Complaints

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• Initial Complaint

  Date:12/13/2022

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I contacted Water-A-Way Guttering on Nov 19, 2021 to get an estimate to have a gutter adjusted and leveled on our home. This particular gutter was not draining properly and was pooling water and debris. During the phone conversation, ****** ***** (owner) offered additional gutter cleaning & sealing services. I mentioned to her over the phone that I did not need those services as my gutters were clean, not leaking, and were well maintained. I re-stated that I only needed the 1 problematic gutter corrected which would obviously include the removal of any standing water and debris. She said she would include the sealing of all gutters as needed in the $350 estimate. I have a verified text message from ****** confirming the desired work to be done, the cost, and a photo of the gutter needing the work. The work was completed on Nov 29 by 2 employees. We have 2 witnesses that can verify this. In late Oct we noticed that we were seeing water leaks & wood rot from behind the corrected gutter. We hired a licensed roofing company to come and inspect the issues and we were made aware of the following problems: 1. The gutter had not been re-installed properly, and should have been installed behind the drip edge. It was installed to low on the facia which was causing water to get behind it. 2. The fasteners used to install the gutter were not screwed in properly. Screws were left un-addressed and loose. Thus potentially causing the gutter to sag. 3. Several open screw holes were found in the back wall of the gutter. These holes were created during the leveling process and should have been sealed with sealant. Upon becoming aware of the issues, I reached out to Water-A-Way on Dec 4th, 2022 to get the issues resolved. ****** ***** of Water-A-Way denied that her company did the work I originally requested despite photos, & text verification proving otherwise. She consistently makes excuses and presents falsified information in an attempt to side step the agreement that was made.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 01/31/2023

  I was first contacted by the home owner on November 19, 2021. She did not know what was really wrong with her gutters but she stated that it was leaking. 
  And she wanted to know what the cost would be to fix the leak? 
  I asked her what kind of gutter system she had was it a Hidden hanger system or a spike on gutter system? She stated that she did not know. I told her that a lot of things could be wrong. I could come by and take a look at it and give her a better idea. Then I went through all the things that could be wrong with it, including but not limited to clogged downspouts it may need to be resealed if you haven’t had that done in the last couple years, it may be the drippage just needs to be polled or it may need to be replaced or it may need to be re-leveled it could be a number of things I told her. 
  The customer wanted to know if there was anyway that I could give her a rough estimate. , she wanted to get it on the schedule and get someone hired,  If it was too much money she was going to continue to look elsewhere. I told her that I had a minimum charge of $350. I asked her if she knew how much gutter and downspouts she had. She said no, but that the house did not have very much gutter on it. I told her I could look it up on Google earth but I would need to know what kind of hanger system she had. she said they did not have the nails going through them. I was on the phone with her when she walked outside. I told her that, despite done gutters that we could not move those, that a standard hidden hanger system would be no problem to re-level but if it had a T~ strapped system, those are hard to adjust and make us more money
  Later  that evening, on the same day November 19, 2021, after looking her house up on Google earth. I sent her a reply by text, letting her know that ******* , my secretary at the time would be contacting her to schedule her appointment for a couple of weeks out and letting her know that we could clean it, reseal it  and re-level it as needed for $350.00. Please see attached picture. 
  Then I personally did not hear from her again until December 4, 2022.
  She told me that I had done some gutter work for her and that when I installed the new system back in November that it was not properly installed and that she had a professional roofing company come out and tell her everything that was wrong with the system. I told her that we would have to come and personally look at it, but if that was the case that she was warranted, and that we would, of course, take care of it immediately. I told her I didn’t have anything to write with him, but if she want it, she could either send me a text with her information and I will get back with her once I was in the office and figured out what was going on or I could just screenshot the call. She said no problem that she would send me a text.
  Please see attached photo. 
  We have went home early due to the weather on December 7 so I followed up with her on December 8. Please see attached pictures 
  I would like to address these pictures that have been sent over by the customer. She accusing me of putting holes in the system. However, there are holes in the system when we got there and I work for big companies. I can give you the number to at least three of them if you would like that, I subcontract for some for 13 years and they will tell you I have never use this type of hanger ********* ***** *** you can talk to *** ******* *******, you can talk to ******, and ******* and ***** *******. I also have an entire app dating back four years that has all of our pictures on it every house you’re more than welcome to it I can give you my login information if you would like.. 
  See in this picture, there are holes in the system. We did not install one hanger on the system. We had no reason to.
  This is what the gutter look like while I was there. So that drip edge picture was either done by somebody else or has done it on it own since we were there maybe high winds? Idk 
  If you look really close, you can tell in this picture that the drip edge was already starting to get like it is in her picture and that had nothing to do with us and we don’t even do drip edge. That’s something that we always refer over to the roofer because it’s part of the roofing system And we don’t wanna avoid any roof warranty 
  When you blow up the pictures that I sent her at the very end, you can see it was already damaged. This is usually caused by weight, rather  it is water, debris and ice when frozen. So I did not cause her gutter to be sagging. It was already sagging. She also stated that she didn’t need me to clean the gutters they were already clean. They just had someone out  a month before she called me. I don’t know who that company was but if they did truly clean these a month before look how dirty they are in the picture, you can tell that the gutter is not even draining and it’s not due to being level because it’s low with that end and there’s a Downspout, it’s clogged from debris in the downspout itself so the water cannot get out of the system. 
  The estimate that was done on November 26 I had she had to get the estimate approved by the customer because that is our proof of right of entry to the property especially where the homeowner told me she was not going to be home that day of install. this is how we keep track of all of our customers that’s how I know what work I did there you can’t see it there, can send you a copy of it electronically along with a copy of the invoice as well.
  that is what she paid me from. She has to electronically approve the estimate in order for us to enter the property or I will not allow anyone to go. She didn’t remember sending me her email address, but she had sent it with her very first contact information. Please see above, maybe she thought that because she was giving the secretary a hard time about giving out her email address I’m not sure but I would have printed that conversation out for my secretary so she would know how much to charge her and her address to put her in the system  I just make them have it in the system and approve before we go and do the work I can get proof from my invoicing company is not fraudulent why would I make a receipt? We are not disputing the work prize we’re disputing the work performance/ quality. 
  However, at this point, I would like for this customer to be happy I’m not really sure what she wants other than me to fix the job and I can try but I am not sure I can find that head that fits the screw. I would have to go out and measure it to see if it is a standard hex head, or if it’s a custom one I don’t know because we don’t carry these kind of bits on us, but I am willing to try, but to be honest this system is such a mess. I really don’t want to take any responsibility for it and I think I would be better off to try to offer her part of her money back , even though I really don’t feel like I owe her because we have a minimum charge in the problem is not the leveling. The problem is the system is full of debris some of them go into the ground. Anytime you have an underground drainage system you have to have a cover. She’s always going to have this problem and worse , she either put the cover on or she has a roofer to put on the drip edge. We can’t fix that for her because that’s not even a trade that we do but I am willing to do whatever you guys suggest. If you guys can come up with an agreement with the customer or if I can try to come up with one for her if I can try to explain it to her I don’t think she’s understanding. I’m really sorry to bother you with this unfortunate matter. If there’s anything else I can do please let me know. I am going to forward you both the invoice and the estimate that I sent over to her. Thank you ****** ***** I apologize if you call me today you’re gonna have to leave a message and I’ll get back to you when I get up because I’m just now going to lay down for a few hours cause I wanted to make sure you got this thank you again 
  
