like this. read more
