Update (12/14/2001)! Here is the email I received.

Subject: Cease and Desist Order
   Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 10:51:04 -0600
   From: "Vulcan Basement Waterproofing" 
     To: 




The following E-Mail has been sent by a duly authorized agent of Vulcan Basement Waterproofing.

 

You have 24 hours to "Cease and Desist" all slanderous, unsubstantiated and unlitigated accusations
made on your Website identified as WWW.Geekster.com/vulcan.html. The sponsoring E-Mail author whose
address is Sprior@geekster.com will be named as the primary plaintiff. Any co-plaintiffs will be
determined through the discovery process and will be held equally accountable. At the conclusion
of 24 hours, if your website is not removed, Vulcan Basement Waterproofing will commence the 1st
phase of litigation on both a State and Federal level. Vulcan Basement Waterproofing will seek
monetary damages and will pursue whatever multiples of these damages that are allowed under
State and Federal Punitive Damage interpretation. This E-Mail has been date and time stamped
for evidence of proper notification.

 

Sincerely,

 

Vulcan Basement Waterproofing, Inc.

My response

There are no slanderous or unsubstantiated statements on www.geekster.com/vulcan.html at
all - everything said actually happened to me personally and I was very careful
to stick strictly to the facts.  In fact I have received numerous emails from other folks
who have had problems with you and I have resisted the temptation to post them to my site
strictly because I could not personally verify their authenticity.  In my replies to
those emails I have been very careful to not make any additional statements beyond what is
published on my website.  If you have SPECIFIC statements on my site that you do not feel to
be absolutely the truth, then please let me know what
they are and I will make sure that any incorrect statements are removed.  I can
see no reason why anything that happened to me personally and is not slanderous would
be cause for your legal action.

Ironically this whole thing could have been avoided if your staff had been
professional in dealing with me in the first place.  In fact I called the Vulcan Basement
Waterproofing office and did speak to the supervisor briefly just to let him know that I was
posting this factual account of my experiences, but he was not willing to address or fix the
situation in any way and didn't even want to be told the address of the site.  AT that
time if he had showed ANY different attitude, I would have removed the material.

Have a nice day
Steve Prior

First the Facts:

• In the fall of 1999 during hurricane Floyd I had a problem with basement water and heard an ad for Vulcan Basement Waterproofing so I called and arranged for an appointment for a guy to come out and give me an estimate. I did not sign up right then and he left me with a plan and a price.
• After I hadn't signed up with them, I received at least one "sign up now or face a price increase" note. I took no action.
• I eventually got a note saying that they had purchased some new equipment and were looking for some "filler" jobs and could offer a better price and to call if I was interested - I called.
• I asked what the new price would be, and was told that I would have to make another appointment for someone to come out and look the place over.
• I asked why a guy had to come back out to my place since they already knew the situation, and was told that it would be a different person so I'd get a second opinion. That sounded like it would be a good thing.


• In Spring 2000 on the date of my appointment, half way through the time that the guy was supposed to arrive, I got a call from the home office.
• He told me that they needed to reschedule because the rep was sick - that certainly happens and I don't fault them for that of course.
• I told him I was aggravated that it was already well into the time range the guy was supposed to arrive, and the phone rep told me that he had tried to call last night and that I wasn't there. I asked him why he didn't leave a message on my answering machine, and he had no answer.
• I asked who the representative was who was going to come out, and it was the same guy who had been here the first time. I pointed out that the whole reason they gave me for a return visit that it would be a different person with a second opinion.
• He said that they couldn't just give out the new price on the phone, and that having a return visit was how "I would qualify for the lower price." I pointed out that I'm not qualifying for their lower price, they're qualifying for MY business!
• The phone rep asked me if I was interested in the lower price or not, and I asked if he was interested in my business or not. He said that's the way they do their business.
• I asked to speak with a supervisor (hoping that this guy just wasn't representing his company well), and after a minute or two on hold he came back on and told me that the supervisor was busy. I told him that I'd wait for the supervisor and was told that the supervisor wouldn't talk with me.
• I was flabbergasted and speechless at this point and the rep just said that if I change my mind to give them a call back and the phone rep hung up on me.

I was very upset with this experience and immediatly sat down and documented the experience on my web site. After doing so, I called Vulcan basement Waterproofing back and asked to speak with a supervisor. This time I was actually connected with him. I explained what had happened and how unprofessional the phone representative had been and that I had documented this experience on my web site. I offered to give him the address so he could review it for errors or make some kind of comment, but he refused to even let me tell him the address. He made it clear that he was totally unconcerned for my experience with Vulcan Basement Waterproofing and just expected me to go away with this experience.

Now some conclusions which would apply to any contractor:

• First lesson of dealing with contractors is that THEY'RE not doing YOU a favor by dealing with you, they're competing for your business!
• When dealing with a home contractor, high pressure sales techniques should be treated as a warning.
• Before you allow any contrator to enter your basement with a jackhammer, you should make sure you are comfortable in dealing with them.
• Pressure techniques such as "sign now or else the price goes up soon" is not a good sign.
• There is NO excuse for not leaving a message on an answering machine when cancelling an appointment - sure they should try to call you back anyway and make sure you got it, but once they've already made the call, why not leave the information???
• Requiring that a rep come back to subject you to a second visit and probable high pressure sales pitch just so "you qualify" for a better price is just game playing.
• A supervisor not being willing to talk to you is another REALLY bad sign!
• A phone rep hanging up on you is probably doing you a favor and is a really stupid business move.

From my pre-sales experience with Vulcan Basement Waterproofing, I chose not to have any work performed by them.