First Call Septic Services Inc. Damaged and then left holding the bag!! Vancouver Washington
I am a disabled (chronic pain) person still caring for my 21 year old special needs daughter, and raising my 3 year old developmental neice. First Call Septic Service Inc. came out to my place after I had been dealing with septic back ups in my home for two weeks, working with a plumber gave us only short temporary fixes. Also to add to our troubles, we had just endured a 3 day power outage.
I decided that it would then be best to call a septic service. I chose First Call from the directory called them and a man from the company came out. I showed him where the septic was located and thinking that he knew what he was doing, left him to do his work. He dug the hole over the septic tank and cleared the pipe. He got his payment then left. Just after that we found that our land line and DSL was not working. Due to the power outages, and neighborhood having had phone line difficulty, I assumed it was all the phone companies problem. I then called them and waited for an entire week before they could come out. Not having DSL was particularly painful because I have personal business to take care of and had no access. We live in the country.
So a week later they show, they dug the hole and found that the line had been completely severed, cut in half mind you severed by First Calls shovel. The phone line is next to the septic, not in the septic area. I have lived here over 25 years and had my septic serviced many times, and no one even came close to cutting the line. My son had dug it at one time and he didn't cut it either. This guy's dig was just too wide, he has un- necessarily dug a much larger hole over the septic. Largest I had seen. I called Ronnie Tamez the owner and told him what happened and he said oh that's the phone companies fault they aren't supposed to be so close to the tank. The phone company had left their dig open so that I could show First Call where it was so to see what they had done. He didn't even offer to come out to see it. I had also told him that we were without internet and home phone service for a week. All he had to say was, well did you have to pay for it? I said no, he said ok so it didn't cost you anything. I hadn't received the phone companies bill yet. I told him yes it did, it caused much stress because as I was left with the inability to take care of my business, both on the internet and my phone. I became very upset that he would cause this damage and ignore his accountability and responsibility to make things right with me the customer. The only thing he would repeat over and over, well it didn't cost you anything, then hung up on me. His bill was $188, the bill from phone company is $283. The charges from them states that a line location was not requested.
And I here I am, in the middle of two companies pointing the finger at one another while charging me $471. This is besides the $200 that the previous plumber had charged, totaling $671. I can not afford this! I hope you can help, and even if you can't I will have gotten my message out there with hopes that ppl will stay away from this particular septic service! I have included the owners information below.
Thank you for letting me vent, I hope you can help.
Carolyn
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Tom
Housatonic,Massachusetts,
USA
Tie measurements
#3General Comment
Tue, January 12, 2016
To find a lid on a septic tank is not easy if you don't have tie measurement. This should be provided by the homeowner as well as any information about wires buried near the tank phone,cable,satellite, power, or invisible fence dog wire. Without that information your digging blind.
First Call Septic Services
Battle Ground,Washington,
USA
Telephone Line on top of Septic System
#3REBUTTAL Owner of company
Mon, January 11, 2016
While we empthaize with Ms. Carolyn's current life situation, that has little to do with the services that have been provided for her and the property.
In 10 years of successfully doing business in 3 counties we have never encountered an experience like this. Ms. Carolyn called our emergency line the day after Thanksgiving complaining that toilets were unable to be flushed in her home. We sent a technician to the proprerty to diagnose the problem and resolve onsite.
Upon arriving onsite, she left the technician to complete the task of uncovering the lids to the septic tank, without telling anyone that there are telephone lines over the tanks (which only she knew). In the state of Washington, sprinkler, water, electrical and telecommunication lines are to be at least 10 feet from septic systems.
Ms. Carolyn is upset that we did not order locate services. It is not a standard of practice to order locate services. Ordering a locate can take anywhere from 48 hours or more, and during a holiday weekend, it would have taken days to have this service completed by a locating company. Additionally, telecommunication companies are aware of distances to be maintained when dropping lines.
The technician did not see any lines that were broken after unclogging the tank and recovering the lid and dirt. This tank has not been serviced in at least the last 12 years, according to reports from the County's website. It has not been meticulously maintained by the homeowner. The home is currently out of compliance for not having routine maintenance completed on the system.
It wasn't until over a week and a half later, when Ms. Carolyn called our business to complain of the issue of the severed line. She wouldn't let a word in edgewise and insisted we pay her for all the damages incurred; which, when asked, were $0. We take customer complaints very seriously and experienced a rash of cursing, swearing and yelling, that was unnecessary given the situation. We advised her that the telecommunications company, if running a new line, needed to move the line to be a minimum of 10 feet off the entire septic system, as from time to time, different components of the system will need to be unearthed.
Telecommunications companies are responsible to place their lines in a safe manner, 10+ feet away, and the homeowner should have advised us about her knowing there was a line there.
It's unfortunate that the plumber she used charged her for services he was unable to perform, that is outside of our scope of work or control. We did not charge her the additional $50 emergency fee and as we wanted to get her system back to an operational status.