Angie's list requires that you when you initially sign up to become a member you must register for an automatic renewal. When it comes time for the renewal you do not recieve any notification except for the charge on your preferred method of payment. When you call them up to cancel there is a no refund policy, so you are hooked for another year.
Angie's List scammed our business. Here is why you should avoid advertising with this company. If they are at all honest then they will let this review stay on their facebook page. Starting in November of last years, we were aggressively pursued by your sales team, we were offered a great deal of services, promised to promoted at the top of search results and get a large number of leaders. This was surprising to me as it goes against the Angie's Lists claims but I was told it was common. We were guaranteed to be in the top search results for certain keywords and categories in a number of cities in Arizona. We signed up for one year of advertising, paying for this high placement and to have a bad reviews removed from our page and other services. However after one month we saw no results, not even one click to our website or call to our number. We investigated and found that our listing never appeared as a top keyword in search results. I asked our account rep this, and he stopped answering calls and emails at that time.
One month later after failing to get them to address questions or sending a copy of our billing invoice, we canceled service. Not only did Angie's List continue to bill us, they also charged a large some of money to our credit card, using a deceptive account to bill us knowing that we had probably blocked the amex card. They did this on the same day we canceled, after the person on the phone had promised me an investigation into the problem to decide on whether we are owed a refund. Immediately after that call we were billed through a deceptive account. Angie's List appears to operate with very poor ethics, promising things they do not deliver on, using aggressive sales tactics while offering no real products and very poor customer service. And even using deceptive billing practices when you try to cancel. Stay away from Angies List if you know what is good for you!!!!!!!
I agree with the other complaint about Angie's List. It is not necessarily reliable.
As a member, I posted complaints about contractors I used and after a few months, those complaints would be gone. One of my contractors told me that he received a negative rating and complaint by an Angie's List Customer... all he had to do was call Angie's List and request it be removed (his company is also a member of Angie's List).
I've seen companies that have a terrible reputation by homeowners (such as ABLE Roofing) get very high ratings on Angie's List. Something in the way they do business is not open and transparent to customers like me (homeowners).
Although I think as a user of Angie's List, you have to learn to read between the lines regarding all the contractor reports... it should be easier. We're paying for real opinions of other customers, unfiltered by Angie's list and with no influence by the contractors. This is what they advertise but it isn't what they provide.
A client posted an average report on our company on Angies List. Well, this client never called our company about any dissatisfaction, so we never had an opportunity to respond to the complaint.
This client filed his report 4 months after we did the work.
That seemed odd to me, Why wait 4 months later to file a report on Angies list ? Well, I have recently found out that Angies list has consumers that support them and these consumers will file average to poor reports on companies only to get the business to drive their clients to Angies list.
You see Angies list will file poor reports against companies, because then the only way the company can repair the damage to their company is by getting clients to sign up for Angies list so they can file a good report on the company. This is the ony way the company can repair the damage..
Angies list profits from poor reports against companies, because it drives consumers to sign up for their service. The company is not informed of any poor reports and is clearly violating the civil rights of businesses by not allowing companies due process against any complaints.
The better business bureau informs all companies of poor reports and the companies can respond to these reports before any reports would go public. I believe Angies list is opening themselves up for a multi million dollar lawsuit. You have to allow companies due process against any complaints.
Much to my dismay, I realized that Angie's List had purchased my name and listed me on their website. This in and of itself is not a huge problem. My problem is the fact that they published my HOME address. As soon as I realized this, I called them and asked to be removed. They said that I could never have my name removed from the site, but that they would change my contact information to my office address. They also kindly advised me to contact google to make sure their search was updated as well.
Imagine my surprise the following day when I check their site and my HOME address is still listed. I emailed and spoke with multiple representatives until I was finally connected with "supervisor" Kyle Mathes. He told me that he would submit a request to IT, but that changing my address could take as long as 6 weeks, possibly longer. I told him that I am concerned about the safety of my family (I expanded on this, but don't wish to go into greater detail on the internet.) He essentially told me there was nothing he could do, but that I was welcome to file a court order (which would take months.)
