| I was contacted today by a young woman who told me she had plenty of house painting work for me. I was very excited at the prospect, until I found out who I was dealing with. The lady I spoke with told me she was from "HomeAdvisor", a company that I had never heard of. Only when I returned home and done a bit of research did I find out that this is actually a company named Servicemagic, a construction and painting lead generation website. As it happens, they have so many negative reviews that they are trying to change their name to hide from their former customer's wrath. This is not the first time they have contacted me. They attempted to sell me before under the old name. I wanted nothing to do with them once I found out what their customers had to say, and if you want my opinion, I would stay away from them. Follow the RSS Feed to be the first to read my future post. | |
|
24 Comments
Yes I too have heard this pitch several times. "We are looking for a stair company to do work for us in your area...." They got me the first time when I called back and tried to sell me a lead service. I did use SM in the early days of the biz for 8 months but it never paid out. 1/8/2013 05:03:56 am
Thank you for your comment, Doc. From what I have gathered, this company is not good for business.
Luisa Loubriel
1/8/2013 08:32:53 am
I have been avoiding this route, it is expensive, and fruitless. Yes, they claim to have leads, from there to actively getting the project there is a long way to go. Beware from a Billy.com it is the same thing. Not only you do not get jobs, but I understand they promise the other end customers low, very low prices from contractors. It is fruitless. You are better off using a service from the post office where you prepare your own flyer and they make sure goes into the zip codes you pay for to be delivered in each and every box. The use of social media and free Big white pages helps too. 1/11/2013 02:05:34 am
I hate to speak ill of any company but yeah this company is a complete waste of time and money. Our experience has never been a good one. Pushy sale people and terrible service. 1/15/2013 08:50:23 pm
They have been calling me for years, I guess some people just don't get the hint! I believe they go by several different names, not just SM. I did get one lead from them though, this lady called them, she was new in town and didn't know anyone, and they flat out told her they had no one in the area, but to go ahead and call pro-painters. . . 1/17/2013 03:03:53 am
Yes! Service Magic is the biggest scam in our business out there stay away. I used them 3 or 4 years ago. I paid for 3 quarters never got a single lead told them to cancel the service they kept charging my credit card anyway. I called to get the charges refunded they were rude and would not. I finally had to file a claim with my credit card company to get them reimbursed. They are a terrible company. 1/18/2013 11:13:48 pm
Yes, I'm currently involved in their scam, I'm paying for leads that are dead ends. I'll get an alert to my phone about a project and by the time I can finish up whatever I'm doing to follow up on the lead it's no longer a good lead. The customer's who use this service are also looking for a cheap contractor or an hourly worker/rate. I probably had 10 leads in November that I was charged 500+ dollars and I think I actually looked at one project, I prepared my bid/estimate and was told after the holidays the job was mine, well now I'm being told different and I thought I sold this project, well think again, it cost me like 70.00 for the lead (interior repaint 2500sf) and probably 50.00 in gas, a total of 2 hours of my time and it cost me money I didn't have during the slowest time of the year. The other 9 leads ranged from $30 to $70 and probably 7 of them already had hired someone or I never got any response from the customer. I called, emailed, etc. these leads, and I couldn't even get a polite thank you for checking into these customers projects, well to lose several hundred dollars upset me bad and I demanded a refund because I couldn't reach the customers after trying for weeks, I haven't received any kind of refund nor have I had any success trying to cancel. I used this service to help me fund commerical jobs and to keep my workers busy during the holidays. Since I have a heart and work in the field too, I decided to take on jobs under priced or at even cost just to avoid having to lay off good hard workers 2 weeks before Christmas but since I killed myself to make the jobs last I'm suffering big time now myself, and have gotten behind on all my bills, this has my paint accounts locked, (bill not paid) my insurance ready to cancel, and my personal family missing me since I'm working day and night to do as much of the labor myself to overcome this loss. Homeadvisor/service Magic has cost me probably $1k in the last two months and I'm having to get ill with them because they won't cancel my debt card or account with them. We work hard for our resources and I work extra hard for my crew, these guys I have on my crew our like family, they hustle for me, they work 60 hours a week for 40 hours pay because they know I'm trying my best to keep us working, but then I get knocked down by this scam because I was looking to stay busy by using this crap (SM/HA) STAY AWAY FROM THEM!!!!!!
