Waste Management [WM]
reviews and complaints

Prior to moving to my new residence, I contacted waste management and set up trash collection services. I gave my debit card and paid in advance. I moved it and had a lot of trash that I needed them to pick up. They never showed. I spent a week listening to every excuse in the book about how they set it up at the wrong address, would be right out and never showed. I finally asked for a refund and was told they planned to mail a check. After 30 days I called again and was told they planned to reverse the charge. I still have not received a refund. I noticed the name on several of my neighbors bins and called. The competitor came right out and fixed my problems. Don't use waste management in palm harbor. Their phone personnel are inexperienced and unprofessional. A joke!

I had a giant dumpster delivered to my home for yard debris removal. Waste management requires $650 deposit from which to deduct the charges for their service and refund the rest. They are holding my refund for 1 whole month! This is morally wrong, it seems to me that they could process a refund quicker than that. Are they collecting interest on my money that is sitting in their bank account?

Waste management (wm) charged me for $20 (resume service fee) and 0.96 due to my late payment for the last cycle. Even though, there is no service interrupted nor discontinue service notice was mailed to me. I called the company try to get this charge reverse and they refused. They said once the payment is late and they need to charge the customer this fee.! I also requested wm to mail me copy of the contracts (between waste management and city of arcadia, ca) where it shows they can charge such fee and they obviously do not have. If you look the invoice of waste management, a lot of fine prints on their invoice to cover their bad behavior. Why my city has contracted our refusal services to waste management, is a big question. I am filing a complaint as well as calling my city to resolve their irrational charges too.

Basically the worst.
I could write paragraphs detailing the many phone calls and emails and discussions i've had with waste management northwest employees regarding failed garbage and recycling pickups.
Suffice to say, they have their heads up their behinds.
Never have I experienced such bad attitudes and unprofessional, blame shifting behavior from a business. Usually, if you have a problem with a low level employee and ask to speak to their manager you can eventually find a supervisor who understands the basic tenants of customer service. Not so with waste management. They uniformly fail to provide even minimal customer service. There is no way to follow up with the same person, the only way to contact them is by their 1800 number.

At one point (about a year into this problem), they suggested that the problem with pickup was that my cans are beyond 3 feet from the curb. There actually is no curb or sidewalks in my neighborhood - the cans are about 8 feet from the street. Hoping to be able to stop "problems solving" with this company, I agreed to pay an additional fee because the cans are beyond 3 feet. I still receive notices from the company that my cans can't be picked up because they are beyond 3 feet. Repeat: I pay them a fee to pick up beyond three feet... They continue to use "beyond 3 feet" as a reason why it wasn't picked up.

I'm basically in shock that this company exists. I assume they will be going out of business soon.

I was late paying my bill. Yes, my bad. I, unfortunately, didn't have enough in my account to pay the waste management bill the same time I paid my mortgage, water, electric and didn't even have enough to buy groceries. I lived on ramen noodles for the next 2 weeks before my next payday. I understood that they have to harass me by phone twice daily when my bill came due and I understood that they refused to collect my garbage the week my bill came due. But what I don't understand is why after I paid my bill, they still refused to collect my garbage 2 consecutive weeks. They took my money but didn't have the decency to provide me the service for which I paid for. Now I am left with no recourse but to file a complaint with the better business bureau and consumer protection services. I wish the local government will pay heed to the people's complaint and re-think about using the services of this company again. It was going well when garbage collection was serviced by a local company and not by the # waste management company from out of state.

Do not use this company!
I wish I had read all the horrible reviews online before I signed up because they are all true. Our rates have doubled in a year and a half because they kept raising the basic rate, plus adding in all kinds of “fees.” and their excuses about their costs going up are bogus. I called 3 other companies in my area and they will all provide the same service at half of what waste management is charging. Then when I tried to cancel my contract, I got hit with a 6 month cancellation fee plus other charges – over $1200! Their fees are exorbitant, their customer service is awful (don’t return phone calls, make no attempts to resolve the problems), and their one-sided service contracts allow them to raise their fees to whatever they want and you are legally bound to pay it! Stay away from them.

I requested service on may 2, 2011. They committed to deliever the dumpster on may 3rd, did not occur, they commited to pick up trash on mondays which has not occured todate. I have called the call center 8 times, and yet to have waste management meet the verbal or contractual commitments. They sent a bill, and contained a charge for $42.36, which they could not explain. If you have an option, I would use someone else!

I live in apartments, and I take the trash out atleast 3 times a week, and I hate it. Only because there is always trash bags all around the waste management bin and not in it! Sometimes I make the effort to pick some up, but I feel it's not my job. When waste management takes the trash on wednesday mornings I look out the window to see if the pick up the access trash around the bin, as I watched the process I noticed that they push the trash to back of the bin and who knows whats back there hiding. It's gross, there needs to be some manual labor, rather than just a machine that picks up a bin and dumps the trash in the truck, someone or some worker/position willing to get out of the truck and pick up the access trash bags/ trash.

Absolutely the worst company I ever dealt with. But their contract is totally one sided. They keep on increasing your rate and no opt out.

