Overall, very disappointed in the overall experience with the Kelbie team. They were very unprofessional, unorganized, and eventually started harassing both myself and my pregnant wife in front of our 14 month old child. I have text threads and phone calls that convey legitimate harassment by the Kelby team who overall were unpleasant to work with. Details below.
Finishing the Project/Harassment
The Kelbie team said the project would take 1-2 days, when they slapped us with a change order they said 2-3 days, and days 4, 5, & 6 were dragged out because they would send one person to clean without notice. The Kelbie team came to pick the final things up without notice while I was not home, and immediately demanded payment despite me not being home to verify project completion or communicating to me a time to which we could mutually agree on the project completion. They then asked me to verify completion at 10 PM on a Saturday night and pay the final invoice immediately, and started harassing me. Sean was having a bit of a temper tantrum, would yell at me without letting me ask questions, and even went as far as saying "While you were out tonight I sent guys to your house to remove shingles so good luck if it rains tonight b/c your house is going to flood." The next morning I identified issues the Kelbie team agreed would require their attention, and they still demanded the final payment before continuing the services. Despite the contract saying the project needed to be completed and a warranty delivered, they demanded the final payment before continuing.
Recommendation for finishing a project. Check your downspouts and gutters. Ours were clogged with nails by their team!
Poor Finance Practices
While I appreciated the various options they provide to pay for the project, I was blown away at how Mike Kelbie mishandled client finances. When referring to payment by check, he was quick to send an unsolicited picture of another client's check as an example for me to replicate without any thought to the fact that he shared personally identifiable information of his clients confidential information including full name, spouse name, mailing address, banking number, and routing number. DO NOT GIVE THIS COMPANY YOUR CHECK. They may forward it to other clients.
Further, for the final payment Mike consistently sent me the wrong number. I finally had to detail out what was paid vs. what was owed, and he seemingly didn't know how to use his own invoicing software and accounting for payments made that do and do not incur a fee, and how that should impact both his top and bottom line.
Poor Communicators
There was no project management or owner that was introduced to me, so I never knew who the right point of contact was. For a project that was worth $18K for "2-3 days" (project all in took 6 days), I would expect there to be a single person in charge. The owner, Mike Kelbie, would send me texts repetitively with no context or description of the pictures, he sent his sons to my front door to try to explain things, meanwhile their business partner Sean (who was seemingly the most competent) was trying to provide me good customer service and details remotely. It was confusing and to this day I still don't know who was in charge.
There was zero communication in advance of the project about what to expect, how to prepare, etc. There team showed up a day earlier than initially agreed to, and they would not let us know when they were coming (often would say 7:00-7:30, but show up at 9:30-10:00 or even 12:30 one day). At the project conclusion they didn't even tell us when they would come so we could mutually agree it was done (it wasn't).
Misleading -
Perhaps I was naive to assume the bill would be as presented on face value. After taking off all the previous shingles, they were quick to point out problems that they "commonly see" on roofs of our age and sent us a change order that increased the total contract value by 200%+. The change order had no justification, details of time/materials, etc. and I had to repetitively ask for these things to better understand the scope of the problem.
When I suggested to the owner that more details at the time of the estimate of "common things we see when we take the shingles off on homes of your age" would have been appreciated in advance of the project, he reprimanded me saying "I shouldn't tell him how to run his business". Again, I was just trying to provide customer feedback on how being forthright would go a long way.
On a separate note, there were no details provided in advance of the project. I wish they would have given me a heads up to clear out the attic/crawl space and lay down tarps to avoid the debris from falling into items we have in storage. They did eventually clean it which I appreciated.
Scheduling -
After signing the contract and providing them with a deposit, I had to reach out on multiple occasions to get updates on timing. read more