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This website claims to aid homeowners/business owners in the selection process for contractors who are reputable and trustworthy and to also inform the user of who to watch out for.
Here is the reality of Homestars.com/.ca;
They take money from contractors to list with them which completely negates their ability to offer a true unbiased opinion.
When questioned about this I was told that ' we take our site very seriously and accusations very seriously'. Since enlightening Homestars about one of their listed contractors and the fraud in which they engage, I have received no more responses to my claim about Homestars from Homestars.
They have no screening process for the contractors they list. Homestars is a bought and paid for listing service. Homestars concern is not aiding the unsuspecting homeowner but in their own bank account.
Homestars will edit/remove your comments and complaints without explanation or claim that the comment info is not substantiated, they do not apply this same editing to a contractor about to purchase their 'premium' listing service.
Be warned, Homestars is useless unless you are trying to attract potential victims.
I know because I am one of them. See my post on Hawthorne Kitchen Design
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! THAT'S HILARIOUS! $100 to start eh? Omg you guys are the biggest scammers out there! How is it that you guys are still in business?! Homestars is a complete and utter joke!
PREMIUM LISTING=pay through your ###! And apparently you guys just make it up as you go! How about what you offered me, $1200 for the year there was no offer for $100 trial you told me 12 month contract or nothing!
Let's start a petition to get these con artists out of business!
Non-premium members DO NOT get their reviews posted! We have done over 100 jobs from homestars and for 5 months straight did not receive any reviews despite over 35 customers contacting us telling us that they posted reviews, a few customers even told us that the review was posted then mysteriously disappeared. No matter what you Terry may say about homestars you guys are complete frauds and hey you're in it for the money thats cool we wouldn't go to work unless we were making money but your website is completely misleading to all homeowners and therefore should not be online. You are offering false reviews by picking and choosing which customer reviews go up and as far as your "automated fraud tracking system" goes does that include checking you guys yourselves for fraud? Because it should. Misleading a customer=fraud. You could be allowing con men to go rob customers blind while you sit behind your desk not allowing legitimate customer oriented businesses to have legitimate heartfelt reviews from actual happy paying customers posted.
As for you not hanging up on people, think about it Terry, actually think about it. You can lie to others but you know what you have done. Do an online search there are blogs all over the internet not just about homesteads but about you personally. People refer to you as unfriendly and cold and thats only people who have met you online.
gabes1mum, I am Terry Mardini. I have been part of the HomeStars team since June 1st 2006. FOR COMPANIES: you can be on HomeStars as a basic listing and your customers can still write reviews on your company. You can also use our Client tool to send out mass emails to your customers inviting them to write you reviews at HomeStars. For an enhanced listing, we call the Premium listing, you can load as many pictures as you like and get banners for more exposure within our site. The package is $100 to start and if you want more categories and additional service areas this costs more. At this time we do not have a merchant tool and our prices are not listed when you click the banner to upgrade. Since we don't have a merchant account yet, we don't ask for a credit card number and the company is under no obligation. Also, don't harass people or hang up on people mid sentence. That is just not my style (unless YOU were rude to me). One way or another, I don't recall such a conversation taking place. ABOUT THE REVIEWS: We do not pick and choose which review gets posted. We have recently implemented an automated tracking system that can track possible fraud immediately. In that case, the reviews must be investigated prior to being posted. The reviews are not posted until we get a response from the home owner confirming details about the work done and proof of purchase. Our website is built to give the home owner the best possible service, with regards to information they need to make a decision. It's been that way since the beginning. We do not claim to be 100% perfect, however we are trying to provide a great service and many people have told us we have. Regards, Terry Mardini ~ Director of Business Development at HomeStars.com
Terry how does it feel to work for a company that makes a living scamming hard working businesses and lets customers put hateful personal attacks without merit on your website?
Not true, we have someone posting a review who absolutely can not prove they have a contract with us. She even states she is posting for someone else . She names employees as well which I already read is not allowed. We also have proof this same personl is soliciting others to post reviews elsewhere that don't have any business dealing with us. That is not homestars concern I know, but it is still proof this person is doing what they can to ruin business and not giving a true review of work provided by a contractor to them as a client. We had your team review it and you still allowed it and not you are investigating our true customer review that were posted well over a month ago. Obviously flagged by the spam reviewer. IT not that hard, Simply ask us for the proof needed and we will provide. Endless emails to our pro adviser left unreturned . Only person who seems to care is the salesman that hooked us in to being with Homestars in the first place. Reviews do not work unless they are true, period. LEaves a contractor with no choice but to go seek a lawyer to have libel accusations and comments removed.
