I wanted to share a frustrating experience I recently had with HomeAdvisor’s $750 prepay promotion, hoping it can help some of you avoid the same headache. HomeAdvisor offered a deal where you prepay $750, and if you don’t close on the first 10 jobs, they promise to refund your money. It sounded like a good opportunity to get more work, especially when you’re trying to grow your business.
Well, I gave it a try, but things didn’t go as planned. I didn’t close on the first 10 jobs, so I requested the refund, assuming it would be a smooth process. That’s where things went sideways. They refused to give me my money back, pointing to stipulations that were never brought up in any of our conversations. These stipulations were hidden in the contract, but they weren’t clearly explained upfront when they pitched the promotion to me.
I understand that contracts are important, but transparency is just as crucial. Had I known about these extra conditions, I might not have gone forward with the deal. Instead, I feel like I was misled, which is incredibly frustrating when you’re just trying to run your business.
I wanted to post this as a heads-up to anyone considering HomeAdvisor or similar promotions. Make sure to ask every possible question and read the fine print carefully. Don’t assume that the verbal pitch tells the whole story—because in my case, it definitely didn’t.
We already have, many times!
If you had bothered to visit the MB since you joined 1.5 years ago, you would already have this valuable information, and kept your $750!!
You can’t blame this on Home Advisor or any other lead generating company. The fact that you were supplied with 10 leads and didn’t close on one of the leads is your fault.
It’s a hard pill to swallow, but if you want a successful home inspection business, you need to be a good salesman first to capture your client and a good home inspector second to keep your client and generate more clients.
Once you have a few years under your belt, you don’t need to be a salesman anymore.
There are some of us that had great success with lead generating companies, and others that didn’t. I suspect the others that didn’t have success didn’t put the work into their business that they needed to.
Thank you for your response and for sharing your insights. I fully understand the importance of being a strong salesperson, especially in the early stages of building a successful business. However, I do believe it’s important to note that not all of the responsibility falls on me. While I acknowledge that I could have handled some leads better, the fact remains that many inquiries were not serious or were better suited to specialists. Whether or not I closed on these jobs doesn’t change the fact that HomeAdvisor’s $750 promotion should be approached with caution, based on my experience.
If you’ve had success with lead-generating services, that’s fantastic, and I’m glad to hear it’s worked for you. My intention here is more of a heads-up to other inspectors, rather than a definitive statement on whether one should or shouldn’t use them. It just seems that in my area, it hasn’t been as beneficial.
When I first started, I heard them out and listened to their pitch. After about 45 minutes on the phone, I told them I would think about it. That really pissed them off! I feel bad for the poor gal that spent so much time with me and didn’t close the deal. Her manager called me the next day and wanted to know where things went wrong and why I didn’t sign up. The manager actually became quite rude with me. That’s when I knew the company (Angi or whatever at the time) was a joke.
Before HomeAdvisor they were ServiceMagic, I used their services like 17 years ago and for the first couple of years I was very happy with the service, but then like all of a sudden I noticed all these bogus calls were coming in that I was being charged for, so I cancelled and never looked back.
A company that makes an offer like that IMO is showing desperation, and I think it’s safe to say that there was never any intention of paying you back your $$$.
You fell for the old “refundable deposit trick”…which is probably the second oldest trick in the book…I kinda miss the days when you could just put an add in the yellow pages and be done with it. Now you get thousands of annoying calls and have to constantly relearn an overly complex online advertising system…it’s exasperating…
How were they not transparent on their terms? I’ll give you a hint their agreement is online. Verify they’re not transparent at 1.A.ii. Of the agreement
I’ve never used HA, although I did try Yelp once for a few months. They send the same lead to 4-6 competitors, who all end up vying for the same job, so yes- sales skills were key- building a rapport was more important than anything else. Often, the potential customer was just looking for the lowest cost, and simply used Yelp to thin the field. That was a different industry, where “free estimates” are commonplace- and can easily put you out of business. My biggest gripe with Yelp was their algorithm that might inexplicably delete a review if the customer didn’t already rank high enough on Yelp, or their review wasn’t detailed enough- they don’t actually explain how their algorithm works. That, and the fact that Google reviews are worth way more than Yelp reviews. But, I might try it again, because I am starting out in a huge market with dozens of competitors, so competing with 4 or 5 for an inspection might be helpful to me. Angi, though? I wouldn’t send them a nickel. Way too dishonest. First, they charge a fee both to the business, and to the customer. Their sales tactic (Yelp does similar) is “We have 30 people looking for your services right now in your area”. The number keeps going up until you either give in, or convince them to never call again. I lived in a really rural area at the time- unincorporated, just a place name covering maybe 40 families, including several farms. Angi would tell me there were 65 people looking for my service in my town. REALLY?? I used to tell my friends that even 911 didn’t know where I lived. LOL
