This is the real deal !
I
am a contractor that joined ServiceMagic back in 08.
It did not work out. They sent me out to calls 30 miles away that would
cost the customer less than the fee Service Magic charged.
I don’t know how many consumers know how it works but the contractor
that comes to see you at no charge to you and gives you advice and an estimate
is charged a hefty fee for your name and information.
The leads are sent automatically and it is almost impossible to hold or
turn them off for any length
of time. We severed ties in 2008. In 2009 a service representative
contacted me and said things were different and they had improved the way
they do business with the contractors. Just
give them another try. I did. I so
wish I had not. Things were not
different. It still was hard to reach anyone and the leads that they were
sending were not even in our trade. It was a constant battle to get the charges
removed. We parted ways again in Mar 2010. They have put advertising on dozens
of websites, Insider Pages, Super Yellow Pages, City Search according to them
and many more. They are displaying
my company like we are affiliated. They
display our company on
websites they use to attract customers
and the phone number and the
website listed is Service Magic and there is no contact with us.
When someone is interested
they automatically respond to those contacts in the advertisement and bypass us
altogether going to the intended Service Magic website and quickly referred to
another contractor.
The way I see it, they are stealing our potential customers and getting away with it on several levels. This apparently has been going on since 2008. That is 3 years. This only came to my attention last week, quite by accident, and I called the company. They “apologized” for not removing our profile page, 3 years ago. Freely admitting they knew what they were doing. I was told it would take 30-90 days to remove our name. I told them I thought that was unacceptable. I informed them I had contacted an attorney and that is where we left it. They may have happy customers and contractors but I am most definitely not one of them and if anyone has ever been affiliated with them, you need to check this out because you could be in the same position and not even know it. This may work fine for very large businesses with unlimited advertising budgets but we are very small and every dollar counts, especially now. I hope this helps just one customer or contractor not to make the mistake of joining forces with Service Magic unless the advertising budget is unlimited and the “no good” lead fees are inconsequential.