Homestars absolutely is misleading to consumers and I might even go a far to call it a fraudulet site. Here's why. Our company is on homestars we have been for some time now . When we first signed up about 3 weeks later Terry Mardini called and asked for the $1200 we owed them because our company had a premium listing. I posted the listing so I know that at no point did I sign up for a premium listing that would cost me $1200 paid up front for the year. That is their first scam because if you tell them no they will let you know that others companies banners will scroll above your ad and every so often after that they call to get you to pay them for the "premium" listing. Terry Mardini has even hung up the phone on us mid sentence when she realized we were still not paying for a listing on a site that is supposedly free for companies to post, and we are never rude to her despite her harassment.
Another thing to mention is that they pick and choose which reviews to post. Customers who found us on homestars are unable to post reviews because despite several attempts their reviews are not approved. So many many of our customers have complained about this to us and it is very frustrating because how can we accurately get an idea of how a company does business if homestars decides which customer reviews are allowed! This website has drawn a lot of business our way but if things continue this way we will be petitioning to have it taken down and will blog all over the Internet to let everyone know not to trust this site! Frauds, yes.
Just tried to look at your link, and it was still off..."This review is under review by the poster". It is quite surprising to me that they would even remove your opinion, because we have been falsely accused by a past client, on our profile, and they refuse to remove her comments, even though I have absolute proof that it is all lies...Even in the disclaimer it says that any reviews that are being questioned, will be immediately removed, and facts checked, but I am still waiting for them to care. They don't even care to review any proof that I have against this client. unbias? Sounds to me like that's a load of bull. And you are absolutely right that they do not screen the companies...anyone can go onto their site and "Create" a company...does not require any lisence numbers, proof of any work done, so virtually, anyone and their dog could go online and be a "Contractor." Also, anyone with a grudge against you, can look up your company and as long as they have a proper email address, can go online and slander your name as much as they want. Either way, this website is virtually useless...If you can't trust the companies to be legitimate, and you can't trust the reviews online, then how can you trust any of the information on it? If you ask me, anyone that wants to put up an add for their company, should have some kind of credentials, or proof of the work they say they can do, and also some kind of proof from clients for good and bad reviews, then it could be a heck of alot more reliable. This way, it's just a bunch of he said, she said, and who likes to play that game with their money, time, or businesses. And by the way, if you start a profile on Homestars.com...you can never remove it. This is not funny...
I am the President of Homestars and feel it important to respond here in addition to having answeredPSR directly,
We are a review site, similar to this one, only focussed quite specifically on Home Improvement.
I wrote this to PSR:
"Companies don't pay to be listed. They pay for premium listings which enhance their profile and their SEO. Any one can list their company, and anyone can write a review on any company - paying or non paying, as long as it fall in our guidelines. "
We did post PSR's review on Hawthorne Kitchen on the site.
http://homestars.com/reviews/41891?company_id=209492
It is possible that PSR hired Hawthorne based on a single review. Fair enough. There are plenty of Kitchen Companies with over 15-20 reviews, which of course, reduces the risk of hiring based on a single review.
If you want to look around the site and check out premium and basic companies the reviews are applied fairly between them. If we didn't do that, we lose trust, our most important commodity in this market. If we didn't to that companies wouldn't want to be listed on the site, nor pay for premium listings, because the credibility we bring to the table wouldn't be there.
Feel free to let us know more. If you think there is some bias to reviews on our site, please let us know. We don't see it, but are open to looking for it.
Dear President of homestars, do you think it is fair business practices to allow to publish and refuse to remove a comment that untruthfully calls a business owner a creep. This personal attack is so unprofessional and hurtful . However you look at this, spin it, or justify it, it is just WRONG. We have families, customers and children. To allow a spiteful customer to put personal attacks againest a person on your website it not good for anyone. I have no issues with your company allowing proven facts to be printed about workmanship, service ect but this is a level of disgust that is unwarranted. JESSICA DECKERT SOOKRAM should not be able to print her personal attacks on our employee and you protect her,
HomeStars (HS)advertise me during 4 years through publishing the reviews of my clients.During this time I have 128 positive reviews with 10 out of 10 score and 3 times was the Best of the Year. Unfortunately the last review was not as high.After the conversation with the client we found common ground and the review was removed. After this HS put the warning red frame with ambiguous comments : "...We also keep these flags up to alert those considering hiring the company Sometimes a homeowner feels compelled to remove their review due to negative encouragement by the company. In these cases, the user does not feel comfortable keeping their review posted and will ask us to remove it. While we do remove the review, the impact of the user's review is still taken into consideration..."These comments were posted without any contacts with me or client ( I ask the client ).The words of HS create the impression that my company is not trustworthy and I am bulling the client ( both is not true ). Anybody who reads this comments would stay away from my company.
Two times I contacted HS asking for explanations with no responses.It looks like instead of helping to good contractors to run there business the HS in certain situations is ruining there reputation.
Take your hard earned dollar and advertise in your local paper. Send Homestars packing.
A little advice from one previously signed up contractor who has learned the disappointing truth about Homestars to ALL other contractors. Take your hard earned dollar and advertise in your local community newspaper.