- Poor service.
- Incredibly rude response by the owner Ken.
- Completely useless 'NexTraq Alert' emails.
I contracted Appleseed to clear our double driveway this winter (2013-14) and although our driveway was staked with Appleseed posts, for the very first snowfall (Wed, Nov 27) they failed to show up at all the entire day. My next door neighbor also paid for Appleseed, and he decided to shovel it himself that day.
I had received several 'NexTraq Alert' emails from Appleseed indicating their plows were in our neighborhood, and emails from Ken himself asking people to be patient, so I decided to have faith that they would eventually show up before the next morning, but I was wrong. I woke to find that they had still not come by, and there was still a huge (now frozen solid) mound of snow at the end of our driveway.
At 7:00 am, I decided to call Appleseed and they apologized and promised to have a plow come by sometime that morning. When I arrived home from work I found that they did indeed come by to plow, however the driver chose to just do a "quick pass" which means they purposely leave approx. 2 feet uncleared on each side of the driveway. I received another “snow update” email from Ken Dale indicating that all driveways which only had a "quick pass" would be "cleared to full width" later that day.
The entire 2nd day now passed, and still no plow had come by to clear the driveway to "full width".
The following is a series of emails that occurred between myself and Ken. It should be noted that during this entire matter, I only called their office one time (the morning of Thursday, Nov 28) and I was very nice during that call, and I also only sent one email to their office, which is the first email shown below.
----------------------------------------------------------------
On Friday, Nov 29, I decided to send this email to Appleseed:
>> I really cannot understand why my driveway has not been cleared to full width.
>> I called yesterday morning to report that my driveway had been forgotten altogether on the day of the storm (Wednesday), and Ken himself called me yesterday morning to say that he would ensure my driveway was done sometime in the morning.
>> When I got home after work, I could tell that someone had come by, but there are still 2-foot sections on both sides of the driveway that are not cleared at all.
>> I simply do not understand why the driver does not clear the full width. The “snow update” email yesterday indicated that the drivers would be going out again to clear driveways to “full width”, but of course this has not been done at my address.
>> Why would the driver not just do the full width? I makes no sense to me that he should do less than the full width, and then customers should have to wait, and cross their fingers, hoping that someone will eventually return to complete the task.
>> I would love an explanation, and also would really appreciate if you would send a drive to complete the job!
----------------------------------------------------------------
I received this response from Ken:
>> If you are not staked...thats the problem...he wont go wide until staked.
----------------------------------------------------------------
I sent this reply to Ken:
>> We are clearly staked.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Ken decided to drive to our address to take a photo of our driveway, and then sent me this incredibly rude email with the photo attached:
>> You're kidding right?
>> Sir?
>> THIS is what you have been calling, emailing, insulting my office about?
>> Give me a BREAK here!
>> It is done, no plow dumps....there is about 1 cm of snow here!
>> Do NOT harrass us again unless you have a legitimate complaint!
>> Ken
----------------------------------------------------------------
I sent this reply to Ken:
>> At what point did I insult and harass your office?
>> I complained that my driveway was completely forgotten on Wednesday, and that when it was cleared yesterday it was not done at full width, which is clearly visible from your picture.
>> I think it is appropriate to cancel my contract at this time.
----------------------------------------------------------------
In Ken's email, he mentions 1cm of snow. He is referring to the center area of the driveway which was done in a "quick pass". Both sides of the driveway still had 2-foot wide areas, and at least 1-foot high, which is what I was complaining about.
I immediately called the Appleseed office to explain that I wanted to cancel my contract, and I was told that I would receive a call from a district manager. I did not receive a call from anyone, and since my credit card had still not been charged I decided to just assume the contract would be cancelled. 2 days later I noticed that someone had come to remove the Appleseed stakes from our driveway, so now I knew for sure that the contract had been cancelled.
I was simply going to forget the entire experience, but now I just noticed that Appleseed has charged my credit card $35, exactly one month after all of this happened. I just called Appleseed and the lady was very nice, and she said that she cannot find any record of this charge, but they will have their accounting department investigate. I will now wait to see if the $35 charge gets reversed, of if Ken will insist that this is what he wanted to charge me for the "quick pass" that was done on Thursday, Nov 28.
One final note... In my humble opinion, a grand total of one email and one polite phone call does not constitute "calling, emailing, insulting my office".
