Do yourself a huge favor, DO NOT deal with this company. Thank God I followed my instincts and went with a different company. However, this is what happened while I was dealing with them, and I want people to be aware of these scammers. I contacted a couple of tree removal companies via Home Advisors. One of them was Roberts Tree Service. The entire communication with the person from this company was via text messages (I regretted that later, because the guy who I dealt with barely spoke English and misunderstood everything - I learned that the hard way). I don't know the guy's name, but I think it was the owner of the company. So I asked if they could come, assess the tree that I wanted to remove and provide me with a quote. The guy came while I was at work. He texted me and said that he would charge $2,300 to remove the tree. I asked him if he could do the job for $1,800, and that I will be paying with a credit card. His counter offer was $2,100. I asked him if his company has insurance, he said yes. Then I told him that if he could get down to $1,800 then he would have the job. He replied with a counter offer of $2,000. And by the way he kept saying "cahs" every time he would try to bargain. The fact that he wanted cash only alerted me right away. Then he said he was doing a job nearby and wanted to come and do the job at my property. I said "Not yet. I am getting quotes from other companies". Then he said that if he comes today he'll do the job for $1,800. I was surprised that he wanted to come to do the job without obtaining a permit from the town first, so I asked him about that. I also reiterated that IF I hired his company, I would pay with my credit card and not cash. He then started texting me something about "the permission" and sent me a form to file for the permit. It was very hard to understand what he was saying, but I understood that he wanted me to fill it out. I just texted him that I have to get back to him on that because I was expecting quotes from other companies I had contacted. He replied with "yes to schedule the work". That's how it ended that day. The next day at 5:34 pm he texted again with "sorry he could get the permission". I was confused by what he was saying. The same day in the morning I hired another company that provided me with a better quote that I accepted. So when the guy from Roberts Tree Service contacted me with that confusing text, I told him that I hired another contractor and thanked him for providing the quote. I thought that would be the end of my interaction with this company until I received another text from him saying that I have to pay $200 for his time and the permit that he says he filed. I was in total shock! I told him that I didn't sign a contract with him and certainly didn't ask him to file for the permit, and that providing quotes is a free service (at least, he didn't inform me otherwise). Plus I clearly told him that I was waiting for other quotes to come in. He then sent me a couple of Gibberish texts that basically were unreadable. What I was able to understand is that, according to him, I was wasting his time and I needed to pay for it. Then he threatened me by saying "I WILL MAKE YOU PAY". I was appalled to say the least. I decided to call and speak with him. I just wanted to clear up the situation, but couldn't even say a word because the guy was screaming at me. Didn't understand a word he was saying, no sentences, just random insults. My advice - STAY AWAY! read more