Arborcare gave us a quote of 4 hours work for removal of two maple trees, one which had fallen over.
The rep gave us a quote of 4 hours work, and explicitly removed travel time from the quote. He told us that once we initiated the work, we would be contacted to arrange a time for the crew to come by, since we have dogs in the yard. The receptionist took our credit card as security, assuring me that no charge would be made without my knowledge or authorization.
The crew arrived unannounced at 8am in the morning, with no call preceding their visit. Fortunately, I was just heading out to work, and was able to let them into the yard to do the work. However, I was very annoyed that we had received no advance notice as promised.
The crew worked quickly, were cordial, and very efficient. They completed the work in less than 2 hours, and left a tidy work area.
We waited nearly a month for an invoice to arrive. When looking at my credit card statement, I noticed a $700 charge for the work. Calculating the minimum visit noted on the quotation, this should have been a maximum charge of $520.
Calls to the office to dispute the charge generally were unsuccessful. After escalating to management, Arborcare offered to remove $100 from the cost, reducing the bill to around $600.
When challenging the additional cost above the minimum visit, we were informed that they were charging us travel time. When we pointed out that this was explicitly removed from the quotation, we were told that the sales representative did not have the right to do this.
We are very dissatisfied with the billing practices of this company.
First, we were charged without having ever seen an invoice for the work completed (it has yet to arrive), after being told explicitly that this would not happen.
Second, it is not our problem that your representative did not have the right to remove a fee. If it is on your quotation, you should honour it, not punish the customer for your representative's mistake.
