The Roofing Industry and the home improvement field, like certain others involving consumer products and services has its share of con artists. Not many, but enough to make customer complaints fairly frequent.
The Better Business Bureau indicate that in spite of this relatively high amount of complaints, an large percent of them are settled without court actions.
The high percentage of home improvements complaints has led to the formation of a set of National Standards of Practice for the Home Improvement Industry. The standards are divided into three parts: advertising, selling the product or services, and taking care of the customer after the sale.
While investigating consumer complaints there are two notable conditions:
1. In many complaint cases the consumer arguments are not really factual and the businesses involved have acted legally and ethically;
2. The most common characteristic of the majority of the consumer complaints is a lack of communication that leads to a misunderstanding.
It is clear that most complaints arise from the procedures that home improvement businesses employ in obtaining the customer’s order, rather than from poor workmanship or use of inferior material.
Common Scams Used
According to citations by the Federal Trade Commission resulting from consumer complains on firms selling home improvement services, these are some of the types of misrepresentation:
• A sales gimmick that encourages you to sign a contract now
• A time limit for obtaining a special discount
• Price reduction offered for vague or light weight non-valid reasons
• Sales talk that is heavily anti-competitor in nature
• Loose use of verbal-guarantee type language
• Offers to finance cost through credit which involves the use of a non-recourse instrument.
The offer to give you a special deal because the contractor’s men are working on a couple other jobs in the neighborhood still arouses homeowner interest. Beware of the ‘convenience approach’ in which the contractor simply drops in on you, under no circumstances give any home improvement contractor, roofing contractor or specialist any money in advance or a deposit.
You can read more on the National Association of Remodeling Industry Standards of Practice at http://www.nari.org/about/standards/
