ServiceMaster of Salem - Salem

PLEASE READ BEFORE DEALING WITH THESE PEOPLE. On 1/17 we called our insurance carrier to report water damage. We were told to contact Service Master to get the ball rolling, and we did. It took 3 days for anyone to show up and when they did, it wasn’t Service Master. It was a roofing company, who couldn’t identify a leak, but tarped my roof anyway (the water turned out to be a broken pipe). Three days after that, Service Master finally showed up. Santiago went through my house with a moisture meter and figured out what work needed to be done (no leak was detected). The original estimate was 5,000 up to 19,000 for dry out and mold mitigation. About a week later, Ben showed up to help us “nail down a better number” he said, as the estimate was a pretty wide range (still never detected the water leak). The “better number” turned into a $36,000 job and a huge increase in the scope of work. This included asbestos and lead testing which were to cost “a couple hundred dollars” according to Ben (see below actual cost). Unfortunately by this time, we had allowed them to put 2 dehumidifiers in our house for roughly a week, and remove some of the damaged insulation. Once we received the updated bid, we declined the job. We were told at that point the total for service was $3,700. We now received a bill for $6700 and they didn’t even do the job. They cant give us an accurate number to save their lives! The real kicker is we called Disaster Master and they showed up the same day, completed all necessary work, and the total was only 17,000! Takeaways: 1. Is Santiago incompetent or is Ben an overzealous salesman? I believe the issue lies with Ben. Unfortunately, Ben is the manager and Santiago is the employee. 2. Disaster Master used better equipment, and more people, and got it done faster for less. What’s your pricing model? 3. Had I paid these guys 36k to fix my house, I would have ended up that at least a couple times as the actual cause was never determined or addressed in their plan. 3700 breakdown per Tyler Cameron of Service Master Salem; “The cost so far is it should be close to $3623.50 for cost so far. That includes insulation removal $339.50, plastic $30, Asbestos testing $1,560, Lead testing $998.60, and the dehumidifiers $696. “