I seldom write reviews because they are subject to interpretation from one point of view, but I…read morecould not disregard the terrible experience I had with this company. The owner came to my property a few months back to look at the job site, look at the terrain, and check how dense the trees were. We discussed what work I needed. The owner walked through the property, he saw firsthand that the terrain was sandy loam and loose terrain. He confidently stated he could get the job done. I showed him where I needed the trees piled in the rear of the property for burning, for safety reasons. We talked for a while, and he discussed all the projects he's worked on, overall I was impressed, and liked the fact that his company Cowboy Clearing had positive reviews and a good business rating.
So we agree to start with two days of clearing and go from there. We received an estimate for two days of work to clear, clean, level grade, and pile up debris. I signed the invoice; we accepted the terms that required 1/2 of the price at the time the machines were onsite on day one. Over a month went by we had several scheduling delays part due to weather other parts due to his schedule being full. We had given up. When Clayton the owner reach back out to me at the beginning of this month, to see if we still had an interest, I mentioned that we still needed the work performed, but had received bids lower for the same scope of work. I asked could he either meet that lower pricing or provide a commitment of how many acres his company could get cleared in 2 full days. He assured me, via text that his company and the dozer he would bring out could easily clear four plus acres.
On day one, the worker ran into problems immediately, the terrain was moist, and it was raining periodically, and he continued to run the dozer and got stuck in the mud. I went to inspect the job site that evening less than a half an acre had been cleared there were huge dozer ruts everywhere, and trees ripped out that were supposed to stay, large roots all over.
The next morning I went, the worker had informed me he had gotten stuck and that he tried another way to get to the rear of the property but was unable to because the ground was wet. He stated he still owed us some working hours because of the time stuck in the mud and would try to see how much he could get done. By the end of the day, I received a call from the owner asking if I wanted to add another day because his employee was finishing up.
I was excited thinking that I would come out to see 4 acres cleared, clean, and graded. Instead barely over 1 acre had been removed, still, huge dozer ruts everywhere and trees ripped out that were supposed to stay, large roots all over sprouting from the ground. So I ask Clayton to meet me on site, and we agreed to meet him the next morning to discuss a resolution.
When we arrived the following morning, Clayton seemed annoyed to be there, was immediately on the defensive. I said this is not 4 acres. I stated to him that he had assured me twice via text messages that he could clear, clean, and level grade for the price.
He insisted, that I was to blame because I had told his employee to set up the burn pile in the back and that our sandy terrain was too difficult- that I had agreed to 16 hours of work, and that he could give me five free hours, but that all. If I wanted 4 acres cleared, I had to either agree for him to run his dozer full-blown and destroy my property or pay him for extra days. He stated that the scope of the work was more details and that he would not invest more time, because he had already lost money bring his machine out unless we paid more money. I could not believe it, I was so angry but mostly disappointed that he cared very little about his commitment to us but instead kept stating over and over that he was a professional and raising his voice that I wasn't listening to him.
Ultimately, he became angry during our discussion when I used an analogy to help him understand our point of view as a customer; he instructed his worker to pack up the machine and told me to "eat the $1000" still unpaid. He kept bringing up his cost to run the project, instead of putting himself in our shoes. His attitude and inability to find a compromise proved that he is not experienced in business or running one. So BEWARE if you are considering dealing with this gentleman and his company, he is unprofessional when dealing with customer situation or stress. Now we are left with a massive mess of debris everywhere, roots up, giant dozer ruts throughout our property and a huge burn pile that we can't burn because it is too close to other trees.
