Homestars.com has helped us become a better company. It allows the consumer, our clients, to provide objective feedback on the work being done on their homes. Terry our rep is spectacular. Nancy the cofounder is wonderful. Their sponsored events are a joy to attend and have provided us the opportunity to network with other likeminded contractors looking to provide the best possible experience for their clients. As homeowners, we too have used Homestars to search for contractors to work at our homes and client's homes. Thanks for all your hard work! Elite Designed Concrete Inc.

Company Response:

Thanks for the great review Elite Designed Concrete; we are so happy to hear that we can contribute to the improvement of your company and your home! Happy to hear you're so happy with Terry too, she's a very important part of our team.

We have been very pleased with Jessica Sugar and the folks at Homestars. Our Homestars listing has proven to be an important reinforcement tool in a highly competitive field. To date, we couldn't be happier with the results.

Company Response:

Thanks for taking the time to leave us a review! Happy to hear the site is working well for you.

As a company we started to use the Homestars service because several customers that hired us stated that they were tempted to go with another company because we did not have any reviews on the Homestars site. Homestars has become the go to site for many consumers when hiring a contracting company. Personally when I hire a company to deliver a service I ask my friends who they may have used and what the service like. With Homestars I am able to effectively ask the whole city what a company service was like. We had a lot of testimonials from our customers but they were not posted on a neutral third party site. Third party testimonials are a very powerful factor in the decision making process for many homeowners. In the past a large portion of our work came from referrals. What Homestars has done for us is take the referrals we would normally get and allow us to show them to a much greater segment of the city. Customers, whether booking a trip or hiring a contractor, value what other people have to say. I have used travel sites for years to get a feel for what a resort destination might be like. I read the bad reviews as well as the good reviews and have found that the overall trend tends to give an accurate picture of what I can expect. Mitch Joel, author of Six Pixels of Separation and a daily blog about the impact of social media on our daily life wrote that “We’ve seen the power of testimonials grow through word of mouth marketing and strengthen even more when introduced to the power of the Web, and the masses of people that can (and do) take a product/service and make it spread.” Jessica Sugar, our account representative, has been extremely helpful setting up our use of the Homestars site to increase our business. She has been very proactive in her dealings with us and has communicated with us in a very professional manner. Jessica has had many suggestions on how we can more effectively use their site to help give potential customers information about our company and the level of service we deliver. As a company we would like to thank Homestars, and specifically Jessica Sugar, for their professional service, which has been helpful to our company and helpful to the general population in finding good quality contractors. Stephen Ksiazek The Waterproofer.ca

Company Response:

Thanks so much for the great review Stephen. We are happy our site can be of benefit to your business' success. We are also happy to hear that you are so pleased with Jessica's service.

We began advertising on HomeStars in 2009 and our account is managed by Jessica Sugar. Over the past 3 years the number of leads we received from HomeStars has dramatically increased. The other advertising avenues we have tried have not measured up to the quality or quantity of leads we receive from HomeStars. We refer our customers to the HomeStars website on a regular basis to read what other customers have written about us as well as other contractors. A special thank you to Jessica! She has proven herself to be an outstanding rep for us and has addressed all of our questions and concerns we have brought to her attention. We have encouraged other small businesses to contact Jessica to sign up with HomeStars knowing that she is the ideal rep to help grow their business.

Company Response:

Thanks for taking the time to leave us a review Richard. Glad to hear you are getting quality leads from the site and that you are so happy with Jessica!

Jessica and Homestars have been great from the get go. She helped me set up my listing with great suggestions and good ideas on content. She has a great energy and is extremely helpful and easy to work with. The ROI on Homestars is very high. I get a lot of work from the site and customers also leave very helpful reviews. I would and often recommend Homestars to other business owners and customers. Keep up the great work. Rick 1-800 RID-OF-IT

Company Response:

Thanks for the review Rick! We love Jessica too :) We are always happy to hear you are having success with the site!

After being listed on HomeStars for 3 years, I've come to fully appreciate their product. It serves well to both homeowners and small businesses. I used to rely on Google to bring potential customers to my site. Not any more. These days most of my customers contact me after checking our company record with HomeStars. Special thanks to Jessica Sugar for her prompt responses.

Company Response:

Thanks for leaving us such a nice review Boris. We are always happy to hear our site is working well!

