HomeAdvisor review: fraudulent charges! 73

ServiceMagic provides mostly junk leads from people who do not respond to phone calls or email or are not serious about going forward with a project.

Over the past two years I have gotten 20+ "leads" from ServiceMagic for architectural services. Exactly 1 resulted in an actual job. I was only able to actually speak with 5 of the leads and those were only tire kickers. If ServiceMagic would contact the lead to verify they are real and actually interested in the service they inquired about, the lead quality would be vastly improved, but obviously they take in much more money by providing junk leads to their "service professionals". ServiceMagic is a complete waste of time and money.

i also...got scamed by service magic...i had a customer tell me that his wife entered a contest...win...this...just fill out the form...that is how they generate so many bogus ...leads...that is why leads...don't anwser...their phones...or hang up on us...service magic is... quick to send your account to collections...i am thinking about suing them in small claims court...let them get a attorney...and explain to the judge why they have so many complaints...have them justifly the leads...each and every one...yes they have disclaimers on the contacts...but that does not give them the right to run fraudulant leads to us...even if we don't win...they will get the message...another unhappy contractor...tom...

I wish I could add some new information to side with SM. Their program is a SCAM and a JOKE at best... Same thing here. Bogus leads, dead ends, and wasted time; not to mention numerous calls to resolve it with nothing but apologies and more empty promises... Why would I want to spend more if they can't even deliver the minimum?
I had to threaten legal action just to get them to stop charging my account!

Complain to the right person:

1525 Sherman St.
Denver, Colorado 80203
P: [protected]
F: [protected]
Attorney.General@state.co.us

The More the Merrier! They used my registered name and address and advertising with their phone number. I called them and said I saw the ad. They said how can we help you. You can STOP USING MY RESITERED COMPANY NAME! Still waiting to hear back from the Attorney General so now is the time to Email, call and write.

My Name is Dave, Freelance Event & Wedding Photographer
Words cannot describe how frustrating in dealing with Service Magic Pros. Service Magic made it very clear that I can only receive leads within state of NJ...Well guess what they started sending me leads in Philly PA, At $30.00 a lead. I knew were this was heading. So I decided to withdraw from this organization as I expressed my concerns, I was told that an entry on my account was an error. I then decided to do a little research about Service
Magic and low and behold the amount of complaints is growing and bogus leads are being charged to contractors. Even after withdrawing guess what...$50.00 was removed from my account Illegally without my permission...Now they got a fight in their hands!
I warn all those who would consider joining service magic...Good Luck and hang on to your wallets!
David

I use to feel the same way about Service Magic. What you need to do is walk yourself thru the entire site to take full advantage of the services. There is more to it than lead generation. For example, customer follow up section, the ability to turn off the leads when you want via the web-site. Granted they will turn on automatically in two weeks, you can go in and shut them off before they actually come back on. You can actually end up with a rating that will help greatly with the exact match customer. I have had customer tell me my bid was slightly higher than the competition but they hired us anyway because of the rating! What other sources would everyone suggust besides SM?

I have read many of your complaints and can understand where everyone of you are ccoming from!
i signed up with Service magic two years ago and did receive some good leads two years ago. Since the crash in the economy, residential home owners are in the same boat we are all in...not in a financial situation in which we can make any large investments.
I was at the point in which i was receiving $1, 000.00 for regular leads and a $1, 000.00 dollars for "exclusive" leads. i received all bogus leads this year. The complaints i would receive from the customers were that they were just browsing and not looking for a contractor, they changed their minds or already found another contractor, or would simply not answer my calls or reply to the e-mails. When i reported this to the Service Magic Reps. they told me to continue the persuit, and all the time knowing that you only have so much time to claim a refund. I had 43 refund request and I received 10 refunds which were 10 new bogus leads that kept the monotiny going. My business or line of work that i do costs me $50.00 to $100.00 per lead. Multiply that amount with 43 bogus leads! When i started ignoring the leads and rquesting that they shut off my leads, they say they didnt record the conversation? They were sending leads over my leads limit, i tried to explain to them that i had a contract with a spending cap and that i was not going to pay over my spending cap and wanted credit for those 43 bogus leads. They tried to bill my card but was wise enough to call my bank and have a block put on this business. When i did this they cut my service off and now have a collection agency calling and claiming that i owe them $3, 033.00! My spending limit was only $2, 000.00? I am not going to pay a bogus company for bogus leads!
I have told the collection agency that there will be a class action laaw suit and that until that is settled I werent paying a dime. My suggestion to all you contractors, write to the agency that is constantly bothering you with your story and let them know you are going to join the law suit. And when was is started or if I knew how to start one I would like to go after these maggets!

