HomeStars review: Scam website 64

Just tried to look at your link, and it was still off..."This review is under review by the poster". It is quite surprising to me that they would even remove your opinion, because we have been falsely accused by a past client, on our profile, and they refuse to remove her comments, even though I have absolute proof that it is all lies...Even in the disclaimer it says that any reviews that are being questioned, will be immediately removed, and facts checked, but I am still waiting for them to care. They don't even care to review any proof that I have against this client. unbias? Sounds to me like that's a load of bull. And you are absolutely right that they do not screen the companies...anyone can go onto their site and "Create" a company...does not require any lisence numbers, proof of any work done, so virtually, anyone and their dog could go online and be a "Contractor." Also, anyone with a grudge against you, can look up your company and as long as they have a proper email address, can go online and slander your name as much as they want. Either way, this website is virtually useless...If you can't trust the companies to be legitimate, and you can't trust the reviews online, then how can you trust any of the information on it? If you ask me, anyone that wants to put up an add for their company, should have some kind of credentials, or proof of the work they say they can do, and also some kind of proof from clients for good and bad reviews, then it could be a heck of alot more reliable. This way, it's just a bunch of he said, she said, and who likes to play that game with their money, time, or businesses. And by the way, if you start a profile on Homestars.com...you can never remove it. This is not funny...

Homestars absolutely is misleading to consumers and I might even go a far to call it a fraudulet site. Here's why. Our company is on homestars we have been for some time now . When we first signed up about 3 weeks later Terry Mardini called and asked for the $1200 we owed them because our company had a premium listing. I posted the listing so I know that at no point did I sign up for a premium listing that would cost me $1200 paid up front for the year. That is their first scam because if you tell them no they will let you know that others companies banners will scroll above your ad and every so often after that they call to get you to pay them for the "premium" listing. Terry Mardini has even hung up the phone on us mid sentence when she realized we were still not paying for a listing on a site that is supposedly free for companies to post, and we are never rude to her despite her harassment.
Another thing to mention is that they pick and choose which reviews to post. Customers who found us on homestars are unable to post reviews because despite several attempts their reviews are not approved. So many many of our customers have complained about this to us and it is very frustrating because how can we accurately get an idea of how a company does business if homestars decides which customer reviews are allowed! This website has drawn a lot of business our way but if things continue this way we will be petitioning to have it taken down and will blog all over the Internet to let everyone know not to trust this site! Frauds, yes.

Non-premium members DO NOT get their reviews posted! We have done over 100 jobs from homestars and for 5 months straight did not receive any reviews despite over 35 customers contacting us telling us that they posted reviews, a few customers even told us that the review was posted then mysteriously disappeared. No matter what you Terry may say about homestars you guys are complete frauds and hey you're in it for the money thats cool we wouldn't go to work unless we were making money but your website is completely misleading to all homeowners and therefore should not be online. You are offering false reviews by picking and choosing which customer reviews go up and as far as your "automated fraud tracking system" goes does that include checking you guys yourselves for fraud? Because it should. Misleading a customer=fraud. You could be allowing con men to go rob customers blind while you sit behind your desk not allowing legitimate customer oriented businesses to have legitimate heartfelt reviews from actual happy paying customers posted.
As for you not hanging up on people, think about it Terry, actually think about it. You can lie to others but you know what you have done. Do an online search there are blogs all over the internet not just about homesteads but about you personally. People refer to you as unfriendly and cold and thats only people who have met you online.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! THAT'S HILARIOUS! $100 to start eh? Omg you guys are the biggest scammers out there! How is it that you guys are still in business?! Homestars is a complete and utter joke!
PREMIUM LISTING=pay through your ###! And apparently you guys just make it up as you go! How about what you offered me, $1200 for the year there was no offer for $100 trial you told me 12 month contract or nothing!
Let's start a petition to get these con artists out of business!

I am so frustrated with home stars. It is apparent that it is a scam. I am too frustrated to write my whole story now. Basically if you write a negative review you will be "randomly selected" to verify your post. Then they will come up with a reason as to why your post does not conform to their "rules". If you write a positive post it will get posted no questions asked. I am talking about companies that pay to be on their site. If a company does not pay for the premium account they will have no problems posting negative reviews without further investigation. It is a shame more people do not realize what a scam this is!