  Thank you, ****** ***** owner of Water A Way LLC

  Customer Answer

  Date: 02/08/2023

  [To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, you must give us a reason why you are rejecting the response. If no reason is received your complaint will be closed as Assumed Answered]
  Complaint: ********
  I am rejecting this response because: There is a substantial amount of false and irrelevant commentary from the business owners response. ****** ***** claimed in a text to me and by phone conversation that her company did not do the leveling repair on my gutter. She claimed that her company was only hired to "clean and seal" our gutters. That is FALSE. Photos she provided to me from her employees prove otherwise. (See additional images highlighting the visual changes in the gutter) ****** also makes the erroneous claim that I was unaware of what was needed for my project. I WAS VERY CLEAR about the scope of the work. (See attached bid from ****** ******* for $445 dated Nov. 16, 2021) ****** was made aware during our initial phone call that I had another bid and in response she stated that "she would give us a better deal". $350 to re-level the gutter. She also offered to clean and seal our other gutters. I did mentioned to her that I didn't think we needed that service because our other gutters had been previously cleaned. She stated that the cleaning & sealing was INCLUDED. I stated again to her that we only needed the 1 gutter adjusted, and water/debris removed if necessary. I also stated that if she wanted to do the other services ("since it was included") that would be fine. She did request for me to send her a photo of the gutter. The photo was sent via text so that she would be able to communicate the location of the gutter to her workers. Her employees damaged the drip edge on our roof, did not SEAL the leak holes, did not properly re-attach the screws brackets that hold the gutter to the facia thus creating a gap behind the gutter where water could migrate & cause wood rot. I have since hired another company to repair the damage created by her employees. I gave Water-A-Way the opportunity in Dec to fix the poor quality work when I contacted ******. Rather than take responsibility, she side stepped, made excuses, argued, and made false claims regarding the project. We want nothing to do with this company, and we hope other home owners will be warned by our experience. We would expect a full refund at this point, as the repairs needed to fix the poor work was substantially more that the initial cost.   Regards,
  ******** ****