Sued By A Domestic Cleaning Company

[Distressed 0]

I was sourcing for pre-moving cleaning service from the web for my mom's new house. Earlier this year, i had engaged another company at a better price to clean my own house. Alas, that company was already fully booked for the week.

Then, i chanced upon this "MOM approved licensed agency", a DOMESTIC cleanng agency and decided to give it a go. I made an appointment happily and took half day leave, thinking that i can be there for my mom and ensure the house is cleaned to satisfaction before payment would be made. In all, i had made a total of 3 calls to the company, which i think were all attended by the same guy. (1st call to enquire, 2nd to confirm, 3rd to reconfirm on the day of appt)

The day came and as i was making way to the house from office, i received a call from my mom that the cleaners were there BUT the supervisor with the cleaners DEMANDED that full payment of $300 be made first. I was shocked. I immediately call back the company and was told that that's their conditions, and it was stated that payment to be made upon commencement.

I was very upset but i refused to accept the strict terms and told the the guy that we were not engage the service, which he promptly agreed. When i met my mom, i was told that the supervisor was a relatively old man who was rude to her. When the supervisor was asked how can she be sure that the cleaners would do a satisfactory job when payment is made upfront, he brushed her aside and said the company is MOM approved and anyway, he would come pick up the cleaners.

(These are certainly not assuring to 1st-time customers)

My mom and I were very upset because she had planned the move to her house on a tight schedule and i had especially taken time off. Only to receive such service. But that's not all.

I wanted to give feedback to the company, but realised there was no such portal available in their website. (To me, the website is well-maintained but does not have such a place for anyone to give feedbacks. The only way seemed to be to call). I scrutinised the website saw nowhere that says PAYMENT TO BE MADE BEFORE COMMENCEMENT.

I chanced upon their advertisement in the ST701 website and saw that i could "SHARE MY COMMENTS", and i did. Here's what i commented:

Subject: Payment required before starting work! I sent them home.

Pre-moving cleaning. I called in once to enquire, once to confirm, once to double confirm and i was NEVER told that i had to make payment before commencement. Granted it was subtly mentioned in the confirmation sms, sent a day before. The supervisor with the cleaners was rude. We refused to give in and sent them away. I will never engage D's service anymore and will warn my relatives, friends, colleagues of them.

For info, i engaged the same service with another company few mths ago with no such terms.

Now, i've engaged another company whose terms is to receive payment only upon satisfaction of service.

Within 30 minutes, i received a call from the same company, same guy who attended to me. He told me the payment terms were stated in confirmation sms! (which i agreed. It was sent the day before), that i had to remove my comments because (something like) they are not true and defamed them.

I said i was not told in all those phone conversations about the payment term, and in fact, i am not new to the pre-moving cleaning service. Most importantly, I refused to remove the comments as they ARE truth to me. The guy then said they would take legal action to me (if any) blah blah. <end of conversation>

I was very frustrated. Instead of taking in my comments, they threatened me with lawsuit!

Another 30 minutes later, he called again in nasty tone and said he is going to send me a lawyer letter and i better get a lawyer. I was dumbfounded. But i was angry that i chickened out. I have my personal lawyer but i loathe the hassle. I actually asked how to settle this issue, and not that the COMMENT was made and published for less than 2 hrs only.

Now then i realised this guy is one of the 2 owners of the company, Keith Yew. He replied very nastily "Sorry, pls get your lawyer to talk to my lawyer. We have a chance in this lawsuit. Damage has been done to our reputation".

I was like WTF?!!

Edited June 21, 2010 by Distressed

[berry_surprise 0]

dont waste ur time on them.

give clues to their company name in order to warn us about them!

[chronograph 0]

Did u mention the company name in your posting?

besides, how the h*e*l*l did they know it is u?

i think they have no case.

Edited June 18, 2010 by chronograph

[forgotten 1]

I also think they have no case against you. You were just listing out their term, which is customer must pay payment before cleaning job commerces.

[bepgof 20]

You mean you've received the service firm's lawyer letter, demanding to respond within 14 days, to pay certain amount (calculation factors included?) for defamention for a "comment" in the ST701?.

From those words, you were merely stating part of a fact. Anyway, they did sms you about the "prepayment" condition, should not have use the word "NEVER".

Why bother about such a thing? Complaining is like shooting, make sure by one trigger the target is down. Down to what extend? One arm, one leg, one eye, ....? There are skills and techniques in complaining: don't take a machine-gun anyhow trigger.

If you don't know to what extent your complaint will effect, don't complain. Once complained, MUST hit target to the extend you want.

Edited June 19, 2010 by bepgof

[cannonsiao 0]

If in the comment which u post on the website did not have the company's name, there's nothing much they can do about this.

In the confirmation SMS, which they claimed that the sms had include the terms that payment to be made before job commenced, at the most the company can sue u for breach of agreement. If it did not state clearly in the sms the payment to be made before job, again they got no case against u. They can argue whatever they want but it's their words against your words in court. The prosecution side will have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that u r at fault in this kind of case.

Dun worry too much.

[Distressed 0]

Thanks all for your replies. Much appreciated. I am very disturbed that when the boss of the company, Keith Yew called me the 2nd time to give him my address to send his lawyer letter, i had second thoughts and asked to 'settle' the issue. I felt humiliated and very angry with myself for being so cowardly!

Note that dialogues may not be reproduced in exact words.

berry_surprise: It's a DOMESTICxxx cleaning company. Will i get sued for this?

chornograph: I guess it was because i posted the comment just a couple hours after i refused to pay first for the work to commence. From the voice, i deduce that he's the same person who attended to all my calls. It was quite fresh on my mind because we talked 2x that very morning to confirm the address.