A few months ago I hired an electrician to rewire my house. I had used him for 2 big jobs a few years previously and he was okay, not great, but I thought better the devil you know... After being lied + cheated to, I fired him halfway through the job. Googled him and up came some HomeStar reviews, a couple positive but most basically confirming that he's a lying ###. Today, on the site for another search, I decided to check back in and see how Mr. Electrician is doing. Imagine my surprise when I now see a Perfect Ten rating! Six fabulous reviews! All raving about him! All posted within the last 3 months! Nothing before that! HomeStars has allowed this dishonest contractor to erase his past and repost with a clean profile. Obviously, this goes 100% against their purported mission and confirms that yes, they are a scam site with zero credibility.

I was reviewing homestars. It looked as a good site. However, I found something lacking - most contractors had 10 star rating and the reviews had nothing critical written. It is not a perfect world out there. I am in the construction industry. This lead me to check the credibility of homestars and thus led me to this site. Happy to note that there are other people who are apprehensive of homestars too.

Please direct all future complaints to the owner of homestars at her personal address of: Nancy Peterson 169 Ridley Blvd., North York, ON M5M 3M4 or better yet give her a call and let her know that I think she is running nothing more than a gossip site that destroys peoples lives while lining her own pocket . [protected]

Homestars is a complete scam. I wrote a legitimate review about a bad experience I had with a contractor and they will not publish it. They wrote me an email saying they could not verify I had paid for the contractors service. I emailed back right away offering to scan my invoice and sent it to them. I of course am still waiting for their reply. Clearly they will not publish poor reviews of their preferred clients. I will not use them again.

Hi gabes1mum, I had some time to spare and thought I'd address your comment from April 26th 2011. About your statement 'Non-Premium members do not get their reviews published', I would like to invite all viewers to go to www.homestars.com and check out listings that have reviews with no pictures or logos. These are non paying listings. There are thousands of companies like this at the site with thousands of reviews.
I know it is frustrating for reviews not to be publishing, for everyone believe me.There is a process that HomeStars has to follow and internal flags that need to be looked at. The individuals who read the reviews are trained to look out for certain things as well. HomeStars also consults with lawyers when need be. It's all part of trying to be a trustworthy website.
gabes1mum, in my entire career at HomeStars, I can only remember hanging up on one individual who started swearing at me about a negative posting he had on his listing from one of his customers. I am pretty sure this individual was not you. So, if I did hang up on you, I am sorry. I can tell you that during the spring of 2011, balcony renos were taking place in my building. Part of this time I stayed at a hotel to work, but I also worked from home at times. We never new when the drilling would start and it was deafening. The only thing I could think of is perhaps I hung up thinking that our conversation was over because of the noise, otherwise I really don't remember.
Correction: '$100 should have read '$100 a month'. The package now starts at $150 a month.
So, if I called you, I would have asked if you wanted to stay on and if so, it was starting at $100 a month. Therefore $1200.00 for the year.
If you were asking your customers to review you on HomeStars, you probably saw the value in it yourself. It's a challenge for HomeStars to continually have to appease the companies and consumers about why reviews are posted or not. I can assure you that it has nothing to do with whether you are a paying customer or not. It has to do with credibility. It is to HomeStars' advantage that reviews are posted, positive or negative for volume of content at the site.
As I said before, it's hard to always get it right, as thousands of reviews are submitted every month. And I don't know of any other site in Canada that is as thorough as HomeStars in the publishing of reviews. So, I hope this gives you a clearer understanding and that these days your experience has been better.
About your statement of accusing me of lying, that's defaming in case you did not know. If you would be so kind to point me to other sites that have said that I am cold and unfriendly, I would greatly appreciate it as your comment is the only one I have found online and I am not a cold and unfriendly individual. Thank you.
I would like to point out that I myself have had negative experiences with companies, but I've only written about my positive experiences. I like to address my concerns with a company or individual directly. Negative statements can be hurtful, especially when you have no idea who the person is. I think it's unfair, but that's how the internet world is now. For this reason, it's important to tell the other side of the story and let the reader make up their own mind.
Abraham Jacob, the reason why you are seeing extreme ratings is that when HomeStars launched the .com, the questions were narrowed down to 2 questions - 1) How satisfied were you with this customer 2) How likely would you be to hire this customer again. The reviewer is obligated to write at least 30 words before the review is posted. You may much older reviews, where this is not the case. The questions were narrowed down to 2 questions, so as to not discourage reviewers from writing reviews.
HomeStars is fraud - can you please ask the administrator of this site to remove Nancy Peterson's personal address and phone number. It's illegal. It should not have been posted. Thank you.
Whomever wants to talk to Nancy can reach her at [protected] x701. You can also post a you comment at the site's forum asking Nancy to respond. Thank you.
Best wishes to all.
Terry Mardini

Homestar is essentially trying to corner contractors into paying $100/month so their reviews will not get drowned.

