B&A Power Washing
reviews and complaints

On 7/8/08, I spoke with B&A owner/manager Brandon Frye regarding this matter and we settled it amicably.

To clarify something in Mr Frye's rebuttal, this matter was never, I repeat NEVER, about us trying to skip out on paying a bill. It was always about not paying for something I never received, about B&A sending the matter to collections, and our logical assumption that our credit reporting would be marred.

Another clarification, we rescheduled for Friday, 5/16/08, not Saturday, 5/17/08. I know this because we have every other Friday off and we always schedule things such as this for those days only. The invoice we received on 5/17/08 was delivered via USPS Mail, which is delivered at approximately 11:30a.m., with a post-mark from 20152, which I believe is a Chantilly, VA, location. We were home all morning...I know this, too, because Saturday's are our days to catch up on sleep we miss during the week and/or just laze around the house...hence why we schedule things such as this for our Fridays off.

Now, because Mr. Frye included my home telephone number in his rebuttal (which he should not have done since my personal identifying information isn't public information without my last name to search on google and/or white pages), I invite anybody still reading this to do a google search on reverse phone number look-up, find my address and drive-by to take a look at my house for yourself. Better yet, call the # and you'll see my phone works just fine. I'll give you directions to my house. From the street, which you'll appreciate once you are in front of my house and see how far away you really are at street level, you’ll easily see the orange/rust colored stain on one of the upper story window casings. It’s been there probably two years, maybe longer. It’s either from the A/C run-off from the attic or a pteradactyl flew over and aimed just right. Ask my neighbors how loud my tiny and ancient electric power-washing machine is and just how long it took me to wash just the porch area three weeks ago...which had grown to embarrassing proportions with all the cobwebs and bug corpses. We don’t use the front door so we are hardly ever on the porch. When new guests arrive, it was embarrassing for us that they had to walk thru unseen webs and crunch bugs under their shoes...so I caved in, rolled up my sleeves, and washed this area myself...soon realizing I should’ve worn a bathing suit because within minutes I was soaked. But the shutters look good after I applied many squirts of Armor-All and lots of elbow grease. Then, take a look at the wood decking...I started power-washing the floor but quickly realized how much effort that was going to be so I stopped. About two square feet were done...same goes for the cement side-walk. But you are welcome to come around to the back deck, if you don’t mind large dogs greeting you...you can write “Joe was here on x/x/xx” in the very visible dust, dirt, muck, grime, whatever it is, on the siding. There’s no way anybody with even a tiny bit of vision could mistake that for having been on the receiving end of soap and water and power...just not possible.

I did not initially contact B&A on 5/17/08 when the first bill arrived via US Mail because I was hopeful it was just an oversight. I just assumed the bill was produced during a mass mailing for outstanding bills (because the bill listed 5/2/08 as the date of service provided) and was printed prior to them removing us from their system. Afterall, we advised them on 5/16/08, after their second no-show, that we’d have to find another company. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have contacted them immediately. When the second bill arrived on 6/21/08 with the notice that it had been sent to collections...well, let’s just say my back went up and the claws came out. My husband and I have strived since day one to maintain and strengthen our credit rating. To be told a matter was sent to collections, we knew credit reporting wasn’t far behind. And since I knew I wasn’t paying for something I didn’t receive, I sent B&A an email advising them of their error and further advised I’d have to take other action if I received another bill.

The response I got back from B&A did not address my issue and it was obvious the email was not read, or not understood...which prompted my second, and admittedly much more rude, email. The two excerpts in Mr. Frye’s rebuttal are my words in those emails; however, those two excerpts are out of order. When I received my third bill, I was forced to take the actions I said I would. These actions were not threats as Mr. Frye contends in his rebuttal, they were facts. I don’t mince words, I mean what I say, I say what I mean. The response I received from B&A on 7/5/08 was “sounds great...”. Obviously getting a serious response from B&A was not going to happen. Following the recommendations found on Federal Trade Commission’s website for issues consumers have with businesses, I followed the prescribed path with one exception...I did not contact the media...which would have been next along with a lawyer.

When the phone calls finally, FINALLY, started coming from B&A, I did not immediately return them. (BTW, our phone works fine, our house phone hardly ever rings because most people know to call our cells, and our caller ID does not have any of B&A’s #s in its memory until Monday, 7/7/08.) On Monday, 7/7/08, I was not able to return their calls. Tuesday, 7/8/08, I was at work and knew I’d get loud and unprofessional in my office space so I initially avoided answering my phone when their phone # appeared. Unfortunately, my automatic voice message provides an emergency number for a coworker. Mr. Frye, not knowing who my contact # was going to be, a subordinate, a manager, a boss, or an executive, called my emergency contact #. He was very loud with her, as if she had any part in this situation. He was so loud, in fact, I, as well as others in the vicinity, could hear him clearly. My coworker ultimately had to excuse herself from the conversation because she herself was getting louder and abruptly discontinued the call.