Mike Cote/Maine

Advertising is Advertising, BUT:

I am a carpet cleaner who has used Service Magic from the get go. I understand that nothing is garanteed and this is what I expected. However,
the underlying deception that most contractors did not bother to mention
is Service Magic's lack of flexibility when it comes to getting credit
for leads that are charged to their account, but don't pan out. For instance,
I had a lead from a lady who went to Service Magic, filled out the forms, and
was referred to me. Okay, I called her and she later told me that she spoke
to the landlord and decided to have him hire another contractor to clean the
apartment for her. Okay, fair enough, but I am still out $12 for this? The
lady had already made up her mind to have someone else do the work before I called her. Is this a fair lead? Ok, I applied for a credit, but was denied, stating that she had the authority to have the work done, but was entitled to change her mind. Now Service Magic did not just make $12 off of me, but many other contractors as well in my assigned areas. They could have made well over $100 for this bogus lead. Is this fair to contractors? No, but the only one who ever seems to profit from everyone's loss is Service Magic. My only beef with Service Magic is that they should be more flexible with giving credits back to the contractors if they ever intend on staying in business. After getting many leads like this and no credit in return, I put the business
on indefinate hold after having to pay a whopping $100 + in bogus lead money.
Otherwise, they were threatening to take me to small claims court over it.

For those of you working at Service Magic, who are vigilantly defending this service, I suggest you start looking for employment elsewhere because the mounting public dissatifaction with this service is only growing each year and will either end in lack of business from being reg flagged or bankruptcy from class action lawsuits. I understand that Service Magic has to make a lot of money in order to stay in business, but if they worked with Contractors in being more flexible with credits, then they would gain much more business and good credit in return. Being a hard assed big steam roller is what they are good at though and it is the natural progression of business economy for services like this to be eventually replaced by better and more satisfactory services that suit more consumers and contractors. They treat contractors more like they are ignorant employees that don't have any other choices to make because Service Magic is a BIG Advertiser on the Web. I am here to tell Service Magic that we are small business owners that have other choices and can easily cancel your HIRED service that WE PAY YOU to PERFORM for us. If you don't believe this, look at AT&T and IBM back in the 80s and you will see that their monopolized empires eventually fell apart and were replaced by more efficient and satisfactory competition.

I logged onto Service Magics website this morning wanting to use there services because my competitors do and was really looking forward to getting help with leads but after researching them I don't know if I should. What should I do?

Before u listen to these Internet Jokers, check out this link to Dozens of Contractors who Love ServiceMagic. It really does work people, you just need to sell yourself to the Home/Business owners requesting the bids! Stay On It!

http://pros.servicemagic.com/rfs/serviceprofessional/education/spProfilesSuccess.jsp

Check out this link for hundreds of real contractors making great money by usinng ServiceMagic!

http://pros.servicemagic.com/rfs/serviceprofessional/education/spProfilesSuccess.jsp

I signed up to bogus magic and set my limit at 100.00 market match and 100.00 exact match. The first day i recieved 7 leads and was wondering how in the hell that many leads would spread out over a month! I got on to my account, and wouldnt ya know, my limits were set at 250.00 each! Not only did that puke sales rep STEVE CASTIGLIONE lie to me to get me to sign by telling me that if I didnt get ahold of the people, I could get a lead replacement, he betrayed my trust instantly by going against my wishes of a higher spending limit and put down whatever amount he thought I should pay. So I call to cancel and of course was bombarded with calls from account managers, reps, and whoever to stay on board. "we will get this straightened out" and "we will send you some free leads to make it right". I was charged 300 bucks my first week, and was only agreed to pay 200 for the whole month! and out of the 15 leads I got, i made contact with only 3, and they were really strange conversations I had too, almost like set up. So why do I want free leads that are junk anyway? but I gave it a couple more weeks, and no free leads, just kept getting leads that went nowhere. 600 bucks i got in service magic in my first month and all I got out of the deal was head aches and wasted time. Not one cent back, and when I called to ask about my free junk leads, no answer or return call in three days. So I sent an email and cancelled, no phone call from a rep trying to keep me around, just a confirmation letter would be fine was what I said, and if any more leads get sent to me I will refuse to pay.. I cannot believe that this company has not been investigated or charged with fraud or theft charges. If there were a lawsuit filed, I would spend TWICE what I lost with the crook ### to have an opportunity to close the doors on this criminal empire.