I called again the next day hoping to reach someone who could help me. I was told by representatives Katie and Tyler at two different times that day that if I purchased a membership, they could expedite my request, otherwise, there is no telling how long it will take to remove my home address from their site. This sounds like extortion to me. I spoke again to "supervisor" Kyle Mathes. He told me that he was unable to contact IT to expedite my case, and that there was no way I could coontact them myself. After I contined to plead with him to remove my personal information for the safety of my family, he connected me to the voicemail of his supervisor (would not give me number) Cheryl Pflum. She, of course, will not call me back.
All I want is for Angie's List to remove my home address from their site. They are welcome to leave my name, which has zero reviews, on their site. I have filed complaints with the BBB, the FTC, Call for Action, and have contacted media representatives who have assisted with these sorts of things in the past, but Angie's List remains firm in their unwillingness to help unless I pay them.
Too bad this business won't do the right thing, and is trying to extort me to join their site. I clearly have no interest in becoming a member.
First, we would like to thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to read this. We hope that our professionalism, integrity and honesty will help you in making the decision to hire us.
Angie's List (AL) is a ONE sided company. We were Service Providers (SP) for 10 years up until October 13, 2014 but no longer hold that position as Angie's List has made the decision to "excluded us from category and keyword searches and maintain our ineligibility to advertise or obtain a Super Service Award". This decision was made through the Angie's List SP Integrity Department because we "stood up" for our Company by responding to a review that was recently placed on our page.
AL states that they have an open forum when it comes to reviews, however that is a COMPLETE & BLATANT lie. AL allows the Members to write whatever they want, whenever they want and about whomever (SP) they want even if it is NOT the truth.
I am a small business in Nashville tn and advertised with angies list for 2 years straight and won there "super service award" 2 years straight and Angies list sent me all sorts of emails and hard copy certificates and stickers of those awards to encourage me to advertise those awards with all of my other advertising that I do including my website, so I put the awards on my website for my customers to see. Once I told Angies list that I was not going to continue advertising with them they sent me an email saying I need to take down the "super service award's" as Angie's List was revoking the awards due to that I am no longer advertising with them......this is just unethical all around.
I also had a bad run in with a big deal rep where he went into my Angies list business profile and expanded my area WITHOUT my Authorization so the rep could sell more big deals and make a larger bonus, when the big deals started to come into my company I noticed that there were a lot of these deals outside of my service area. So I called the rep on it and he said if the customer refunds the deal that I will not be able to advertise with Angies list again so I serviced as many as I could out of my area and lost money a lot of money due to the distance/time envoled in the discounted deals. Later I talked to another rep and they said what that big deal rep told me was not true at all and the big deal rep I dealt with was fired and they could not go into it. I have dealt with other advertising reps and Big Deal reps that say all sorts of things to get you to advertise with them that is not true and is unethical practices. There big deal reps will say just about anyting to get you to do a deal and there information that they provide to the service provider will not be accurate and it will be presented so the Big deal rep will sell a lot of big deals so they can make a larger bonus.
But what just happened with Angies list revoking the awards they gave to my company because I wont advertise with them is just down right wrong and unethical on there part! There is a lot more that Angies list does that is not good business practices to both its service providers and there members. Stay as far away from Angie's List as you can both service providers and potential members.
After contacting Angies list I was told there was only one spot in my area left. I had to pass a backround check and an advertising manager would contact me back to assist with a successfull ad. I gave my credit card number to secure the spot. I was never contacted back and my card was charged 307.00. I called to dispute and was told too bad, you signed up for a year contract and you owe 35% of that balance to cancel. Ther was no attempt to make me a happy consumer. The entire focus was to try and solicit a 35% cancellation fee. An outright scam. Never provided a service whats so ever! Never recieved a single call from Angies ad team or even from any of the other scam artists they employ after they stole my money.
Have you ever been "railroaded", found guilty until proven innocent?
Recently, while monitoring our online reputation, a couple of bad marks on the popular Angie's List website showed up. Amongst the batch of A's and B's there were two "F" ratings. Being a caring and responsible business owner, I immediately researched the issue. As it turns out, the reviews were not about us at all.
One reviewer complained about work we did for our very happy customer, their neighbor. It turns out that they are not happy with us because of issues they have with the neighbor.
The second review was completely not us at all. The customer called a repair man for a product we sold them years ago and when they could not find the correct repair man on Angie's List, they complained about the repair guy under our name.
