Appleseed Barrhaven/ Westend

I have been using Appleseed Barrhaven/Westend for the past 3 winters and they have consistently provided good service. This is the only company that I know of that provides by email ... notifications of what is happening with the weather/snow clearing and alerts for when the tractor is in your area. Even though the contract clearly states that they will be out once 5 cm of snow has fallen, they have more than once done courtesy clearing of my laneway. With the amount of snow we've had, especially this year ... this can't be any easy job. Kudos to all the staff at Appleseed for doing a great job in adverse conditions! I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this company.

Condascending greetings from Appleseed in Mexico! I complained to Appleseed in December 2013 that my drive way was not plowed by 10pm after 2 days of snow (approx 30 cm) nor were my Appleseed neighbours' driveways in Winding Way who signed up with Appleseed. All the other neighbours with another snowplow service had their driveways plowed twice over the same time period. We were stuck in our driveways. The owner Ken was very rude and insulting to me and my husband and told his driver to remove the stakes from my driveway because I dared to complain. His driver admitted that they FORGOT ABOUT WINDING WAY AND THAT THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN HERE AT NOON AND AGAIN AT SIX. Ken wrote us to say that I was a rich snob and I should learn to shovel my own driveway and he also wrote that money doesn't buy class! Ken must feel very frustrated with his many many unhappy customers in Winding Way and all over the city. My two other neighbours also terminated their contracts with Appleseed because he told them in an e-mail to "deal with it " when Appleseed did not plow their driveways last week. Ken admitted that he lives in Mexico all winter long "unlike us working stiffs" and does not return to Ottawa until April. He threatened my husband by saying he will "pay a visit when he returns from Mexico and it won't be pleasant" I recommend that he be put out of business or else provide the service people paid for without excuses from MEXICO!!! Ken is a bully who intimidates his customers to accept bad service with the use of silly e-mail notices about "being naughty or nice"...ridiculous...just do your job and stop slacking off in Mexico! Everyone else is working except you!!! When one pays for snowplowing service, one does not expect this type of arrogant, bullying, intimidating, insulting, unprofessional threatening behaviour. Spread the word and don't hire them ever again.

- Poor service.
- Incredibly rude response by the owner Ken.
- Completely useless 'NexTraq Alert' emails.

I contracted Appleseed to clear our double driveway this winter (2013-14) and although our driveway was staked with Appleseed posts, for the very first snowfall (Wed, Nov 27) they failed to show up at all the entire day. My next door neighbor also paid for Appleseed, and he decided to shovel it himself that day.

I had received several 'NexTraq Alert' emails from Appleseed indicating their plows were in our neighborhood, and emails from Ken himself asking people to be patient, so I decided to have faith that they would eventually show up before the next morning, but I was wrong. I woke to find that they had still not come by, and there was still a huge (now frozen solid) mound of snow at the end of our driveway.

At 7:00 am, I decided to call Appleseed and they apologized and promised to have a plow come by sometime that morning. When I arrived home from work I found that they did indeed come by to plow, however the driver chose to just do a "quick pass" which means they purposely leave approx. 2 feet uncleared on each side of the driveway. I received another “snow update” email from Ken Dale indicating that all driveways which only had a "quick pass" would be "cleared to full width" later that day.

The entire 2nd day now passed, and still no plow had come by to clear the driveway to "full width".

The following is a series of emails that occurred between myself and Ken. It should be noted that during this entire matter, I only called their office one time (the morning of Thursday, Nov 28) and I was very nice during that call, and I also only sent one email to their office, which is the first email shown below.

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On Friday, Nov 29, I decided to send this email to Appleseed:

>> I really cannot understand why my driveway has not been cleared to full width.

>> I called yesterday morning to report that my driveway had been forgotten altogether on the day of the storm (Wednesday), and Ken himself called me yesterday morning to say that he would ensure my driveway was done sometime in the morning.

>> When I got home after work, I could tell that someone had come by, but there are still 2-foot sections on both sides of the driveway that are not cleared at all.

>> I simply do not understand why the driver does not clear the full width. The “snow update” email yesterday indicated that the drivers would be going out again to clear driveways to “full width”, but of course this has not been done at my address.