In Mr. Frye’s rebuttal, he obviously stands behind his employees, which I applaud because that’s a wonderful trait for a manager...I should know, I used to train newly hired supervisors. Unfortunately, the technician who was assigned our house washing is mistaken. That, or s/he went to the wrong house because ours is still dirty. And, BTW, this technician no longer works for B&A.

Was this an unfortunate situation? Yes. Did this rise to unnecessary levels? Probably. Did my actions of contacting appropriate authorities/entities finally get their attention? You bet.

The bottomline is this: Today, 7/8/08, Mr. Frye offered to come out to my house, take a look at the siding and offered to wash the siding and clean the gutters free of charge. While that was certainly a gracious offer, it is not the remedy sought. I’m not about getting something for free. I only wanted a letter or email verifying that this matter is considered closed and no further billings will be sent, which I received today. I promised to retract or edit my comments made online and discontinue any cases opened by the proper authorities, which I’m doing now.

Lastly, there are plenty of websites where other B&A customers have applauded the services they’ve received. Mr. Frye is obviously passionate about his business and reputation, which I completely understand and respect. Likewise, I’m passionate about my squeaky clean credit report and for not paying for things I didn’t get. I certainly hope Mr. Frye does not still have doubt about whether or not services were rendered. I can not express nor explain any more clearly that our house has not seen soap-n-water in the eight years it’s been built, except for the porch I did myself!

If Mr. Frye is reading this, I have some recommendations:
a) if it’s within your budget, get tracking devices on your vehicles so that you can specifically see if your vehicles are where they are (or were) supposed to be;
b) print mapquest or similar driving directions prior to the technicians leaving the office. My house is extremely easy to get to...from the capitol beltway there are only four turns to my street;
c) I used to work in pest-control many many years ago and we had gauges on the hand-held chemicals to track how much chemical was used during any one visit. I recommend something similar as a back-up tool. (Granted, a less-than-honest tech could just dump it on the ground, but it’s still a tool.); and, probably most importantly...
d) watch-dog who’s responding (and what they’re saying) to the emails you receive at info@bapowerwash.com. The few I received with no names were certainly not great representations for your business and was one of the two catalysts deciding the avenue I pursued.

Customer Satisfaction Guarenteed
Customer had scheduled a window washing & house wash for 5/02/2008. We could not locate the customers property in St. lenord, Md(actually came up Port Republic, MD) and called customer for directions. Customers home phone [protected] rang busy everytime we called. Therefor the work could not be completed on that date for failure to locate house.
We spoke with customer and rescheduled house wash for the 17th. The house washed was completed and we left an invoice.
We never heard anything from the customer again until 2 weeks ago when they received their bill. We then get the following email. Please see excerpts from the customers email.

'Do you or do you not understand plain English? We are NOT remitting payment for $219. You obviously don't seem to understand my problem. For the last time, here it is again, and I suggest you read this very carefully or you find somebody who does understand ENGLISH so they can translate this into simple terms for you because I certainly can't make this any clearer myself:

We NEVER received services from BA POWERWASHING. Our house siding was NEVER powerwashed by BA POWERWASHING. BA POWERWASHING has NEVER been to our home. NEVER EVER NEVER EVER HAS BA POWERWASHING STEPPED FOOT ON OUR PROPERTY. DO YOU GET IT NOW?'

This is taken directly from customers email. We invoice customers after the work is completed if there would have been a problem we would have sent our tech right back out to the property but to be treated like this is absolutely horrendous. We have been in business for over 16 years. We take customer satisfaction very seriously and have been trying to resolve this with customer to no avail. We have called customer several times the phone number given is still busy and the work number we have no one ever answers how do suppose with fix any problems with service when we can not get a hold of the customer. We have responded to every email and have done our part. If you would like to remedy the situation please contact our office and ask for Brandon he is the owner and would like to speak to you personally.

here is another excerpt from customers email-

'So here's my 'ATTENTION': If we receive another bill/invoice for SERVICES NOT RENDERED, we will consider this harassment and will take appropriate action; i.e., the Better Business Bureau will be contacted; local courthouses and business licensing bureaus in Maryland, DC, and Virginia will be contacted; the IRS will be advised of your billing practices; the US Postal Service will be contacted for possible mail fraud; and, the FBI's Fraud Schemes will be contacted...just to name a few off the top of my head. '

Basically customer would like to not pay for service rendered or she will report us to every Internet consumer reporting agency. Which she is following through with her threats. We as a company have to stand behind our employee who states that the work has been completed.

We have been trying the customers phone number everyday to speak her about these issues but until her phone gets fixed or they pay thier phone bill it rings busy.