After contacting the Angie's List management about the issue they quoted me the company policy and that they would look into it. Even after reading the first review where the customer actually states that we did no work for him, they allowed the review to stand. In the second case, ,they contacted the reviewr and she said that yes we were indeed the intended victim of her bad review, even though we did not do the service she claims. So the "F" reviews will stand.
How Un-American, how communist, how dictatorial is this treatment. Guilty until proven innocent, and guilty still after proving your innocence.
No one should trust this review site. Their website state:
Keeping it honest
Because Angie's List relies on its members' experiences, reviews aren't submitted anonymously. Of course members' information is kept confidential
Since the information is kept confidential, it is in fact Annonymous and I suppose they feel they can write anything they want and get away with it, which of course, they seem to have gotten away with it.
If you dont publish accurate information on your site Angie, Why Bother? Why bother using it, reading it or even making the site at all...
Oh, I forgot, your guys call me and email me all the time to advertise on your site and pay you. You do it to make money, yes that's it. It's all about the advertising dollars. Well, you wont get mine. Have a nice life and by the way, it's called liable and it's in the million dollar range, the suit that is.
I am a local service provider and I have been advertising with Angie's List (AL) for about 4 years. I had a customer that introduced me to AL and said that my workmanship and professionalism deserves to succeed. She said this "could" be a great way to get my name to generate more business. I was very confident of my work and allowed her to give me a review in which was an A and went into depth of my service performance and quality. At this time AL did not have many members and did not generate much business but it was free online exposure. Within a year of being on AL one of the sales people called and asked if I would like to advertise and I did. Costs $4200 per year. All was good until I ran the Big Deal. In which is a Big Mistake for a small business. Most of the people that purchase The Big Deal are people that can't afford to buy the services and have the biggest expectations with super shallow pockets. I take the blame for this huge business mistake.
Angie's List Reviews
I'm a residential remodel contractor. I had seen Angie's List Advertising and thought that joining might be a good Marketing
opportunity. I've since decided that it was a mistake. The site is really nothing more than a forum for Rip Off Artists to post
complaints in hopes of extorting money from contractors. I've asked that my company profile be removed but Angie's List
refuces to do so. I posted my profile voluntarily. I should be able to remove it as well. I'm considering a law suit to force
Angie's List to remove my profile. Are any other business owners interested in joining in?
Angie's list requires that you when you initially sign up to become a member you must register for an automatic renewal. When it comes time for the renewal you do not recieve any notification except for the charge on your preferred method of payment. When you call them up to cancel there is a no refund policy, so you are hooked for another year.
Angie's List scammed our business. Here is why you should avoid advertising with this company. If they are at all honest then they will let this review stay on their facebook page. Starting in November of last years, we were aggressively pursued by your sales team, we were offered a great deal of services, promised to promoted at the top of search results and get a large number of leaders. This was surprising to me as it goes against the Angie's Lists claims but I was told it was common. We were guaranteed to be in the top search results for certain keywords and categories in a number of cities in Arizona. We signed up for one year of advertising, paying for this high placement and to have a bad reviews removed from our page and other services. However after one month we saw no results, not even one click to our website or call to our number. We investigated and found that our listing never appeared as a top keyword in search results. I asked our account rep this, and he stopped answering calls and emails at that time.
One month later after failing to get them to address questions or sending a copy of our billing invoice, we canceled service. Not only did Angie's List continue to bill us, they also charged a large some of money to our credit card, using a deceptive account to bill us knowing that we had probably blocked the amex card. They did this on the same day we canceled, after the person on the phone had promised me an investigation into the problem to decide on whether we are owed a refund. Immediately after that call we were billed through a deceptive account. Angie's List appears to operate with very poor ethics, promising things they do not deliver on, using aggressive sales tactics while offering no real products and very poor customer service. And even using deceptive billing practices when you try to cancel. Stay away from Angies List if you know what is good for you!!!!!!!
I agree with the other complaint about Angie's List. It is not necessarily reliable.
As a member, I posted complaints about contractors I used and after a few months, those complaints would be gone. One of my contractors told me that he received a negative rating and complaint by an Angie's List Customer... all he had to do was call Angie's List and request it be removed (his company is also a member of Angie's List).