DrainWorks Plumbing has come to post this review of HomeStars because, as their longstanding clients, going on almost 5 years, we have not been happy with the service we’ve received as of late. In January 2012, we had a review posted by a landlord whom we never met with nor ever paid for any services whatsoever. As this person lived out of town, they gave us written consent to meet with their tenant onsite as our sole point of contact to confirm all work and handle payment as needed (in the landlords absence). Once we received the written consent, the tenant was contacted and an assessment fee was mutually agreed upon and the appointment was scheduled. However, once we met with the tenant onsite, only quotes were given, and in the interest of good customer relations, no payment was kept by DrainWorks. After this, the landlord (who, again, was never onsite at any point) posted a negative review on HomeStars. DrainWorks has no issue with clients we have served posting negative reviews; we use all valid reviews to strengthen the quality of our services, however, in this case, the person who posted this review was never our client nor had any service done, making the review invalid. We had faith that going through the proper channels at HomeStars, and bringing the review to their moderators’ attention would address this issue, as it was plain to see, or so we thought, that the review didn’t adhere in any capacity to HomeStars’ own Consumer Review Guidelines. As outlined on their own website: “reviews must be based on a financial transaction between a homeowner and company. Reviews must relate to a household repair, improvement, purchase, or construction undertaking completed by a written or verbal contract” None of these guidelines were met for this review that was posted. At this point, we began an almost 2 week odyssey going back and forth with HomeStars, trying to understand why and/or how this review could: A) Stay posted on the HomeStars website whilst undergoing multiple investigations to determine it’s legitimacy, involving several people in the HomeStars hierarchy and B) Once that was done, stay posted up on their website as a valid review. We were never once given a straightforward answer based in fact by anyone at HomeStars. Instead what we got were elusive ambiguities suggesting they’d done “the right thing”. At DrainWorks, we speak of facts and refer to invoices and emails and HomeStars’ very own guidelines, and yet, HomeStars responds to us with opinion and a complete disregard for their Consumer Review Guidelines, the very foundation on which their site is built. As such, and as a result of the poor customer service we have described above, we have no choice, but to give HomeStars a zero rating. ****IN RESPONSE TO HOMESTARS**** DrainWorks’ review of HomeStars is not solely based on the invalid review that remains posted on our listing, but also in regards to the poor customer service we experienced during the on again off again investigational odyssey that took place of said invalid review; which resulted in us receiving vague responses to very direct questions. To shed some light on the poor customer service we received, here are a few more facts. On January 5th, 2012, when the invalid review was first under investigation, HomeStars responded that “The customer has communicated with our review moderators and provided proof she has done business with Drainworks” but when such proof was questioned and HomeStars was informed that we never did any work for the reviewer and met with the tenant only, as authorized to do so via email by the owner, they began an investigation again. Then, on January 11th, 2012, HomeStars responded that they had “confirmation that the owner was the person who was invoiced and who paid for the job.” So we scanned and emailed over the invoice as concrete evidence that the owner was not the person who was invoiced or who paid for the job; the owners name is nowhere on the invoice. We met with the tenant only, onsite, thus only the tenants name and signature are on the invoice. The transaction HomeStars speaks of was with the tenant and the refund was entirely in the tenants name also. As such, only the tenant can be considered our customer and only the tenant should have been able to post a review. After we emailed the invoice to HomeStars, they decided to begin a 3rd investigation to try and prove the validity of the review. HomeStars launching this 3rd investigation after we emailed the invoice shows that they didn’t already have the invoice; which is perplexing because they said they had confirmation and proof from the homeowner; but without the invoice what proof could there be? During all these investigations, almost 2 weeks, the review in question remained live and posted. The final verdict from HomeStars boiled down to “We have all given our best here to make sure the right thing is done. Believe me.” If it were up to HomeStars, their first verdict would have been their final decision and it would have been arrived at with no proof. Investigations only continued because DrainWorks kept insisting that the facts were more carefully examined; facts that we had to provide rather than HomeStars obtaining on their own accord. The invoice alone brings to light the falsities in all of HomeStars’ responses resulting from their investigations. To add insult to injury, HomeStars stating here in their response that “there are two sides to the story” further validates the notion that HomeStars makes its decisions based on opinion and not fact. There is only one invoice and it is clear that the reviewer is not the name on the invoice and was not whom we met with onsite. The reviewer is clearly not our customer. If HomeStars was using its own consumer review guidelines, then this invalid review would have never remained posted and we wouldn’t have had to enforce a 2 week investigation due to their lack of efficiency. We are more in the dark now than when we started, so we ask HomeStars; present the invoice you claim to have from the homeowner as your proof that the homeowner was our contact, was invoiced in her name and was the individual who paid the assessment fee which was then refunded. Prove us wrong.

Company Response:

Hello Eddie, we are sorry you feel this way about this decision but this review was handled in the same manner as any review for any company listed on our site. An invoice from the homeowner was received for this transaction. Although as you say money was not kept- it was taken, and a refund was provided. This still counts as a transaction. As with many reviews, there are two sides to the story and you are more than welcome to leave your point of view in a review.

...than helping the consumer find honest and qualified tradespeople. I'm an honest man that gets sick when I see all the crap contractors out there. You know the guys with the brand new trucks that rip off unknowing elderly people. These people meet me and thank the lord an honest man is helping. I don't need your service. I do fine as a word of mouth with no advertising. I just want to warn people of extremely substandard tradespeople and I hit a roadblock quite frequently when I use your site. I wrote up a small maid service that at bets could fraudulently obtain maybe a tenth of what two of the contractors I've tried to post about have taken people for. You post the maid service and let the real ripoff contractors off Years ago I posted about a handyman company and apparently, at the owners request, you removed my posting. Forget it, I've wasted enough of my time on your company.

Company Response:

HI Backup Electric, Sorry to hear you feel this way. I just took a look into your reviews and it seems that a couple were rejected for not meeting our guidelines. You were hired by that particular contractor and were not the individual who hired them and paid for their services. This review was never published; the company you were reviewing never knew you submitted the review and did not request us to remove it. You are welcome to add your comments to our Forums which do not have the same guidelines. If you have any more questions, feel free to give us a call at 1 877 488 0312

All reviews on this site are made up with only a few exceptions. Myself and all others on this site can attest to this. If homestars would get their head out of the sand and pay attention to details of proper categories and multiple entries they might have a chance at success. In my opinion, the owner, Nancy has an issue with dealing with people and has ignored my request to delete my company info 3 times. Koodoos to anyone who may benefit from this site, but for the most part the type of customer that comes to me from this site is usually more trouble than its worth.

Company Response:

Hi Rob - I'd be happy to speak with you tomorrow. I was out of the office today and I'm also just reading your inbound note you just sent as well. I have never spoken with you before and do not ignore calls or requests to discuss how we work. Regarding your listing being taken down - we do not remove listings. We aim to have all companies listed and reviewed by their clients. I look forward to speaking with you about your concerns. Best Nancy Peterson

I'm getting great results from the Homestars service. It's the best advertising dollars I'm spending right now. Many of my clients lately have been calling me based on the reviews. My company was even featured in the September 2011 newsletter! Thanks to Elizabeth for signing me up! I'm very happy, thank you!