Complaint Review: IFS Innovative Facility Solutions LLC - Little Egg Harbor New Jersey

First of all, this is NOT about IFS (Innovative Facility Solutions) Inc. They are a different company located in Virginia or Washington, and I have no experience with them. This report is about IFS (Innovative Facility Solutions) LLC located in Little Egg Harbor NJ. I am not aware of any connection between those two companies.

On February 5th, I was contacted by Kelly at IFS to do some work at Radio Shack. Total, I completed three jobs for IFS/Radio shack. Once the first job was quoted and approved by IFS, the approval they sent states: "QUOTED JOBS: Are too be submitted based on the knowledge that if approved, it will be billed as a Time & Material agreement and billed accordingly." I emailed them (Tammy Thigpen at this point) back: "I can work on a time and materials basis if you would like, but this is different than a quote for completion basis, which is what I gave you. Which system do you want to use? It can't be both. John"

She did not respond to this. I emailed Tammy back: "I offered a quote for completion of the job. Meaning that when I'm done, the job will be done right, but the price is the price I quoted. It doesn't matter if it takes me ten minutes or ten hours, The agreed upon price is what I bill and expect payment for. This is not a time and materials quote, so time and materials doesn't apply. So I would need confirmation from you, that the agreed upon price will be paid, and that the "time and materials" verbage for this work order does not apply. Thanks. John

She didn't reply again. So on Feb 14th, I sent IFS this: "Regarding current and future work order agreements between Neighborhood Handyman LLC (NH) and Innovative Facility Solutions (IFS) specifically addressing the verbage on the work orders which state "QUOTED JOBS: Are too be submitted based on the knowledge that if approved, it will be billed as a Time & Material agreement and billed accordingly."  It is agreed by both parties that this verbage of the work order does not apply to any current or future work orders, unless an exception is agreed to in writing by both parties. Barring any workmenship issues or other reasonable issues as listed on the vendor agreement that might be a suitable cause for non-payment, IFS agrees to pay NH any quoted amount that is approved, in full, with disregard to the "time and materials" statement.

Later that day Tammy sent it back, signed by her, without comment. I should have known by then that these guys were scammers, but I did the jobs, without issue anyway. Also, twice during my communications with them, I got voicemail messages from "Jodi", and when I called right back both times, it was Kelly who had left the message identifying herself as Jodi. Maybe one name is a nickname or something, and I didn't question her, but that seemed pretty fishy.

Anyway, fast forward to April 22. The first two invoices were now late. Their stated terms are net 45, and the first two invoices were now at 60 and 62 days.  I called IFS and talked to Tammy. She told me that the first two invoices had been "rejected". She said that they we're waiting for me to re-invoice them at a lower amount than the approved amount we had agreed on, based on "time and materials".

Both these work orders (and the third one too) were completed on time, PERFECTLY, without any issue whatsoever, to the complete and utter satisfaction of Radio Shack, and billed exactly to the penny the amount agreed upon in writing on the IFS approvals.

I did clock in and out of all jobs as they requested. I did not keep track of the exact number of hours at each location. And I certainly did not over charge for the work I did.