I worked with Samuel Harris, a realtor with Compass in Seattle, WA, who helped me sell a property and buy one. He strongly promoted a contractor who he described as a long-standing relationship and said they received 100% of their work through him. He mentioned the contractor had renovated his properties and his dad's very cheaply, and that he stayed with them overseas. I hired the contractor, which became a very negative experience--the work was incomplete, receipts were discarded, and my problem was never resolved. I later needed the receipts for warranty purposes, but they were not provided. He said the contractor would listen to him, but in the end, the realtor abandoned me and left me to deal with the contractor directly, which fell on deaf ears.
The contractor is not listed on the WA L&I website, and when I asked about this, the realtor and the contractor both said that the contractor had insurance. When I tried to escalate, the WA managing director for Compass would not even speak with me and delegated the matter to a staff member who sided with the realtor and made me feel like I was the problem. I also contacted the head office, but there is only a voicemail, and they respond at their discretion, so I never heard back. When I asked other realtor friends about this situation, the reply I got was, quotation: "Compass. What did you expect?" read more
