$10,000 Honor Guarantee question

What difference does that make?

If the content is stolen it doesn’t make it OK if it is in a different work area :roll:

This is certainly NOT an honest mistake from a thief proclaiming to have an “Honor Guarantee” luring the unsuspecting public into becoming theft victims themselves.

The thief has been contacted, but response is contingent upon how diligently the thief maintains his business and marketing materials with the stolen property of others.

I say if you asked him to cease & desist from his plagiarism, and he refuses, reveal him to everyone here for what he is.

Google will penalize him as well once they catch on.

Jim read slower (post #19). We have every intention of honoring every promise we make, even if we rarely need to.

I agree with Kevin.

Also, on that note (this is for Jim in particular), I have to honor hundreds, maybe even thousands of promises each day at InterNACHI. If my personal character was that of someone who regularly failed to fulfill those promises, you’d find zillions of complaints about me on this message board and the rest of the internet.

And while I’m 1/2 thinking about marketing, members who are insured may want to consider using this phrase on their websites “Bonded and Insured” as all members of InterNACHI are covered under our Honor Guarantee (which is technically a fidelity bond).

It is not a fidelity bond. If it were, Nick would be licensed to provide it.

Inspectors promising to the public that they are bonded when they are not can get into serious trouble. If the truth matters to you and your business you will not advertise that you are “bonded” because of this particular gimmick.

Wrong Jim. I would need a license to sell it to non-members. Remember, unlike other vendors, InterNACHI (as a non-profit, federally tax exempt association ) enjoys First Amendment constitutional protection. In-house, we can do almost anything we want including selling alcohol without a liquor license (again though, only to our own members).

www.nachi.org/honor.htm is and has been (for many years) an awesome, free, legal marketing tool for members. I’m proud to say that we’ve never had a single claim.

Former NACHI vendor, Mike Napadow, would agree with you.

In one regard, you are right. You can call whatever you want to call any gimmick you wish to push.

The inspector, however, is legally and individually accountable for what he tells his client it is.

Big difference, Nick.

Telling a home buyer that they are “bonded” when they are not can get a home inspector into some serious trouble … and telling the authorities “But Nick said it is okay”, while it might get a laugh or two, won’t help much.

Former NACHI vendor, Mike Napadow, would agree with you.

In one regard, you are right. You can call whatever you want to call any gimmick you wish to push.

The inspector, however, is legally and individually accountable for what he tells his client it is.

Big difference, Nick.

Telling a home buyer that they are “bonded” when they are not can get a home inspector into some serious trouble … and telling the authorities “But Nick said it is okay”, while it might get a laugh or two, won’t help much.

So Jim, you post a link to a court case that has nothing to do with our Honor Guarantee to make your post seem like you are citing some court ruling that supports your contention that I need a license to provide it to members. No one is fooled by that Jim. And if they are fooled by you, they don’t have to use the marketing tool. It’s been in use all over North America for many years and we will continue providing it to members for many years.

No I didn’t. I posted a link to a court case where another guy selling something he called insurance on this message board, but wasn’t, went to jail.

The State of Alabama requires home inspectors to provide a real fidelity bond.

Please post something from the State of Alabama that accepts your honor logo thingy gimmick as a fulfillment of that requirement. That should be something quick and easy to do.

And any thief who pays for membership via profits from others stolen hard work and property can be covered by this “bond” so they can dupe unsuspecting homeowners into becoming theft victims of a meritless “Honor Guarantee” as well.

Quick and easy, right?

Can a home inspector in Alabama put your honor logo gimmick on his website and, with no other bonding in effect, follow your advice and advertise that he is “bonded”?

Or will he, instead, be in violation of his state law?

Like Nick said … he can give his gimmicks whatever names he wants to when he is giving it to* you*.

But when you pass that gimmick it on to a consumer … you better be in compliance with your state law.

The Alabama Department of Insurance and the Alabama Building Commission already both looked at it years ago. The Building Commission determined it would not fulfill their needs (all bond requirements are different) but had no objection to us providing it. The Alabama Department of Insurance said that we “probably” couldn’t provide it to anyone outside of our association. So we’re fine in Alabama and many members have used/advertised it for many years in Alabama.

Alberta (or maybe it was British Columbia, I can’t remember) requires a bond for inspectors too. They essentially ruled similarly: It doesn’t meet their needs (If I recall, it was because they wanted a surety bond, not a fidelity bond) but that they had no objection to us providing it to our members either.

We didn’t create the program to cover theft (as I explained, we’ve never had a claim and don’t expect one) and we didn’t create the program to fulfill any particular home inspection licensing requirements either (and we don’t plan on ever seeking approval for such a purpose). We created it as a free, marketing tool that we provide to OUR InterNACHI members and OUR InterNACHI members only.

Years ago when we launched it, we wrote every office of insurance a letter alerting them to it and requesting they inform us if they had any issues with it. Few replied (I recall, a few reminded us that we couldn’t sell it outside of InterNACHI) and none objected.

Also, I have no objection to any member directing any government official to www.nachi.org/honor.htm and requesting their opinion or position on it again. You would not be the first to ask a government agency to take another look at it. About a year after we launched it, another national association sent a complaint letter to many (probably all, I don’t know) states about it. No government official had an issue with it then either. I’ll immediately let everyone know if any government agency ever changes its position.

In other words … an inspector in Alabama CAN NOT use your gimmick as a “fidelity bond” and would violate state law if he called himself “bonded” with nothing but your gimmick and the logo on his website.

That is exactly what I said.

You can call it a bond when you pass it off as a recruiting tool to motivate new membership enrollments … but that does not mean an inspector can call it a bond in his advertising, because it is not. It is a promotional gimmick that can end at any moment and has no verifiable financial or contractual backing like a real fidelity bond.

That’s true, but not just for the inspection industry. Theoretically, a soft-hearted thief who feels sorry for his victims can buy a fidelity bond to make his victims whole after he steals from them. Sounds very unlikely, but I’m not aware of any law that would prohibit it.