Eric Sieren, owner of

SIEREN PLUMBING SOLUTIONS (and I hope that they see who I am!... If I lived in CO. Id make a stop by and say it in person to thier worthless, thieving, lieing @$$es!)

new to this thank you all before i made the same mistake

I am a new Service Magic customer and feel totally scammed. When I talk to anyone at service magic I in vision a puppy running in circles chasing its own tale. These people are fraudulent and I am cancelling my account immediately. Most leads are bogus and some people on the bid request aren't even the property owner nor can they authorize work and they damn for sure aren't paying the bill. I wish I would of really checked them out before I signed up. Does anyone have a similar company the are doing good business with?

I have been using Service Magic for many years off and on. I turned off the leads in the spring because of the *lousy* lead quality. yesterday I got a new lead. this one is about the bottom of the barrel, and I strongly suspect that Service Magic pays some people to fill out request forms just to generate more bogus leads. I spent 2 hours with the live chat dude, who had been schooled in the fine art of "how not to respond directly to questions" and "how to accentuate the positive even if its a lie". any way I got absolutely nowhere with this meatball, so I asked him to send my information to management, and he had 3 or 4 reasons why that would not be a good idea. finally, I told him to do it anyway, as I had already spent about 2 hours with him. I made a copy of the live chat, for my records. next I plan on doing more of my own marketing as service magic cannot be trusted to screen calls, or operate in way that they expect of their service providers.

How many stars for Service Magic? it hasnt been worth a darn for many years. 1 star for showing up and breathing.

Scottsdale Arizona

I am a contractor with Service Magic and indeed have gotten many leads so far. I have handed in 5-7 leads that clearly fit on their list of refundable credits. However, its been two weeks and I have not seen one penny returned to me for these leads. Now, they guarantee 5-7 business days, but why I don't see the credits by now clearly tells me that there are unethical practices going on here. The ethical way of them handling this is not to charge the contractor for the questionable lead until it has been checked out under the "Service Magic Service Level Agreements" that they set up. Now, Service Magic is quick to charge the contractor for a lead and quick to take the whole thing to collections, but don't take their own unethical practices into account at all? If you go to Walmart and your not happy with the Merchandise, they refund you for it right away. If you are unhappy with the lead at Service Magic, they tell you to come back in two weeks after they make a decision about whether or not they will
refund you the credit for the lead.

I tried out Service Magic also and was scammed. Leads were supposed to have plans, permits, financing in place and be within 25 miles of our location. Not. I had to pay for leads so far away that I never made contact. I was charged money to set up and put $400.00 in my account towards leads. I made contact with one potential customer that was only looking for entertainment. When I cancelled I had $140.00 in my account and they wouldn't refund it. What a scam! Buyer beware. It did cost me money but more than that, frustration and time wasted.

Service magic are sly people they recently due to the fact I would not sign up posted a comment with my business name stating this company is a not a service magic pro. Neither is half a million others. They use this ploy this technique as a scare tactic along with constant calls. Bye the way Gpconstruction llc. is not associated with service magic in any way shape or manner. That should give me alot more work. lol. Suggestions for all of you contractors trying to subsidise your income. Networking is number one always, friends, workers, family distant lol. word of mouth travels faster. If you must find others try bid clerk 50 a month all the jobs at your finger tips. CDC for you commercial and heavy companies great website always try it out first then make a comprehensive decision. CDC should run about 800 a year. Be informed be skeptical even on your purchases. Bye the way 1800 contractors and service magic are the same company and you will be bidding on some jobs against them on bid clerk. Another search engince is the town or city you live in for federal and government jobs up and coming on most town or city websites for free. Enjoy the bidding and bid smart. GP

I have been using Service Magic since last October. I just dumped them on 3/30/09. Some of their leads are in crack town, some are just "Tire Kickers" or some you can never get in touch with! Even the few "replacement" leads were useless.
Service Magic is the pits, unless you are willing to compete with lowballers and bottom feeders, and basically work and try to run a business, bidding at half price then you don't need Service Magic.
They are truly a useless lead generator. And I refuse to do business with cheapskate homeowners who think anyone with a saw and a truck is a seasoned flooring mechanic. Or that some illegal alien advertising on Craigs List, is actually a legitimate business.
There's a new scam out there also. It's called www.everycontractor.com Google their name and/complaints. believe it or not they are just as bad if not worse than Service Magic.

Advertising is advertising. It's that simple. When I started my flooring company, I initially did the same thing every other contractor in the world did. I put an ad in the yellow pages, I paid for one of those magnetic company signs to put on my pickup, I posted small stacks of business cards at local coffee shops, and sent out flyers to every homeowner in my demographic.