Darren
1/28/2013 08:11:39 am
Glad to find this BEFORE I got involved. I stumbled across their promises, got a phone call asking for money, and a red flag went up. Thank you for this informative posting. You probably just saved me a lot of money and trouble. 2/7/2013 08:16:38 am
You are welcome, Darren. I am glad to have been of service. Thank you for your comment, and the rest of you as well. I appreciate your comments and opinions. 3/17/2013 08:07:25 pm
That's a good report, thanks to you to mention it here. 3/26/2013 01:08:25 pm
7/2/2013 12:37:53 am
Service magic turning around to become the home advisor is really an interesting thought and you have with ease briefed this issue with the support of much relevant facts. To get proper advice for planning and running a home is truly a favor for many, keep posting more in future also. 7/2/2013 01:01:19 am
Thank you all for your comments and opinions. I am glad that this article has had the impact of protecting hard working painting and remodeling contractors from being taken advantage of by a company like this one. Feel free to share this article to help protect other people that you know with this information. I will continue to write about subjects that matter to those of us in this industry, so feel free to bookmark this page or sign up for our rss feed. 7/24/2013 04:46:19 am
You would think after 20+ years in this industry that we would have seen it all. SM has really made a name for itself by taking advantage of contractors, so it only makes sense that they change there name. On top of that, lets bring in an up-and-coming HGTV star as a spokes person. Does anybody have any morals left!? 7/24/2013 05:09:25 am
guys....quickest method to generate your own leads is by using videos. On every job, make a quick one minute video of your customer bragging about the quality of your work, the good crew members, the cleaning up , etc. mention price last, if at all. Set up your youtube channel, naming it "bestpaintcontractor(your city)...upload your videos...and watch what happens. I do this if you dont want to do it . just provide me the videos. 10/7/2013 12:00:40 am
A fantastic blog with a lot of useful information about street painting. I would love to get updates from you. Keep blogging. All the best.
josh
1/22/2014 01:34:56 am
If you are looking for a handyman, ask your neighbours, friend, and family. Don't waist your time with online services like Home Advisor. They say its free but its costly to your nerves. And you are still taking a chance on these strangers in your home just as you would any other way. Most educated and experienced contractors and handymen will research and find out the truth about a site such as angie's list or homeadvisor before they fall for it. The ones that actually commit to it wish they had done the research first. So get several bids from Craigslist or references from reliable friends and family. Craigslist is free an simple. No fee, no personal info given up and there are good companies on cl that you can trust. Just need to take time and get several free bids. Simple as that. Go with your gut.
teresa
1/26/2014 10:25:35 am
Obviously some of you have no real direct experience in how lead generation works. As a business trying to gain new clients you may consider paying for direct leads. A lead is generated by the person showing interest or inquiring in some way. It is not generated by Home Advisor, they are just the vehicle. Home owners do fill out information online which makes it appear they truly need a service and now a lead was created for the contractor. The problem or frustration seems to come from the fact that the homeowner now doesn't want or wasn't prepare, or serious enough to be ready to deal with the calls to come from contractors ready to offer their service. So the homeowner then ignores any more calls or expresses frustration to the contractors about all the calls, says they're not interested and in turn the contractor ends up calling it a bogus lead.
Anne
1/28/2014 01:03:14 pm
Teresa, thank you for saying that. I've worked for a company similar to that one and people just don't understand how it works, therefore they don't get the advantage they would if they knew what they were doing. Most companies, particularly newer ones benefit tremendously, particularly if they take the time to reach out and find out how the process works so they can best choose the type of leads that suits them best. 3/2/2014 01:18:22 pm
Obviously you two are employed by one of these operations. They are nothing more than scams. The not only scam the consumer, they then also turn around and scam small businesses as well. I am truly surprised the government allows them to operate at all using the methods they use. Most of those who sign up for one of these so called "leads" (and I use that term sparingly) are duped into doing so by contests and promos, and then hounded relentlessly, having their personal information sold over and over by idiots like the two of you. Folks, beware of people like the ones making these comments.. 9/10/2014 08:30:11 pm
I've worked for a company similar to that one and people just don't understand how it works, therefore they don't get the advantage they would if they knew what they were doing. Most companies, particularly newer ones benefit tremendously, particularly if they take the time to reach out and find out how the process works Keep POsting....... 9/11/2014 12:59:57 am
Your comment is nothing more than spam. I'd delete it but I want people to see and know the type of bull crap that people in your industry have to say. The current lead generation system applied by most companies is a joke. Hassling and scamming people out of their information and then selling it to 3-4 different people is ridiculous to say the least. You guys aren't matching customers to service providers. You are burning the candle at both ends and I hope you pay the price for it.
Daniel
9/19/2014 03:31:37 am
The company Home Advisor, formally service magic, may be beneficial to use for some contractors or Handyman services starting out. What I found disturbing is if you have business listings online, HA can replace your phone number with there number. Essentially taking your leads and selling them back to you. If you do sign up for HA, read the fine print. If you have business listings online check them frequently to use make sure it is still listing your phone number. You should be about to change it back to your number. Changing the company name in mid-stream and taking over business listings is why I do not like Home Advisor. Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
Archives
September 2017
|
RSS Feed
