Cover-up of Complaints, Deceiving the Public, Unanswered inquires, Suspicious and Awkward Arbitration Demanding, Misinformation, Untrustworthy company.
I filed 2 complaints against a roofing company for 2 separates contracts (roofing jobs) on January 19 on the BBB website. The roofing company was not responding and BBB never posted that there was a complaint pending against it. After several of my inquires on March 7 I was told that my complaint was forwarded to the trade practice department. BBB never answered my questions in what time frame the company is supposed to respond. Finally at the end of March I found out that the roofing company rebuttals were posted with date of March 15 and both complaints were closed. I was not given a chance to provide a consumer rebuttal. I was supposed to be informed about any response by email and I was not. I believe that the March 15 postings of the roofing company's rebuttals were backdated. This shows an unequal handling. The roofing company was given almost 2 months to respond and I had no opportunity to submit a Consumer Rebuttal. Of course the roofing company Complaint statistics still show zero complaints. There are no rules posted on the BBB website stating what the time frame allotted for a response is before the case is closed. I made several email and phone call inquires after I found both cases were closed and received no answer. The phone calls ended up on answering machines and were never returned. Finally I gave up.
Late August I received a first class letter from BBB dated August 23. The letter states: The agreement around which your dispute centers provides some type of payment, whether attorney fees, costs, or something else, to prevailing party by the opposing party. Because recently enacted law prohibits us from arbitrating a dispute that contains this type of provision, we must have a waiver of the provision in order to proceed with the arbitration. Will you please sign the waiver enclosed and return it to me? If we do not receive the waiver by 9/2/05, we will close our file
I decided not to sign the letter, I did not want to arbitrate. I did not pay the roofing company so why should I initiate arbitration? Furthermore, I was given only a few days for the waiver to be mailed in. What if I had wanted to mail it and was not at home those days? The case would be closed if it suited BBB. Please, read what happened next
On October 24 I received letters dated October 21, from BBB requesting me to fill and mail form Demand for Arbitration. If the form is not received by October 31 the BBB would proceed to the next step. I was given hardly 3 days to fill out the form and request arbitration that I do not want! I feel that I need at least 30 days to gather all the information I need and get estimates to correct the roofing job. The letter included Uniform Rules for Binding Arbitration, which do not include the time frame allotted to respond to various inquires. How can BBB demand responses in such a short period of time. It's harassment! I am often away from home for several weeks. Do they consider such events? Will I loose the case if I do not respond? I emailed and called, and BBB gracefully extended my time for 1 week or until 11/07/05. Threatening again that if my response is not received by then, they will proceed to the next step. This means that they will proceed with arbitration without Demand! Yes, they are pushing me to write the Demand for arbitration, not the response.in the documentation they sent I am listed as the Initiator, the respondent is the roofing company and it's unsigned response to my nonexistent Demand is already included. How awkward!
I also inquired about the waiver BBB requested in order to be able to proceed with the arbitration which I refused to provide in August. The answer was: In reality, the Waiver is REQUIRED by the company only. Can you trust them? I do not!!!
Any advice will be sincerely appreciated.
JK
Orange County, California
U.S.A.
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