GULLEY's Backhoe & Septic EXTORTION Services
--- I do NOT recommend them, for several reasons ---
After James Gulley was on our rental property for ~15 minutes, he gave his opinion on what might be wrong with our septic system, but said he COULD NOT FIX IT
... and yet STILL tried to bill us $250!
When I spoke to him about it on the phone, he lied to me: he had the nerve to say he was "on site for an hour and a half!" But I have proof he was there on site for less than 20 minutes --plus he DIDN'T/COULDN'T SOLVE THE ISSUE, he didn't even try to. His professional opinion was merely "hire a plumber."
I told him I WAS willing to pay him for his TIME, even though he did NOTHING (and I hired Stallings Septic Services to fix the very problem James Gulley claimed "wasn't a septic problem.") And even though my tenant reported how old, slow-moving, and unhelpful he was... I was still willing to pay him for his time IF his diagnosis was correct (tbd). However, I'm not willing to pay $250 for 15 minutes and zero attempt at servicing the problem (he arguably made it worse by insisting my tenant flush the toilet). So I told him I was happy to send a $50 check in the mail to him for his time, because I get it: I've been a contractor, too, and I know it's a lot to keep a business going and pay an apprentice, etc.
...But then he flat out LIED to me: he claimed he was "on site for an hour and a half" and to make matters worse he had his assistant try to convince me to pay them $575 to add something unnecessary to my septic system so that I "could roll this $250 diagnostic fee into that $575 service fee..." wtf? no. That does not fly w me. If he Services the ACTUAL issue at hand, I'd happily pay you $575... but he didn't even try.
In short, BEWARE: this company reeks of questionable UNTRUSTWORTHY tactics.
Maybe 30 years ago he was one of the only guys around to dig up your septic system... but he seems past due to retire. I'll make sure to ONLY hire Stallings Septic from here on out; we've used them before and I'm so grateful they came to our rescue this time after Gulley failed+extorted us.
The exact timeline: I initially called "Gulley's Backhoe Service" at 11:30am: no answer, so I left both a voicemail and a text explaining my emergency. His assistant called back at 12:47 to say "he's on his way if that works for you," I said "Great!" and updated my tenants immediately. James Gulley+apprentice arrived around 1pm, and were gone by 1:20 (according to my text thread, as my tenant was updating me real-time.) His assistant called me at 1:44 to nicely explain that James was unable to service anything but they were still charging me $250, unless I wanted to do an additional $575 service. I first gently asked for his hourly rate, and explained that I would be willing to pay him for his time but not $250 for his opinion of something he's unable/unwilling to fix. The assistant told me "hold on, this is a James' issue, not my issue..." and she initiated a three-way call with James. I again gently explained my position; and that's when he lied and said he had been on site for 1.5 hours.
But in THAT very moment, it had only been about 60 minutes from the time his assistant had initially called me to say HE WAS ON THE WAY, so he couldn't possibly have been on site for 90 minutes. So his lies+extortion are flat out unacceptable filthy business tactics (and gaslighting is a huge trigger for me), so when I called him out on lying to me his assistant told me that "He doesn't want to do business with you anymore."
Ha ha ha! That's hysterical: textbook classic gaslighting tactics (google "DARVO" if you don't know what I mean)... it literally made me laugh out loud.
To make matters worse, it wasn't until after all THIS that I found my old text thread with them (from an old number) because they replaced a coupling with a POS flexible/rubbery coupling instead of the proper hard one back in 2020, and it blew a hole in the rubber less in 2021, than a year later and needed to be replaced. I honestly can't remember if Gulley came threw and replaced his POS coupling when I made a stink about it (pun intended) ...or if I had to hire someone else to do so.
Either way, I definitely SHOULD NOT HAVE CALLED THIS GUY again; and hope these details save you from similar headaches during sh!tty times (awful pun also intended). read more