>> Why would the driver not just do the full width? I makes no sense to me that he should do less than the full width, and then customers should have to wait, and cross their fingers, hoping that someone will eventually return to complete the task.

>> I would love an explanation, and also would really appreciate if you would send a drive to complete the job!

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I received this response from Ken:

>> If you are not staked...thats the problem...he wont go wide until staked.

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I sent this reply to Ken:

>> We are clearly staked.

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Ken decided to drive to our address to take a photo of our driveway, and then sent me this incredibly rude email with the photo attached:

>> You're kidding right?
>> Sir?
>> THIS is what you have been calling, emailing, insulting my office about?
>> Give me a BREAK here!
>> It is done, no plow dumps....there is about 1 cm of snow here!
>> Do NOT harrass us again unless you have a legitimate complaint!
>> Ken

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I sent this reply to Ken:

>> At what point did I insult and harass your office?

>> I complained that my driveway was completely forgotten on Wednesday, and that when it was cleared yesterday it was not done at full width, which is clearly visible from your picture.

>> I think it is appropriate to cancel my contract at this time.

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In Ken's email, he mentions 1cm of snow. He is referring to the center area of the driveway which was done in a "quick pass". Both sides of the driveway still had 2-foot wide areas, and at least 1-foot high, which is what I was complaining about.

I immediately called the Appleseed office to explain that I wanted to cancel my contract, and I was told that I would receive a call from a district manager. I did not receive a call from anyone, and since my credit card had still not been charged I decided to just assume the contract would be cancelled. 2 days later I noticed that someone had come to remove the Appleseed stakes from our driveway, so now I knew for sure that the contract had been cancelled.

I was simply going to forget the entire experience, but now I just noticed that Appleseed has charged my credit card $35, exactly one month after all of this happened. I just called Appleseed and the lady was very nice, and she said that she cannot find any record of this charge, but they will have their accounting department investigate. I will now wait to see if the $35 charge gets reversed, of if Ken will insist that this is what he wanted to charge me for the "quick pass" that was done on Thursday, Nov 28.

One final note... In my humble opinion, a grand total of one email and one polite phone call does not constitute "calling, emailing, insulting my office".

Very bad service, always remind by phone to remove the snow, always done at very late time (5pm to 11pm) next day, you need to go out, then you do it yourself, called and complained 3 times no respond, my front neighbor has a different company and he receive their service twice on the big fall while I am looking for a wish list of one time!,!
Get away

Extremely poor service. The attitude of office staff is rude. Never shows up even six hours later of snow storm. If show up doesn't even clean properly.
I had to call 3 times before anyone shows up. Very very bad service. I will never recommend this company to anyone. If you call they will tell you we are very busy like it's our fault that we hired them. Don't bother complaining to BBB, they don't take any action b/c all they care is their annual fee from business. It's a rip off company beware of before hiring them you will be stranded in a snow storm. I have pictures but don't know how to download on this Site but if anyone needs I can send to you.
Thanks.

Despite having a contract with Appleseed to remove snow from our driveway AND walkway, they never showed up on Wednesday, November 27th after an overnight snowfall. To add insult to injury, we paid extra to have the snow removed from our driveway in the civic hospital area by 10 am. the day of a snow.

Their voice mail is full and they do not respond to email. There are reputable snow removal firms out there. This is not one of them.

We have Applseed plow our driveway and shovel the front steps to the house. We had a major snow on Wed. Feb 27/13 , by Friday, our steps were still under 30 cm snow. I called 3 times over 48 hours, by Sat noon, three days later, no one had showed up even though the receptionist each time on Friday and Sat that she was sending someone right away. I asked to speak to a manager and she told me there is no manager till Monday. I asked her to confirm that even though i am asking to speak to a manager on Saturday, she is telling me that no one is able to call me back till Monday, At this point she said i was putting words in her mouth, and just hung up on me.
I expect since these guys have already been paid for the season, they don't care about costumer satisfaction. I had to hire someone else to do the job and will bill Appleseed. I would avoid these guys next year.