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  • Report:  #1334094

Complaint Review: Build Zoom

Build Zoom BuildZoom Build Zoom falls short, hides behind long legal language...zoom away Internet

  • Reported By:
    Mach1 — Bloomfield Michigan USA
  • Submitted:
    Thu, October 20, 2016
  • Updated:
    Sat, December 10, 2016
*UPDATE Employee: BuildZoom Response *Author of original report: Nice "legally crafted" response *Author of original report: Hiding behind camouflage payment

Promises to connect you with legitimate contractors, help you thru the process, and review your bid/contract. They were great in the beginning, sent several contractors my way. But when I needed them most, to review my contract proposal from the contractor, they zoomed away breaking of contact. After contract was signed, they billed the contractor in full, threatening him. Who do you think really pays that 2.5%? It's past on to us. Arrogant to think otherwise. Now if they would have done the contract review, I'd at least say they fulfilled/rendered services in full. But they didn't and refuse to refund a "portion" of the bill. That's all I asked, a partial refund. My attorney has looked at them and pointed out that they ate a Delaware LLC, HQ'd in CA, and have a long list of legal indemnifcation on their Web site. He says this is common with companies who have integrity issues to shady companies. I have a case, but will invest a lot of time and effort. So, instead, I'm putting that time and effort into spreading the word about their less than honest business practices.

3 Updates & Rebuttals

Hiding behind camouflage payment

#4Author of original report

Sat, December 10, 2016

They sure are sticking with the 'FREE' to the homeowner ... the contractor pays postion.  The contractor passes all costs on to homeowners and then tacks on his profit.  Could be a percent of total cost, flat rate, ... whatever.  But costs are passed on.  BuildZoom fee is just another one.  Had they done everything they promised me on the phone when they courted me, I would gladly pay the 2.5% markup.  Still would.  But there is real value in reviewing contract proposals and ensuring it's in line with most home improvement contracts and has safeguards built-in.  It's as important if not more than having a licensed contractor (anyone can vette that out by calling their local municipality to find out how to verify).

John states he welcomes working with me.  But other than contacting me via these rebuttal's, they have no interest in 'working with me', resolving the matter, nor have they attempted to contact me.  I've stand by my statements (here, the BBB, Angie's List, etc) that they derserve some payment.  They did do some work in connecting me with contractors and for that I think they should be rewarded.  But once I narrowed it down, that is where they ceased work.  They didn't provide the complete job as their "concierge" promised.  Therefore, partial payment for partial services.  Unless your BuildZoom apparently.

BuildZoom web site, "Our project concierges hand select the contractors for each job, and guide each property owner through the remodeling process. People who hire through BuildZoom report extremely high rates of satisfaction."  ...they have not guided me through the remodeling process.  They left before ink made it to paper and have refused to engage to resolve issues and help me.  I have asked and they won't engage.  So extremely high?  Heck, I'm not even tepid on the satisfaction scale.

Report Attachments:

Nice "legally crafted" response

#4Author of original report

Wed, October 26, 2016

 John provided the same response (and I mean almost verbatim) as James Dunbar provided me. Quite illuminating. It's like they planned and rehearsed the reply for less than satisfied homeowners. Like I said, who actually pairs that cost? The homeowner. They can claim all they want that the contract is only with the contractor. And that it is a 'referral fee'. To do so after the fact, after they advertise and promise a host of services, is deceptive and dishonest. I'm told I have a contract that never should have been signed as written. Something they claim to be Subject matter experts on and we're to provide advisement on. Clearly they have no interest in fairness or business integrity. I asked them to give either me or the contractor a small portion of the fee back. I even went add low as 0.5%. It was meet with the same polite but "go pound sand" message John provided.

John

San Francisco,
California,
USA

BuildZoom Response

#4UPDATE Employee

Wed, October 26, 2016

We’d like to thank this homeowner for bringing these issues to our attention directly, as well as on this site, and for being completely respectful with our team throughout this conversation.

We welcome the opportunity to address these concerns.
 
BuildZoom is a marketplace that connects homeowners to contractors. We aim to match the best, local contractors to folks in need of home improvement.
 
We provide this service  to every homeowner on BuildZoom, for free.
 
When a contractor is hired based on our search, we charge that contractor a small referral fee of 2.5% of the project value. This is part of the contractor’s sales and marketing cost, and most of the time it is LOWER than any alternative method for obtaining projects.
 
This contractor and all of our contractors are aware that a) they need to provide competitive pricing to obtain a homeowner’s business AND b) that BuildZoom charges a referral fee when projects are won. This contractor successfully structured a competitive bid that did exactly that. He won the homeowner’s project and, in exchange, paid BuildZoom for a project he wouldn't have known about or won otherwise.  
 
If the homeowner believed that he could find a better, more competitively priced contractor elsewhere, he was always free to do so. If he believes that his own contractor search could have yielded a contractor who would have offered a lower price (by 2.5%), he was always welcome to perform that search and reach out to contractors on his own.
 
For the homeowner above, we successfully completed his contractor search, informed him about his matched contractors, and communicated the details of his project to those contractors. Again, these services were performed for the homeowner totally free of charge.
 
Again, BuildZoom has never charged this homeowner any money.  He is asking for a “partial refund” of a free service that was successfully completed.
 
That isn’t to say we pitched a perfect game here. Unfortunately, an error in our email system caused us to miss his emails to us. For those errors, my team apologized directly and personally to the homeowner. We love nothing more than responding to homeowner questions because it drives better outcomes for both sides of the marketplace and are very sorry that we dropped the ball in this way.
 
Had we gotten your requests, we would have welcomed the opportunity to perform our “Safe Hire” service for you - what you’re referring to as “contract review.”  However it is worth noting that this service is free, like everything else BuildZoom does for homeowners.
 
Finally, we are incorporated in Delaware and HQ’d in California, this is extremely common. In fact over 50% of publicly traded companies in the US and 60% of the Fortune 500 are incorporated in Delaware.
 
We are glad that you successfully found a contractor on our website and that his price to you was competitive enough to win your business, even with him knowing he’d have to pay our industry-accepted referral fee.
 
I hope the contractor we found for you completes the project to your satisfaction. In that event we ask that you leave him a positive review on BuildZoom so we can reward him with more opportunities for work in the future.
 
Best,
 
John Gardner

Head of Operations, BuildZoom

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