I am a customer of waste management & have been for the last 9 years. There was a random charge on my last bill of $18.48, I didn't look at my bill closely, so paid it. On my latest bill the random $18.48 has been added again. I phoned wm today (08/19/11 - spoke with a customer service rep, then stephanie floor lead/supervisor) they told me it was their mistake & they couldn't explain why it had been added, but I have to pay it anyway & they will then credit my account on my next bill. I told them I cannot afford to pay the random charge/mistake then to be reimbursed in two months time. I was told if I do not pay this random added charge again, I may incure late fees! After hearing this I asked if I could speak with a manager, only to be told that the manager had just gone into a meeting & will only repeat the same anyway. I'm outraged that I have overpaid on my last bill and now have to overpay on this bill when I can't afford to.

Waste management is increasing all of their rates and fees again! You can call for a price rollback before you pay your invoice and therebye "accept' the fees... If they say you can't get a rollback tell them you have a new hauler (reliable haulers in almost every area almost 40% cheaper than wm!) ask for a manager and tell them if they want to collect liquidated damages to go ahead and try.. They will just pick up their can leaving you with room for your new less expensive hauler... Increases in fuel environmental and recycling fees are a breach of your contract and any base rate increase before your annual contract date!

On friday, september 2nd, 2011 I called waste management of alameda county, in the city of oakland california, to start garbage service for a duplex I had just purchased. The account was opened and the garbage containers were supposed to be delivered to my tenants on monday morning sept 5, (garbage pick up day) when monday came and no containers were delivered, I called and was assured that on on tueday sept 6 I would get the garbage containers. When no containers arrived on tuesday I called again and was told that for sure on wednesday they would be delivered. When wednesday came and no containers arrived I called and spoke to supervisor carla who assured that the following day thursday I would get the garbage containers. When thursday came and no containers were delivered I spoke to supervisor trina and her supervisor amy, who said that route supervisor was out delivering the containers and that my address was on the route. Today is friday and I still dont have trash containers for my tenants. They moved in on the 1st have paid their rent and I cannot furnish a garbage container for them even though I opened the account on time. I have tried to complain to the wm's home office in houston texas, I have tried to put a complaint in the city of oakland, who is really at fault because they have created a monopoly in the city and there is no other company to go to.in the internet I have read all the horror stories related to this company and feel blessed that my story is not as bad as theirs. What can you do for me?

I just found out that this company has been chrging me for an extra trash can for probably the past 8 yrs. They use to charge me in a lump sum but recently the billing system changes in the city of south gate and now they break it down, which is when I noticed the fraudulent charges. I contacted the compnay but they have told me that they can only refund me for 12 months. They told me but they have not given me a credit. I am thinking of taking them to court. Any thoughts?

Waste mgnt did not pick up my green bin for two weeks, I called and they said sticks were were sticking out. My green bins go empty 80% of the year. These union workers need a smack upside the head. when the rest of us are out of work and they have their fat contract but won't make a little extra effort they are making a big lazy mistake. Because when they go up for a bid for the next contract I will make sure they don't get considered.

I rented a dumpster from waste managment for what was supposed to be eleven days, april 16 to april 26. The dumpster wasn't deliverd on the 16th, which was a friday. When I called to complain, I was told to call back on monday, becouse it was after normal buisness hours. The local office was only a few block away, so I drove by to see if anybody was there, which there was. The guy I talked too said told me I wasn't in their system to get a dumpster deliverd that day, even though I had a reciept showing that I was indead supposed to get one.
They sent someone out the next morning (saturday) to look at my property, and told me there was no way they could put the dumpster in the driveway, but they could leave it in the street if I had a permit from the city, which I couldn't get untill monday. So I finally got my dumpster 3 days late, and they they did manage to pick it up on time, but there's still the matter of the three days I paid for but didn't get.

Stay away from this company if you want a better life. Don't sign a contract with this company, or you will be locked forever since it requires you to send a termination letter between 90days to 120 days ahead of time if you don't want to renew your contract, and you know what, majority of people will forget after three years. If you signed a contract or the contract gets automatically renewed and you forget to canacel it, you will end up paying six months' liquidation damage (what is that?) if you want to terminate the service.

This company renewed our contract without a proper signature and on top of ir increased our rates even though they claimed we are under their contract. How does that work? Don't allow any employee to sign anything for waste management as you may be stuck in a deal you don't want.

Waste management is a bad trash company to be with. They took us over becasue tri-state went out of business and we never gto a letter stating they were taking over. Second bill with them and my fee with from $73 to $95 for once a week pick up. I call to cancel and they say they will give us a the same or better deal if I didn't go with allied. So I said fine. As of sat 9/19 I get a bill for another $95 and then today 9/20 I get a suspended notice for 20.01. They are liars to there word and its sad for a trash company to be like this and I will spread the word to never use this company ever.

I tried to cancel our waste management contract last summer and they said we had automatically rolled it over another 3 years by not responding to them so we had to wait until this year. I just tried to cancel. You have a small window to cancel and I was a month late to notify them that we wanted to discontinue service with them. We are now stuck with them for 3 more years. They get you to start their service with cheap prices and continually start charging more.