I've seen companies that have a terrible reputation by homeowners (such as ABLE Roofing) get very high ratings on Angie's List. Something in the way they do business is not open and transparent to customers like me (homeowners).
Although I think as a user of Angie's List, you have to learn to read between the lines regarding all the contractor reports... it should be easier. We're paying for real opinions of other customers, unfiltered by Angie's list and with no influence by the contractors. This is what they advertise but it isn't what they provide.
A client posted an average report on our company on Angies List. Well, this client never called our company about any dissatisfaction, so we never had an opportunity to respond to the complaint.
This client filed his report 4 months after we did the work.
That seemed odd to me, Why wait 4 months later to file a report on Angies list ? Well, I have recently found out that Angies list has consumers that support them and these consumers will file average to poor reports on companies only to get the business to drive their clients to Angies list.
You see Angies list will file poor reports against companies, because then the only way the company can repair the damage to their company is by getting clients to sign up for Angies list so they can file a good report on the company. This is the ony way the company can repair the damage..
Angies list profits from poor reports against companies, because it drives consumers to sign up for their service. The company is not informed of any poor reports and is clearly violating the civil rights of businesses by not allowing companies due process against any complaints.
The better business bureau informs all companies of poor reports and the companies can respond to these reports before any reports would go public. I believe Angies list is opening themselves up for a multi million dollar lawsuit. You have to allow companies due process against any complaints.
Much to my dismay, I realized that Angie's List had purchased my name and listed me on their website. This in and of itself is not a huge problem. My problem is the fact that they published my HOME address. As soon as I realized this, I called them and asked to be removed. They said that I could never have my name removed from the site, but that they would change my contact information to my office address. They also kindly advised me to contact google to make sure their search was updated as well.
Imagine my surprise the following day when I check their site and my HOME address is still listed. I emailed and spoke with multiple representatives until I was finally connected with "supervisor" Kyle Mathes. He told me that he would submit a request to IT, but that changing my address could take as long as 6 weeks, possibly longer. I told him that I am concerned about the safety of my family (I expanded on this, but don't wish to go into greater detail on the internet.) He essentially told me there was nothing he could do, but that I was welcome to file a court order (which would take months.)
I called again the next day hoping to reach someone who could help me. I was told by representatives Katie and Tyler at two different times that day that if I purchased a membership, they could expedite my request, otherwise, there is no telling how long it will take to remove my home address from their site. This sounds like extortion to me. I spoke again to "supervisor" Kyle Mathes. He told me that he was unable to contact IT to expedite my case, and that there was no way I could coontact them myself. After I contined to plead with him to remove my personal information for the safety of my family, he connected me to the voicemail of his supervisor (would not give me number) Cheryl Pflum. She, of course, will not call me back.
All I want is for Angie's List to remove my home address from their site. They are welcome to leave my name, which has zero reviews, on their site. I have filed complaints with the BBB, the FTC, Call for Action, and have contacted media representatives who have assisted with these sorts of things in the past, but Angie's List remains firm in their unwillingness to help unless I pay them.
Too bad this business won't do the right thing, and is trying to extort me to join their site. I clearly have no interest in becoming a member.
First, we would like to thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to read this. We hope that our professionalism, integrity and honesty will help you in making the decision to hire us.
Angie's List (AL) is a ONE sided company. We were Service Providers (SP) for 10 years up until October 13, 2014 but no longer hold that position as Angie's List has made the decision to "excluded us from category and keyword searches and maintain our ineligibility to advertise or obtain a Super Service Award". This decision was made through the Angie's List SP Integrity Department because we "stood up" for our Company by responding to a review that was recently placed on our page.
AL states that they have an open forum when it comes to reviews, however that is a COMPLETE & BLATANT lie. AL allows the Members to write whatever they want, whenever they want and about whomever (SP) they want even if it is NOT the truth.
I am a small business in Nashville tn and advertised with angies list for 2 years straight and won there "super service award" 2 years straight and Angies list sent me all sorts of emails and hard copy certificates and stickers of those awards to encourage me to advertise those awards with all of my other advertising that I do including my website, so I put the awards on my website for my customers to see. Once I told Angies list that I was not going to continue advertising with them they sent me an email saying I need to take down the "super service award's" as Angie's List was revoking the awards due to that I am no longer advertising with them......this is just unethical all around.
