I had an abusive and downright scary experience with one of Pro Overhead Door's techs. It started out innocuously enough, after greeting the tech at the front door, he drove around to unload his tools in my garage in the alley. At which time, he asked that I move the car that was parked in the garage (the person who would be driving the car was still getting ready for work). I said fine, but I'd have to find a parking place on the city street. I also told him that he would have to do the same for his truck, as our neighbors get mad when workmen park in the alley. He started talking back to me, saying he had a "special license" to park in the alley (um, there's no such thing, but there's no need for him to argue with me). I reiterated politely, asking him to park on the street. (My neighbors are tapped out with construction vehicles, AT&T, and city vehicles blocking the alley lately. We try to be respectful.) We both set off in our respective vehicles to find street parking with the intention of him meeting back at the front of my house, so I could let him in and he could commence work on installing the opener.
Apparently, he found street parking faster than I did, because he was back at my house, repeatedly ding-donging the front bell. My friend/housemate, who was just getting out of the shower, answered on the intercom. Without identifying himself, he *demanded* that she let him in. She asked him who he was, and he brusquely said he was there to install the garage door opener. Then, again, he demanded that she let him in. She told him that she wasn't the person who he should talk to, she was a different person, and that her friend (me) would be back in a minute (not to mention, she wasn't in a state to answer the front door to a man she didn't know). Through the intercom, he started screaming at her, saying that she was wasting his time, let him in, it was raining out, he shouldn't have to stand outside in the rain, etc.; most of his ranting was incoherent, and continued after she just gave up trying to talk to him. Since when does a service provider demand to be let into a house to wait?
Soon thereafter, I arrived at my house after parking the car a block away. (It took me no more than 8 minutes to find street parking.) Then, he started in on me -- screaming and ranting for making him stand outside in the rain. I tried to reason with him, but he wouldn't calm down. At this point, I'm thinking two things: (1) I'm paying him, and that was no way for him to speak to a customer; and (2) as he was following me up the stairs to my front door, there's no way I'm letting a man who is ranting, raving and screaming at me into my home.
Figuring that by this time, the transaction was a bust, I told him that he wasn't doing the job, and to pick up his tools from my garage and leave. During the entire time he was doing that, he dropped multiple f-bombs, called me an effin' b*tch, yelling that he didn't give an eff about me, and after packing up, it looked like he was was planning to just stay in the middle of my garage yelling at me. I ordered him to leave or I was calling the police. I couldn't believe it had come to that.
I called his supervisor or the owner of the company (Simon?) and reported the incident. Of course, the tech downplayed everything, telling Simon that I made him wait outside for 40 minutes in the rain (not true). Instead of apologies, Simon (?) wanted to play a game of he said-she said, asking me if I had recorded him. (What?! ) I said if he didn't believe me, fine, but the reality is that he lost a customer. Even more than that, I stayed home from work to field this appointment. If I take time off of work, it's because I *want* to get the service I requested. If I have to ask a workman to leave, it is only because he is so abusive or untrustworthy that I don't want to do business with him. I expect a service provider to understand the basic rules of customer service, and not to think that it is ever acceptable for his tech to act the way he did to a customer in the absence of concrete evidence (i.e., a recording). That's poor customer service, and unfortunately disregards the time I wasted or how upsetting and abusive this episode was to me. read more