Let's just say that we had to jump through one hoop to even do business with this client in the first place. And we went that extra mile because it was an Angie's List client. It's a new build house and the builder wanted to be issued a certificate of insurance listing them as an additional insured. (I am now of a mind that if this is a condition of doing the inspection, the client can just find someone else. - This is the second time a builder has made this demand and it just never ends well.)
When the client arrived to do the walk through with Mark, he pulled out an inspection report that another inspector had done a week or so earlier. He immediately wanted to know why Mark didn't mention some of the items that the other inspector had mentioned. Mark pointed out that he hadn't even written the report yet. It got worse from there. The client left Mark to go argue with the builder. When he came back, he resumed arguing with Mark. He wanted to make sure Mark incorporated all of the other inspector's comments into the inspection report. Well that's just not going to happen. The other inspector was a certified code inspector so the report is different from a standard TREC (Texas Real Estate Commission) report because a code inspector cites code violations. The client announced that he was upset with Mark. Mark asked what he could do to make it right and was told "Nothing".
Then Mark got a conciliatory email. The client claimed to understand the difference between the code inspection and the inspection that Mark did. He ONLY wanted Mark to review the other inspector's report to make sure that everything of importance was incorporated. He ONLY wanted to submit one report to his builder and he wanted it to be Mark's report. Well, when you put it that way... Mark made it clear that he would not critique the other inspector's work, but that he would review the report to make sure nothing was left out.
When this client finally got around to paying for his report and downloading it, the real fun started. He didn't like the way the report was formatted. He wanted Mark to reproduce it in a different format. Another thing that wasn't going to happen. Then he wanted Mark to guarantee that there were no errors in the report. Really?? Who guarantees that? (We don't. It's in the disclaimer on the front page of the report.) Mark's reply indicated that while we do our best to produce an error-free report that we could not guarantee that absolutely nothing was missed or that the report did not contain an error. This client's response indicated that this was both unprofessional and unacceptable.(Not sure what world he works in, but apparently it's a world where errors and omissions do not occur.)
This client has 86 issues, (some of which are quite serious - like improperly installed water heater flues) but instead of talking to his builder and addressing these issues, he is busy demanding that we reformat the report and guarantee that the report is error free. Really? Ask your doctor if he or she will guarantee your diagnosis.
Out of curiosity, Mark called the first inspector. He described this client as "a pill". That's kind and gentle. I think their encounter started out with the client attempting to tell him what to do and how to do it. That inspector informed him that he had over 35 years experience, and in addition to being a licensed inspector, he was also a certified master inspector and had no intention of being supervised by the client. Then he offered him a choice of one of them leaving. (It seems the client left.) But it turns out that the client didn't bother to get that insurance certificate for the first inspector. Although he'd done a phased code inspection, the builder threw him off the site during his final inspection, but not before he'd gathered all the information he needed for the final report. But the client knew better than to try to submit a report from someone who wasn't authorized by the builder to be there. That's where we came in.
If only I'd known. I'm braced to be charged back by the credit card processor (although in all the years we've been in business, I've never had a charge back - knock on wood) and I'm expecting to be chewed up on Angie's List. I'm prepared to fight back if it comes to that. He got a good report. The fact that he doesn't like the format is irrelevant. If there were a site like Angie's List for contractor's to find out about potentially pesky clients this situation might have been avoided. How about Barbara's Blacklist? I think I'll see if that URL is taken.
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