So I wrote an email to the carpet guy. It was a good email saying "I know you were sick, I gave you two months to respond by mail, perhaps email is a better method for you. I’d love to hear why I haven’t ever heard from you, by phone or by mail." I attached the old letter as a reminder, in case he had never received it, since I knew his office help was stunningly unhelpful.
I got an email back.
It said I was free to pay for the $750 polygraph to prove that his employee (who wouldn’t lie) was telling the truth about not burglarizing my home.
I sat on the couch for a while and thought about how freaking MAD I was. Then I called him. A woman answered the cell phone, but I bamboozled my way around her, "Who is this?" "Oh, this is Ruth, returning his phone call." "What call?" "His call. This is Ruth." "Ruth?" "Returning his phone call. This is Ruth." But every time I said Ruth, I kind of mumbled it, until she gave up in frustration and handed him the phone.
"Hi, Michael," I said very clearly. "This is Rachael."
You could almost hear the "oh, shit," in his pause.
We proceeded to argue for the next twenty minutes. And I hate arguing. He went on and on about how he believed his employee, and how I was just trying to get a free carpet cleaning, and how every time he had talked to me before this he had told me that — "YOU HAVE NEVER TALKED TO ME IN YOUR WHOLE LIFE BECAUSE YOU HAVE NEVER CALLED ME BACK!"
He insisted we’d had more than a few conversations in the past. He also accused me of being a scam artist, at which point, I do have to admit, I said, "You are an IDIOT." But I don’t think he heard me. Even if he did….
It didn’t end well. He never, ever saw my point that had he just been polite, the first time I called, I would have let it drop, months ago. But somehow, I feel better, just knowing that he’s an asshole. You know? The world is full of them, and I wasn’t being ignored anymore. Oh, he wasn’t ignoring me, boy howdy. I did threaten that I would publish his unlisted phone number on my site and have YOU all call him, but I think that would reach right over into meanness, and I’m trying to stay on this side of nice. Trying.
But. In the post below, I give my review of his service and company. I’ve researched libel and slander, and he can’t sue me for the things I wrote. (Aside – I was interested to read here that I can freely call him an asshole, because name-calling cannot be proved true or false. Heh.)
And I can’t wait to be the first hit when google-searched for info on carpet cleaning in this area. And I’m happy to share my review.
If’n you want help bumping the site up on Google by having tons of people hit the site, you just let us know.
I still think you’re entitled to some legal payback. Hey! Why not call whatever Eyewitness News Scam Report team you have in your area? (OK, that’s only a half serious suggestion)
Good for you for calling him on his shit. I’m still steaming about a problem with the staff at my apartment’s mgt. company from last year. Had I pursued it, I’d be over it now.
Some people are not cut out for customer service, eh? I worked for a woman like that once. At one point she was taken to court by several customers. Needless to say she lost. The kicker is…to this day, she blames the customers for being unreasonable and trying to “defame” her. *ssholes are going to be *ssholes.
You have done a good thing by calling him out. Don’t let him get to you anymore. He’s not worth it.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to get a real sense of closure with assholes because…well, they’re assholes. To get through to them, you’d have to act like an asshole yourself, and then whatever sense of satisfaction you got from making them miserable would be lost, because you’re NOT an asshole, and you’d feel bad later for having sunk to his level. Not worth it. Good for you for at least getting in his face about it; I think your chosen Path To Payback will be much better for your karma than, say, leaving flaming paper bags of dog poo on his doorstep.
um. . . how come the police haven’t followed up on this, given the evidence you have? Any chance of nailing the fucker that way?
Grrrrr, I HATE dealing with that kind of crap! Makes my blood boil, and then I start rambling and just getting all incoherent and mad. I’m glad you called the guy an idiot! The question is, the carpet cleaner guy claims he never broke into your house. If someone else broke in, then carpet cleaner guy still wouldn’t have his folder, right? I wonder if he has his folder now! Damn the asshole carpet cleaner and his folder!
