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Buyer Beware, Scams on the Rise

Sedona AZ (June 14, 2010) – by Robert S. Wood, new Sedona Times Publishing and SedonaEye.com Columnist

I’ve been swindled twice in the recent months by exactly the same scam, and it’s getting more common every day. Consumer complaints are up nearly 600% since 2000, so you’re at greater risk of becoming a victim. Hearing my story might save you from being taken in—if you profit from my mistakes.

Most businesses still treat customers halfway fairly, but there’s recently been a significant overall drop in business ethics nationwide, with a corresponding increase in scams. Sadly, savvy customers nowadays needs to scrutinize agreements with more suspicion than blind trust to protect themselves from being swindled.

There are few more helpless feelings than having your sewer or septic system suddenly back up, abruptly cutting off your water and drains. Few homeowners can cope and must turn to the yellow pages, hoping for help and fair treatment. Unfortunately, the temptation to take advantage of this helplessness has been too great to resist for more than one Rooter company.

When our Village sewer backed up I consulted the yellow pages and called Mr. Rooter. It promptly came and cleared the blockage for a reasonable $220. But before we could recover from our anxiety we were warned that it would happen again unless we promptly acted to solve the problem.

An elaborate procedure was then frighteningly described. It began with deeply digging up half our garden to find several broken pipes spewing sewage, the cutting away and eradicating of invading roots, pipe replacement and elaborate replumbing, followed by the restoration of our garden by experts. It would take a crew of plumbers at least 2 full days and cost a staggering $2500.

We were scared into believing we had little choice if we didn’t want another sudden backup, maybe even a flood on our carpet. So we reluctantly signed an agreement to pay.

The following morning, a little bathtub-sized hole was dug by laborers. It revealed no sewage, no broken pipe, half a cup of what might have once been roots, with no disturbance of the garden. At 2 pm that same day we were presented with a bill for over $2,600! I protested that the job had only been a tiny fraction of what we’d been sold. The foreman shrugged and blandly agreed that it could have been much worse. They got lucky.  But we didn’t. I figured Mr. Rooter’s total costs had been under $200, so I offered to pay $1000 to cover profit, overhead, depreciation, etc.  After some haggling, the bill was cut to $2400 “to make me happy.”  I wasn’t.

I asked where the staggering $2500 price tag had come from. “From the book,” I was told. It turns out that the plumbing industry has diabolically broken down every kind of plumbing job minutely into tiny components and priced them as if each were a completely separate job, using worst case scenarios and building in plenty of overhead, expensive equipment, specialists, possible added problems and profit. The diabolical part is that when the costs of all these individual components are added together, a giant total is dishonestly produced which bears no relationship to what’s actually done on the job, because of the cunningly hidden duplication. It’s as if a builder charged by the nail and the inch, not his time.

Combined with great salesmanship, exaggeration of the threats, capitalizing on the numbing helplessness, anxiety and ignorance of a homeowner without water or drains, it’s an effective if unethical strategy for making a killing. I appealed my case to Mr. Rooter’s management, raising my settlement offer to $1,600 for this unproductive half day job, but my pleas were callously ignored. I had signed the contract; I had to pay or be sued. It was that simple. So I reluctantly paid.

My first encounter with this scam came only months earlier at the house of our daughter in Nevada. Her septic backed up and actually overflowed onto the floor for a dozen feet. From the yellow pages she chose Rooterman, because they did both plumbing and clean up.

Do they ever! But they wouldn’t lift a finger until we gave them the $1000 deductible on our insurance policy and signed a contract agreeing to pay everything that our insurance didn’t. That blank check was a terrible mistake that ended up costing us over $25,000.

Absentee owners are especially vulnerable to these scams. Excessive destruction during cleanup helps to magnify the bill. Our pregnant daughter, without water or drains for three days, was made to sign a blank invoice before her septic would be pumped, even though that wasn’t the problem.

Rooterman’s wrecking crew trashed 3 rooms, going well beyond the spill area, claiming that health dept regulations required removing the wall three feet above the floor. The next thing we knew, Rooterman had submitted a bill to our insurance co. for over $15,000 for cleanup and septic pumping, completely ignoring the cause of the sewage backup, much less solving it. My wife had to fly to Reno and pay another plumber almost $1000 to finish the job and fix the cause.

That’s where I learned about the “swindle book,” as I call it  The Rooterman foreman proudly told me it was called EXACTIMATE and was “accepted in the industry and by all insurance companies.” Unfortunately, our wily insurance company “discovered” a $5000 limitation to our coverage. When they refused to pay more, I naturally expected a huge bill reduction to reflect the mere 36 man hours of unskilled labor that had excessively trashed those 3 rooms. Instead, I received a threatening letter from Rooterman’s attorney to pay or be sued. Our attorney confirmed that the 2 agreements we had trustingly signed would stand up in court, and we would lose. There was nothing to do but pay.

And it cost us another $18,000 to restore those 3 unnecessarily trashed rooms. But fighting Rooterman, we were told, would have cost us much more.

How can you avoid being similarly swindled?

Firstly, don’t panic. Don’t call just one company and sign a promise to pay. Phone shop all the likely companies in the yellow pages. Ask your friends and neighbors for recommendations. Maybe you’ll get lucky and a trusted plumber will advise you or even do the job? Ask hard questions on the phone about service call costs, minimums, likely solutions and charges? Try to find someone who will work by the hour, not by “the job book.” Get three bids if you can, and read the fine print before you sign anything. It may even be worthwhile to pay for several service calls to avoid being fleeced.

And double check your homeowners insurance policy today to see exactly what it covers.

But to prevent this trauma ever happening to you, you merely need to pay attention to what you put down your drains. It turns out wastewater systems need some TLC.  They are easily abused but will last almost forever if treated gently.

To educate yourself, get Yavapai County’s comprehensive “Homeowners’ Manual, Septic Systems 101” from AZOWRA.org. It will professionally advise you on the proper care and feeding of your system—so you’ll never be forced to deal with a backup—or the predators who may be waiting in the weeds to fleece you.

Editor’s Note: Sedona Times columnist Robert S. Wood is a former TIME/LIFE Correspondent and the author of a dozen books. To learn more, see www.RobertWoodBooks.com. Leave a comment after this article to express your opinion.

 

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2 Comments

  1. Larry Luenser says:

    Dear Mr. Wood,

    We understand you are unhappy and would like to clarify. You were not callously ignored by management as you state in your article. Management spent close to three hours in the two phone calls with you trying to resolve and understand your issue. You were given the quote prior to any work being done. Following the day you were handed the quote you called our office and asked us to move forward with the repairs. As a matter of fact you requested we send the same technician that performed the earlier work. By your own admission you were pleased with the job performed and happy with the way the landscape was returned to near original condition. Your complaint was that it took less than the two days we quoted it would take. We sent four service technicians to work on your job so it would not take the typical two days. Normally we would have one or two technicians dispatched for that particular task. We charge by the job and not by the hour so it was at no extra cost to you. Because you were unhappy with your last contractor, we wanted to make this a better experience for you by finishing the job sooner than promised. Our service professionals hand dug a five foot by two foot, four and a half foot deep hole, made repairs to the damaged lines, Hydroscrubbed your mainline, and we gave you an unheard of 15-year warranty. You seemed pleased with our work when we left. Please call us to discuss this further. We would be glad to explain once again the “charge by the hour” versus the “Menu Pricing Guide” fee structure that we have in place.

  2. C. Morrison, VOC says:

    This article makes a good case for calling a civil or structural engineer. A small hourly fee may have saved everyone involved in this situation time and money.

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