Craigslist Crash Course

I’ve never been a big fan of pages like “craigslist.” Though I do tend to turn to bigyellow.com before I do the actual phone book, craigslist has always seemed a little off the beaten path to me. But a few weeks ago, I was playing around on there, reading about some used furniture deals in the area, and noticed there is a “farm and garden” category there under “Services,” and, being that my husband and I are in need of some cheap, small-scale landscaping help to get our flowerbeds into basic shape for the spring after a long, hard winter, I thought I’d click on it. I contacted the only company listed there, received a quick response, and, this past Monday, I finally was able to meet up with the gentleman I’d contacted.

We made an appointment for 1 p.m. on Monday, and, so I put my shoes on at about 10 minutes until 1 p.m., in case he was early. I continued with some housework and spring cleaning, prepped some meat for grilling that night, and continued to watch the clock as I did all of this until about 1:30 p.m., at which point I began to get frustrated.

When 1:45 p.m. rolled around, and I’d received neither a call nor a visit from the landscaper, I decided to give up and head to Target to finish up my day’s errands; I wasn’t about to waste a day off waiting around for a no-show. I headed to my car, got it started, and, as I was about to back down the driveway, a work truck approached.

I groaned to myself and got out to meet the gentleman, who advised his watch had stopped working hours before and he managed to lose all track of time. Whether or not this was true, I’ll never know, so I gave him the benefit of a doubt—as at this point, it was the only appointment I’d made, and I didn’t want to have to take a day off to meet someone else.

The gentleman, whom I’ll call Fred, seemed very nice, pleasant and honest, and, I quickly forgot the fact that he came to the job 45 minutes late. He seemed very helpful and eager to assist without straining our wallet too much; he even went above and beyond what we needed and insisted he’d get a price for some lighting fixtures in the flowerbeds that we didn’t intend to replace, pointing out that they might be so cheap it would make sense to replace them; I appreciated this insight, knowing very little about the issue at hand.

However, he’d left his quoting paperwork behind, so all I was left with was a jotted down price, and not even the name of his company. But, it still seemed like a good fit—he was willing to do the work next week, and the price was right (and, let’s face it, that is always a top concern).

I went over all this with my husband when he got home and he agreed that it sounded great; we were going to schedule the work for next week. But then he brought up an interesting point—he suggested we check out the company to make sure it had liability coverage (after all, this guy was going to be digging around in our flower beds for a few hours or so), was a registered company of some sort, etc. We’d never used craigslist, and, based on a few of the aforementioned items (no official quote, etc.), we started to second-guess ourselves.

We started with the company’s website—though I didn’t actually have a company name and had to figure it out from Fred’s e-mail address. The website itself looked legitimate enough to me, but, my husband reminded me, “Really, anyone can set up a basic website.” And the website didn’t say anything about whether the company was insured, etc., so we kept looking.

Then, we headed to the Virginia State Corporation Commission’s website, which had no record of the business existing; at this point we were starting to wonder.

After a few more various searches, I discovered that the company’s apparently detailed, professional website, was set up just this past March—right around the time I contacted Fred, as it took me a few weeks after contacting him to make an appointment to meet him. Then, I reverse-searched the company number to discover it was in fact a residence, which wasn’t in itself a big deal; I’m sure most landscaping businesses are home-based. But what made me a little more concerned was that this residence previously had been associated with a different landscaping business—of which I could find no further record. Being a reporter, I couldn’t help but wonder if he switched names because something had gone awry with the previous business.

At this point, my husband and I were both pretty certain we were going to go elsewhere, but again, I didn’t want to have to get another quote, take more time to meet with someone else, find out it was more expensive, etc., so finally, I decided to just e-mail Fred and express my concerns; and, honestly, I felt some allegiance to him, as, though despite his tardiness, he seemed like a genuinely nice, honest guy. I explained in the e-mail that we really wanted him to do the work, but couldn’t find anything on his website about his background, insurance, etc. To be polite, I even said, “I’m sure this would have been on your official quote if you’d had your book with you, but I just wanted to check before you got back out here.”

That was Monday night—and it’s been nearly 72 hours now since I e-mailed Fred, and I have yet to receive a response. Every other time I’ve e-mailed him, in reference to the appointment, etc., he’s written back within the hour, so I fear the answer to all of my questions is a definite “no,” but I’m still hopeful he’ll prove me wrong.

Of course, I couldn’t help but relate it to our industry and the so-called fly-by-night companies out there. Is this a fly-by-night landscape business? Is this a lesson not to use craigslist? What do you all think? Has anyone had luck advertising on this free site? I had always been hesitant to use it for this very reason, but I know there have to be legitimate businesses out there using it.

(In the process of the appointment on Monday, I did ask Fred about his own experiences with advertising on craigslist, and he said 9 times out of 10 he gets customers expecting him to do work for next to nothing, but on occasion he does get legitimate leads from it, and that, since it’s free to use, he finds that it’s worth it.)

My second question is this: do you have customers ask you if you’re insured, etc., or are we just super-paranoid customers? And, if you do have customers ask this, how do you respond? Does this offend you, or does it re-assure you that they’re looking for a quality business? (I realize being insured for liability, etc., is a very different issue from how the actual work is done, whether it’s a safe installation, etc., but I do think it’s still a valid question, in any business where mobile service, working at a person’s home, etc., is common.)

Please e-mail your thoughts to me at pstacey@glass.com. I look forward to hearing from you.