I also had a bad run in with a big deal rep where he went into my Angies list business profile and expanded my area WITHOUT my Authorization so the rep could sell more big deals and make a larger bonus, when the big deals started to come into my company I noticed that there were a lot of these deals outside of my service area. So I called the rep on it and he said if the customer refunds the deal that I will not be able to advertise with Angies list again so I serviced as many as I could out of my area and lost money a lot of money due to the distance/time envoled in the discounted deals. Later I talked to another rep and they said what that big deal rep told me was not true at all and the big deal rep I dealt with was fired and they could not go into it. I have dealt with other advertising reps and Big Deal reps that say all sorts of things to get you to advertise with them that is not true and is unethical practices. There big deal reps will say just about anyting to get you to do a deal and there information that they provide to the service provider will not be accurate and it will be presented so the Big deal rep will sell a lot of big deals so they can make a larger bonus.
But what just happened with Angies list revoking the awards they gave to my company because I wont advertise with them is just down right wrong and unethical on there part! There is a lot more that Angies list does that is not good business practices to both its service providers and there members. Stay as far away from Angie's List as you can both service providers and potential members.
After contacting Angies list I was told there was only one spot in my area left. I had to pass a backround check and an advertising manager would contact me back to assist with a successfull ad. I gave my credit card number to secure the spot. I was never contacted back and my card was charged 307.00. I called to dispute and was told too bad, you signed up for a year contract and you owe 35% of that balance to cancel. Ther was no attempt to make me a happy consumer. The entire focus was to try and solicit a 35% cancellation fee. An outright scam. Never provided a service whats so ever! Never recieved a single call from Angies ad team or even from any of the other scam artists they employ after they stole my money.
Have you ever been "railroaded", found guilty until proven innocent?
Recently, while monitoring our online reputation, a couple of bad marks on the popular Angie's List website showed up. Amongst the batch of A's and B's there were two "F" ratings. Being a caring and responsible business owner, I immediately researched the issue. As it turns out, the reviews were not about us at all.
One reviewer complained about work we did for our very happy customer, their neighbor. It turns out that they are not happy with us because of issues they have with the neighbor.
The second review was completely not us at all. The customer called a repair man for a product we sold them years ago and when they could not find the correct repair man on Angie's List, they complained about the repair guy under our name.
After contacting the Angie's List management about the issue they quoted me the company policy and that they would look into it. Even after reading the first review where the customer actually states that we did no work for him, they allowed the review to stand. In the second case, ,they contacted the reviewr and she said that yes we were indeed the intended victim of her bad review, even though we did not do the service she claims. So the "F" reviews will stand.
How Un-American, how communist, how dictatorial is this treatment. Guilty until proven innocent, and guilty still after proving your innocence.
No one should trust this review site. Their website state:
Keeping it honest
Because Angie's List relies on its members' experiences, reviews aren't submitted anonymously. Of course members' information is kept confidential
Since the information is kept confidential, it is in fact Annonymous and I suppose they feel they can write anything they want and get away with it, which of course, they seem to have gotten away with it.
If you dont publish accurate information on your site Angie, Why Bother? Why bother using it, reading it or even making the site at all...
Oh, I forgot, your guys call me and email me all the time to advertise on your site and pay you. You do it to make money, yes that's it. It's all about the advertising dollars. Well, you wont get mine. Have a nice life and by the way, it's called liable and it's in the million dollar range, the suit that is.
I am a local service provider and I have been advertising with Angie's List (AL) for about 4 years. I had a customer that introduced me to AL and said that my workmanship and professionalism deserves to succeed. She said this "could" be a great way to get my name to generate more business. I was very confident of my work and allowed her to give me a review in which was an A and went into depth of my service performance and quality. At this time AL did not have many members and did not generate much business but it was free online exposure. Within a year of being on AL one of the sales people called and asked if I would like to advertise and I did. Costs $4200 per year. All was good until I ran the Big Deal. In which is a Big Mistake for a small business. Most of the people that purchase The Big Deal are people that can't afford to buy the services and have the biggest expectations with super shallow pockets. I take the blame for this huge business mistake.