My Yellow Page ad ran me right around $1, 400 for the year, my custom magnetic signs (2, one for each side) were about $300, flyers ran about 49 cents each and since I sent out 2, 500 of them, that equated to about $1, 225, and the busines cards were cheap, but you need those anyway, so I won't figuree that into my advertising costs. So, with my conventional forms of advertising I spent around $3, 000.

A contractor friend of mine who does landscaping turned me on to Service Magic, so I thought I'd take a look. So, I called and the sales rep I spoke with (think his name is Carson) told me that people come to their website to find licensed and insured contractors, which I am. So I signed up. I signed up to for hardwood flooring leads at $38 or $28 per lead depending on whether or not the customer has the materials. Within a 25 mle radius from my location I was receiving about 2 leads per week. I ended up spending about $200 before I landed my first job. As of now, I on average spend ablout $125-$300 before I am able to land a job.

Yellow pages generated ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for me. Not a SINGLE call! My flyers landed me 2 bids, but both fell through.

I'm not sure what the rest of you were told about their advertising, but I knew exactly what i was getting into when I signed up with Service Magic. I knew they were not garanteed jobs, just like billboard advertising does not offer garanteed jobs, but all I wanted was the opportunity to talk to good folks who were/are looking into getting work done. Service Magic did just that. I'm satisfied. Not sure what else to say, other than:

ADVERTISING IS ADVERTISING!

Visit www.maid-directory.com a new nationwide directory to list your company absolutely free.

I'm a contractor and have been using Service Magic for a month. I recently got a referral for a job that was for installation of new countertops. Well the address that came up didn't seem like a residental neighborhood, so I went to check it out. Well, it turned out to be a apartment complex. After that, I proceeded back to my office and do a reverse find on the telephone number, and it came up with a different address and name that was on the referral. How weak is that.

I am a contractor.
I have almost same experionce as like yours.
This website shows about 'class action'
http://www.topclassactions.com/

This Service Magic company should disappear! They billed my card for leads even though I had not formally agreed to work for them. I phoned my bank to put a block on any of their charges.
They charged me even though they didn't have a signed contract from me and I did not complete any work on their behalf.
They turned me into their collection department.
I fully support a class action lawsuit.

Service magic ia a big scam. I got almost arested because of Service magic(guy call cops because i tried to rech him on the number that service magic gave me)
Did around 20 estimates and got 0 jobs. Paid for 40 leads of which half were bogus

I am a service magic contractor and have been signed up for three months. I had real good resultes, 1 st month i won 7 leads out of 15' not bad, but i was on top of it and worked it hard .Now the leads have droped off a bit but thats construction up and down

I am an Account Specialist for Service Magic and find most of your complaints one sided. I have worked with contractors for years for residential as well as commercial. What most of you are not indicating is that Service Magic is not offering you "Lead Replacements" for consumers that clearly go to the intenet and purposely enter in phony information at your expense. The question that should be asked here is what is your intrepretation of a "qualified lead"? We at Service Magic call 8000 leads a day for the contrators verifying if the customer was contacted by the service professional, many times they are not, or contractors make appts they don't keep for one reason or another. We also ask them what is the status of their project. This is it, everything else as far as qualifying the lead is done by the contractor so we do not impede your sales process. We are a lead service folks we are not selling you jobs! There is a difference as there are companies out there that will charge you well over $2000 for a job. The question is how much will you pay for a qualfied job! If you have questions feel free to call our Customer Service Call center as we are here to answer any question you may have on your account. Thank you.

