wrote in message
ups.com...
Dear readers,

I wanted to relate my poor experience with a particular landscape
construction company located in Alta Loma, CA (Lic# C775851) called
Clements Landscape Construction. Initially, the wife (Laura) gladly
picked up a copy of our plan so that her husband could do an estimate.

To keep the story somewhat short, the company never followed through
with an estimate, in spite of three phone conversations with promises
to schedule a follow-up appointment to go over the numbers.
Additionally, four voice messages were left to remind them of this when
days had passed with no response--not even a phone call.

So, weeks later, we finally left another voice message for the company
to either call back or mail our plan back to us. Of course, another
week passed and nothing happened. I made a final call today and was
able to speak to the wife in person--she was not very helpful and even
had the gall to say she "did not need to be told twice" about returning
the plan. Funny thing was, we had already left multiple messages and
had verbal promises to schedule a meeting for an estimate.

Anyways, she said she would come by later this evening to drop off the
plan. But it is already passed the stated time she promised. So
again, the company blew us off and kept our landscaping plan.

I am very displeased with this company and wanted to warn potential
customers to look elsewhere for landscaping construction work, because
you will probably have a hard time even getting an estimate!

I don't know whether it's because the real estate market is so hot
right now that these landscape construction folks are able to provide
such poor service and think they can get away with it.

If you've had a similar experience, I would also like to learn about
it. Am I alone in this?

Thanks for your time to read this post.

John

What you have experienced isn't unique to that company or to your region. I
have had several instances where I needed work done and haven't been able to
find anyone. Recently my mother decided to have a considerable amount of
cement work done - replace to porches, several sections of driveway, and
replace a sidewalk. I called six contractors from ads I found in the phone
book and newspaper. A couple had secretaries who took a message. A couple
had answering machines. A couple didn't answer. Of the four who took
messages, not a single contractor returned the call. I had a similar
experience after a small fire when I needed extensive painting and some
kitchen remodeling. I had the same sort of issue when I decided to replace
the furnace and AC. For that reason, I try to do everything that I can
myself. Even in cases where I did get some help, the workmanship was
average to poor. I find that trades people spend about half their time on
the cell phone these days - mostly talking to their spouse and kids or
chatting about where everyone is going for lunch that day.