I don't do a lot of reviews, but I felt this needed to be said, and publically. I run and live in a…read more40-home Mobile Home Park. I initially was swayed to purchase services from Bob's because my boss has been doing business with them for well over 15+years. Recently, the owner retired and his son now runs the business with the help of HIS son.
Kasey, Bob's son, was the one to fix the power box outside my house, and had done a little work for the park since i took over management 2 years ago. I felt comfortable having him come into my home and work on the power box in there as well. [My house is from the 70s and needed repairs, admittadly.] Once he fixed the box outside, the inside power box worked just fine. He mentioned that I may need to replace the inside as well, but never stated the urgency, cost, nor showed concern for the state of the box [inside.] Just mentioned, briefly, that it may need to be fixed or replaced due to the look of it. He did no diagnostics. [This all happened about a year and a half ago.]
Initially, things were fine. There was no issues. Kasey, the new owner, offered his services and told my family he would be a bit, but would come and do a bid so that we knew what we were dealing with cost wise. He looked at it. He took a vacation promptly after, for two weeks, with no warning. I waited a month for him to even respond, and it was only because I had emailed him asking him for an eta. We had other contractors held at bay while waiting for him... it also was the beginning of November, in a trailer, without heat. We have a 6 year old... so the urgency was definitely there.
I woke to a message from Kasey telling me that he has purchased a permit to do the work that following monday. [It was the weekend when he contacted me back.] He had not contacted me outside this email to tell me he would be there. He proceeded, in the email, to lecture me and blame his lack of communication on myself. He mentioned that he works in the cold all day long, doesn't have energy to give my family pity when I should have paid to have it fixed a year ago. [A year ago he was kind, and never urged me to fix the box.] This was the first time I have ever been spoken to like that from a contractor. Ever. Here I was freezing in my house, afraid my pipes would bust, cooking on a propane camp cooker, begging for him to let us know when he's be there, and he lectures and belittles me?!
Against my gut feeling of hiring another contractor to do the work, I stuck with him. after all, it has been nearly a month and a half trying to get Kasey to give us a structured time and place. He shows up on Tuesday to do the work, finishes in half the time quoted which was nice, and left.
I waited a week for inspection, and a week to get the invoice. I was sent the wrong invoice, it was corrected, payment was sent, partially via a credit card authorization form and part via USPS.
Today I get an email about how he can't take credit cards, and for that matter, doesn't know how. He proceeded to blame me for "forgetting" that he told me he wasn't set up for cards. In all of our correspondence, there was never any mention of this.
My lower rating of this company is based off my personal belief that customer service should matter. So should communication. I also believe that there are to many future forward people in the world to ignore something as small as accepting credit.
Throughout this experience, I have learned to do a little more shopping before you settle with a contractor. just because they're the. first to bite, doesn't mean they're the right fit. To me, this experience was enough to no longer purchase services from Bob's Electric