What he wanted was for my comment to be removed from the advertisment, claiming that they were in business for many years with GOOD TRACK RECORD.

forgotten: Precisely, i wasnt bothered by the 'threat' i received in the 1st call. I was fuming mad by his attitude. I doubled checked their website and the advertisement they posted and there wasnt anything said about payment to be made first. When i told him that my experience with other companies is that payment is made upon satisfaction of service, he retorted "Please don't compare us with other companies".

I certainly don't think he has taken my feedback with intention to improve his service. If this is how the boss treats his customers, what will be the staff's level of customer service? I believe he also knows that the market here in SG is competitive with so many players like Geniee, JustRelaz, etc. Yet he returned my comment with a lawyer letter. He said my comment had 'tarnished' the company's good reputation in their years of business.

bepgof: Thanks for the advice. Haiz.. I am angry with myself for being so cowardly. I agreed to have my comment removed. Which at first, he said "Sorry, please get yourself a lawyer to settle with my lawyer. Damage has been done once the comment is posted." That was less than 2 hours ago. He was adament at sueing me until i asked what if i can remove the comment. He told me, "If you are able to remove it then we can consider.".

I said "never" because i don't recall him telling me this condition. I believe this condition about payment to be made first is atypical for this type of service as it does not protect the customer. If he had asked his staff to make this assignment an 'exception' to give this 1st-time customer a peace of mind, i would be impressed!

*******************************************************

The episode ended with me having the comment removed within 10 minutes. The removal was made by requesting the website administrator to do it. Afterwhich i called back and told him, "Mr Keith Yew, as threatened, i have removed the comment." That made him argue with me that he did not threaten me, i could leave it there if i wanted.

Actually, i did consider leaving the comment there despite the threat. But i did not want to have to pore through the lawyer letter which he claims to want to send me. My lawyer friend also told me later, that it's my right as a customer! I'm not a bogus customer! He could have reported "abused" on my comment, so that ST701 would investigate or withhold the comment from public view. Did he find it the 'easy' way to intimidate the commenter so that he maintains a clean track record?! So much for customer buy-in!

[bepgof 20]

Pardon for side track a bit:

I hardly made official complaints but some "feedback", unlike my wife, likes to "feedback" as well as compliant, and always I have to come in between to settle "dificulties" when she faces in such.

When deciding if to make an complaint, I always ask myself:

- what this decision will land to be a win-win, win-loss, loss-loss situation?

- for the sake of "face", integerity, dignity, money?

- Time taken to collect facts, call here & there.

- Worth to make?

- What extend of "damage/compensation" I expect the opponent to receive/give and I deem fit.

Up to now, most of my "feedback" were to gov/statu bodies & some pte firms. Always short, sharp & sexy types. Official complaints with letter/reports/pictures:

1. MC of baywater condo, ended up paid $ to NEA to purchase weather report, sit in monthly meeting, chairman on behalf of MC apologised to my wife. Win-loss.

2. A furniture shop in beach road, ended up I paid "extra" $100, to have the product being hand-carried and delivered to 23 floor. Loss-loss.

Edited June 19, 2010 by bepgof

[chronograph 0]

- There is no proof of u writing those statement in ST, plain guessing only

- Have to engage lawyer to force ST into providing your information. Besides, how much infor ST have on you? In the end still have to engage service provider( your ip address ) to hunt u down.

- And what u have posted is the true, consumer should have rights to speak also.

Take it as a lesson learnt.

If i ever want a cleaning service i know who to aviod.

Have u not thought of what if your posting is being read here in RT? Will you be intimidated into removing your posting?

Edited June 20, 2010 by chronograph

[berry_surprise 0]

i don't see any case at all.

1) u did not mentioned EXACT company name

2) no contacts/addresses were mentioned

why not adopt a wait-n-see approach with them?

seems to me they are making something out of nothing

and u should not be even bothered.

but to be on the safe side, pls research on the possibilities ways u can counter them.

[htng 1]

i don't see any case at all.

1) u did not mentioned EXACT company name

2) no contacts/addresses were mentioned

why not adopt a wait-n-see approach with them?

seems to me they are making something out of nothing

and u should not be even bothered.

but to be on the safe side, pls research on the possibilities ways u can counter them.

Wasting your bloody time. Unless you mention name of their company, they got no bloody case. Just bcos they have a lawyer, they win? I thought you have a lawyer? Just check with him man!

[Distressed 0]

Well, i did mean it as a comment when i posted in the ST web. I was appalled that a seemingly reputable company like theirs is treating a customer like this. What i posted here is about my experience. If good comments are only what the boss wants to hear/see, i am afraid i have none to provide.

Anyway, i engaged another company, Geniee and they did a wonderful job. They came promptly the next day and the supervisor was very courteous to us. He even helped with the cleaning and that was certainly impressive to me.

In all, i have dealt with 3 home cleaning companies, 2 successful and 1 left me dismayed.

Edited June 21, 2010 by Distressed

[mitlan 0]

Well, i did mean it as a comment when i posted in the ST web. I was appalled that a seemingly reputable company like theirs is treating a customer like this. What i posted here is about my experience. If good comments are only what the boss wants to hear/see, i am afraid i have none to provide.

Anyway, i engaged another company, Geniee and they did a wonderful job. They came promptly the next day and the supervisor was very courteous to us. He even helped with the cleaning and that was certainly impressive to me.

In all, i have dealt with 3 home cleaning companies, 2 successful and 1 left me dismayed.

if they stated that prepayment is to be made in the sms, you should have argued or canceled the service if you were not comfortable with it.

however, if they did not state, i honestly believe that you did nothing wrong in stating the facts of the whole incident.

did you try CASE? but make sure of the sms-es, if they did mention, i think its kind of a losing game.