Complaint Review: InstaDry Basement Systems

 Pictures of Unfinished Work

  I am the anonymous author and original poster of this report against InstaDry Basement Systems in Taylor, Michigan.  More than five years have passed--I know no other way to respond to the rebuttal than by dissecting it line by line.  I stated what happened, when it happened, and where.  I also included the physical address of the InstaDry franchise (in Taylor).

My purposes are manifold for waiting nearly three years after the fact to file a report on RipOffReport.com and responding to the inflammatory rebuttal from five years ago.  1) When a company does you wrong financially, socially, etc.: you may never really forget or recover.  2) The purported employee makes it seem as though I made no immediate effort to resolve the matter with the franchise.  I tried initially to have the respondent company fix what they damaged and halfway completed.  Then I contacted the Better Business Bureau and got nothing above stagnation from the contact identifying himself as "[?] Goerdt".

So when I posted on RipOffReport.com in '08 I had just discovered the website and felt it would be helpful to others if I made public what happened to us.  I took several snapshots of the workmanship but was discouraged from uploading the files due to probably a slow internet connection.  Any other consumer reading this does not need my name to understand what occurred.  The InstaDry franchise in Taylor should have digital or physical records of the work performed in Jackson circa October 2005.  BBB also had my name and contact information.  The internet allows for a certain level of honest anonymity.  Instead, the unnamed employee [of unknown title] dismisses my complaint as competition trying dishonestly to steal InstaDry sales.

  R1.  "Mike Goerdt" might have been the name at the bottom of the concise letter.  His letter was sent to me before I tried to use the regional BBB to help resolve the poor workmanship with either revisit & repair or reimbursement for our out-of-pocket expenses and time spent on the concrete landing repair and re-fastening the utilities.  Goerdt or "Geordt" simply stated per my memory that issuance of the bank check to them was implied approval of the workmanship.

 R2.  The unnamed employee claims that I used buzz wordsin the report to generate more views and search engine hits.  The text of the original post may contain terms regarded as buzz words then but be mindful that I know my way around a tool shop and my wife and I research the latest and greatest home improvements based on our needs and budget.

  R3.  "...computers show that we did no installations in Jackson in September or October 2005".  That statement confuses me more than the categorical denial of poor workmanship.  Whose computers do not show the work order?  InstaDry corporate office or the franchise in Taylor?  The author does not include which branch is represented.  How long are records kept?  We may never know.

 R4.  "InstaDry lifetime warranties mean that servicing our own installations are always covered in the initial cost".  This is another kicker I did not mention in the original post.  The work crew did not want to cut the irrigation trench all the way to the corner past the foot of the landing.  The foreman I spoke with wanted to turn early at a right angle to a side of the concrete landing.  My wife and I felt they should cut the full length of the wall base because that is where moisture entered.  The crewman warned that this would void all or part of the warranty... but warranty has nothing to do with half-done workmanship.

 R5.  Get a second opinion sounds like reasonable advice to me.  I did not name-drop any other company or contractor.  There were/are plenty of basement renovators to choose from between and around Jackson and Taylor, Michigan.  A good product sells itself through word of mouth.  I have told nearly every other homeowner about this half-donkeyed project whenever it feels appropriate. 

The InstaDry corporation and its franchises I am sure have done some wonderful installations for other customersand delivered excellent customer service.  I did not get that great service, however.  I wrote about what happened to us seven and a half years ago.  I can write about this event so long after the fact because I was reminded of the poor workmanship years after it was performed every time I entered the basement or paid on the home improvement loan.  Some homeowners can afford as much as $20,000 to upgrade their basement.  We paid about half that amount.  But at the time it was the single biggest home improvement investment I made.  So go ahead and rebut to this again as "slander".  Dismiss the report as contradictory, ill-timed nonsense.  I promise this complaint is the truth.    

InstaDry Basement Systems has many smaller competitor-companies in Michigan that have resorted to measures such as this in the past in order to stir up business. InstaDry spends more money on advertising than any other basement waterproofing company in Michigan, and the smaller companies often try to leech our business by slandering our reputation and suggesting that customers call others out after we give free estimates. This report is obviously such a case of slander for the following reasons:

1. A Rick or Mike Geordt (or ANY Geordt) has never worked for InstaDry.
2. The very title of the report includes dozens of industry keywords trying to link our name on the internet to this negativity so that when people search for us and our terms this report comes up in search engines.
3. Our computers show that we did no installations in Jackson in September or October 2005.
4. InstaDry's lifetime warranties mean that servicing our own installations are always covered in the same initial cost.
5. The slanderer, urging readers to "get a second opinion," doesn't even include his name. He's upset enough to post slander three years after the alleged $100 expense, but not upset enough to pursue the supposed issue with our company?

In conclusion, InstaDry Basement Systems is very proud of our work. You can find us at http://www.instadry.com/ and our phone number is 800.356.0820. If anyone has any actual issues with an installation we've performed, or just questions about basement waterproofing, foundation repair, crawl space finishing, or damp proofing, we encourage you to contact us.

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