Look... good luck getting a lawsuit against servicemagic, if u read the the fine print or Terms and Conditions you will see everything in writing.if you are promised something by a individual and its not in writing then the rule is in was never said. When you are first getting into servicemagic they let you know that about 1 and 10 are good leads, thats an average not a promise! I notice that when something isnt perfect people always say its a "Scam" or its "Fraud". There are thousands of contractors that are successful that use servicemagic and in some cases change there lives. we do try our best to make sure that every lead we send, are people who want the work done, however some do fall thru the cracks and its truly unfortunate. most contractors are hard working people who are amazing at what they do, I to would be pissed if i got a bad lead, think about the yellow pages and other forms of advertising how affective are they? truly? If you work the program set up by servicemagic chances are it will work, not to say you will never get a bad lead, but the cost of those leads compared to the fixed target spend rate with the yellow pages at a 3% chance of getting a good lead you have a 10% chance with servicemagic and most of are contractors are doing 50%. If you look at our website we state very clearly that we try to match consumers with 1 to 4 contractors, we never say we will give the job to you on a sliver platter, we get your foot in the door its up to you to sell your company. with everything you do no matter what avenue of marking you choose there is risk and there are no promises made, by any company. Some have you gave up after a week of being with servicemagic and one person was with us a month! what do you do if you are hired for a job and things go wrong or dont work out the way you want? do you up and leave the job or quit? Dan says the we bait unsuspecting customers, not true at all! before a request is submitted a pop up comes up that says "Please respect our contractors time and only put this request in if you are serious about getting this done". and when did 3 estimates become the industry standard? a consumer has the right to get as many as they want. and we took a poll and most people want 4. I will agree with Dan that contractors are the backbone of servicemagic and we do try to help and not purposely hurt your company in anyway and I am truly sorry to hear all of you had such a bad experience, we are trying to improve everyday and alot of the time bad leads get sent out are because of individuals working for servicemagic some of them just dont know enough about construction the people who work servicemagic are monitored closely and if you submit to many bad leads you are fired, so its not all about money, i know this cause i work at servicemagic and I am not a mananger or high up there I deal with contractor and consumers on a daily basis and I see how this service has helped people

Service Magic is definitely a scam all around. I have experienced the same problems bogus leads you can never contact. I have told Service Magic to turn my leads off and they will turn them back on without my permission. If I do not check my emails daily and they send a lead I am charged because they provided me the information. What a scam! Oh they will give you credit on your next lead after you go through the hassle of emailing a request and explaining what happened. Even though I am on the telephone talking to a customer representative I still have to go to their website and my account and email a request. What a difficult way for a busy contractor to deal with an unprofessional business. I have even went to my account emailed my request and then they want me to call them. What a joke. We have refused to pay for a lead after they were told to turn off the leads and of course being the upright company it is not, they have terminated and sent our account to collection. I was going to pay the bill but after finding this site and all the complaints I feel there really needs to be some legal action against Service Magic.

I have been a contractor working with Service Magic for around 1 month and so far have had 9 leads for entire roof replacements. 5 have been bogus, 3 turned out to be legitimate estimates, and 1 was out of my area. They sell each lead for $55 to 2-3 other contractors. The 2 contractor part is a total joke because they obviously are selling it to as many total contractors as possible (4) to maximize returns. The industry standard is to get 3 estimates, but not when a fourth is worth another $55 to a referral service. One of the problems with the way they run their business is the fact that they could care less about the contractors who are the lifeblood of their business. They look to sell each and every lead to as many contractors possible to maximaize profits. If a contractor is unhappy and quits, they just hire a new contractor to replace the old one. This is why they are always hiring, if you dont believe me just inquire with them and I garantee they will have openings for all the trades. They also run their website in a deceptive way to bait unsuspecting customers. These customers are the ones who are not actually interested in having their roofs done but were enticed to enter their information to get to another page on Service Magics website. These same customers are the ones who dont call the contractors back because they were not interested in having the work done in the first place. What they also didnt realize is that their name and phone number fleeced 4 contractors out of $55 and lined the pockets of the service magic corporation to the tune of $220. I have been with different internet referral services and they are so far the worst. The servicemagic rep told me that no refunds will be given for the $55 leads and that customers NOT RESPONDING TO LEADS IS BUILT INTO THE PRICING. There is a reason they are always very activly recruiting contractors. So far only 3 25% chance estimates has cost me over $495 and many headaches.

I totally agree with both of you about ServiceMagic. As a matter of fact, I posted a complaint with the BBB in regards to their fraudulent business practices. Almost every single "lead" were bogus. One of the few that we were able to set up an estimate for, the customer complained that she had already received multiple calls from other ServiceMagic contractors competing for her business. According to her, the contractors who called from ServiceMagic were very rude and unprofessional, which of course taints the image of my company before I even set foot in their home. Hell, I didn't even know that I would have to compete for leads that I was already paying for! After going back and forth with the jokers from ServiceMagic, we finally decided to eliminate them as a marketing tool. Unfortunately, they don't want to let you go. Instead they give you credits for more crappy "leads". We basically just told them to piss off and never call us again.

I agree maybe a class action lawsuit is what they need.

I wish I had read your complaint before I signed on with Service Magic. I was with this company only 1 week and spent $174 for bogus leads. The leads were definitely not good. The the last name of one prospect was incorrect, wrong phone number, emails bounced back, one prospect stated he never requested by service through Service Magic. Yet they expect for me to pay for bogus leads. Their solution was an in-house credit. What good is a replacement lead if they are also bogus?