On a serious note try calling / contacting Michael Finney (forogt if it’s ch. 4 or 7) or Len Tillem of KGO radio on Sat. afternoons (or at KGO website). You’re too nice to not publish the contact info because I’d give him s— too (besides your fans).
You go girl !
and the truly heinous thing about this whole thing? if he’d called you right away, and told you “i’m sorry. i’ll talk with him. it’ll never happen again.” you’d be like “ok, thanks. have a nice day.”
IS IT SO HARD???????????????????????????????
Had a somewhat similar situation (tho’ fortunately not involving burglary) with a repair-guy this fall.
Guy claimed the problem was not one he could fix. Guy suggested an alternate repair person and offered to call him for me (my accepting this was my big mistake in the matter). Alternate person never ever called, never responded to my calls, never showed when I took a day off work because he was supposed to come that day. Called Guy #1, griped at him.
Guy #1 called Alternate Guy. I don’t know what line of bull Alternate Guy fed him, but Guy #1 called me back and basically called me a liar and said I wasn’t home when I told Alternate Guy I would be…
this was after I had been surviving as best I could for a week without the service that Guy #1 had been hired to repair.
So I branched off on my own, called another “Alternate” repair guy. He listened respectfully to my rant and told me it didn’t sound like an “Alternate” problem, but he recommended another service (oh, hell, it’s too hard to keep obfuscating – my furnace was out and Guy #1 claimed it was an electrical problem). At any rate. I called the NEW furnace service. They had someone out THAT DAY. He did a temporary fix (so I had heat) and explained and showed me what the problem was (it was not electrical in nature). I authorized a permanent repair, which was done two days later.
I called Guy #1 to tell him he was SO fired, and asked him to send me a bill for his first visit…he didn’t, and I called him again to remind him. Two calls should be enough, and maybe he’s decided not to charge me, but he still hasn’t sent a bill and I have a horrible sinking feeling that this is going to somehow break very bad on me if Guy #1 hits a money crunch at some point (which he will, if he keeps up the level of customer service he has).
Man, I hate being messed around with (or “dicked around” as one of my friends so aptly put it) by repair people. It’s enough to make me go out and learn HVAC and electrical and plumbing just so I never have to deal with them ever again.
Did you tell him that you no longer HAVE carpet, and do have a lovely cleaning appliance and therefore have no need for a free service? As if you would let his employees into your house again! What a jerk.
Seems it’s a rare occurence today to find “someone who cares”, no matter the circumstance… I hope alot of people find your review! I think you were incredibly kind to him, trying to get a response over the past 2 months. Pressing charges would have been a nice reward : )
these days a lot of local news stations have consumer reporters.
you should call all of them and rat this guy out.
sometimes all it takes is a phone call from a news station to make jackasses Do The Right Thing.
they don’t want a news crew knocking on their door.
and they don’t want to have a story run on them where a news crew is knocking on their door and they’re not answering.
looks REAL bad for business if you know what i mean.
: )
Did you call the Better Business Bureau to have them add him to their “Incompetent Ass” list?
Be sure to call the Better Business Bureau and be sure to forward them the email and any record of or lack there of with the guy. Becuase this would severly hurt him if he ever wants to get Bonded. Was he Bonded??? If so you do have legal grounds against him.
But atleast call the Better Business Bureau it will force him to resolve something.
And as my (brilliant) daughter mused when she was about 4, having been called an asshole by some big bully down the block…”If a hole is someplace empty where there isn’t anything, why would somebody CALL you one?” 🙂
Hey Rach–Did the charge for the carpet cleaning ever show up on your credit card bill? If so, call up your credit card company and ask to see a copy of the signed draft. You may have to say you’re disputing the charge, but these companies are serious about investigating signatures, etc., these days so they will likely be very helpful.
If the employee left the folder with the signed charge slip in your old place, and it shows up as having been submitted to your card company, the only way that could have happened is if he (or his boss!) broke in and took it back. I’d love to see you nail that asshole.
Have a lovely day, missy.
I think the carpet chemicals rot their brains and makes them all rude assholes! Give ’em hell!