I created an account in anticipation that a customer would leave me a review, as he had said he would.

I soon was solicited to pay for a premium account. To be left alone, I had to be very clear that I would never sign up.

My I search for my company name on Homestar I do NOT come up in the search results. I have to use the link they gave me or I have to search my company name + "reviews" on Google.

On my page, they drown my listing with giant ads for their premiums clients, to the point that I'm not very noticeable on my own profile page !?

So my problem with Homestar is that I find their tactics cheesy. I'm also doing a startup and I understand technology. Using a freemium model is fine, meaning a free option with a reasonably price upgrade.

$100 / month by extortion is underhanded no matter what the company says to justify it.

Hi Jerome, your profile says you are from Toronto. The rate of $100 a month was increased to $150 a month for an enhanced premium as of September 2012. So, this tells me that it could be some time since you've spoken to anyone at HomeStars. If you type your company name exactly how it is spelt with the right city or postal code, your company name should come up, otherwise it is probably a bug that HomeStars needs to address. Yes, there are competitive banners in the listings, as part of the premium package, however the actual ranking of your company in a search result is dependant on the number of reviews, the average of your reviews and other content related criteria. You may want to touch base again with your rep to get an update on what is going on. You should see your rep's name when you sign into your listing. I moved on from HomeStars at the end of June last year, to give my attention to a family related matter. Wishing you much success in your business. Sincerely, Terry Mardini

$150 a month is even worse. Again I see a moral problem with how this company is monetizing itself.

But working there you probably have it justified that you're providing a service that helps contractors and homeowners.

What Homestar has factually done Is to place itself at the top of the search engines, which consequently puts contractors at a disadvantage unless they pay you $150 a month for a review system which is not even accurate due to a poor scoring algorithm and due to the inevitable bias that comes from accepting money from the contractors.

That's why I've used the word "cheesy"to describe Homestar's tactics and "extortion" to describe what they're factually doing.

As a technology startup itself, Homestar is a bad role model for young entrepreneurs with it's immoral sense of execution and poorly implemented monetizing strategy.
It's not a source for good in the world, it's a capitalistic cancer.

And it's ironic that Homestar is getting bad reviews on the Internet such as on this page as well as others.

I've never said or suggested that Homestars Is paying to be the top of Google search -- of course not. It put itself at the top of the search engine on Google legitimately, but it's essentially extorting money from contractors through a cheesy business model. You probably won't be able to see this because you're too used to drinking own Kool-aid.

If you have any suggestions, by all means, post at the site's forum. That's what it's there for. Someone will respond to you. Take care, Jerome.
Regards, Terry Mardini

I must say that is a fair thing to say.

We called a furnace company after seeing favorable reviews on homestars. It was a total scam. They estimated $400 dollars for something we fixed the next day with a $10 investment and 20 minutes of research. I am disgusted that they are promoting scamming contractors. Luckily we just lost $60.

Having used HomeStars on multiple occasions, I'm also now a very dissatisfied user of HomeStars and won't be using it again. It's ratings are entirely inaccurate and biased. It only accepts reviews on services that were actually contracted, signed or verbal, and WHERE MONEY WAS EXCHANGED. So a company, such as Delroy Appliance Repair can get a 9.8 rating regardless if they actually show up or not, as was my case. Delroy was tied up the day I called for appliance repair but promised to call the next day and have the appointment early that morning. I had no issue with that. Never heard from him again. When I wrote a review about his lack of showing up or even providing a courtesy phonecall, HomeStars declined to publish it...because no money was exchanged. And Delroy keeps his over-inflated 9.8 rating. A contractor who promises to follow-up and do the work, but doesn't does not deserve a high rating. If HomeStars was really true to its mandate, it would publish all aspects of customer service with a contractor - not just those who actually do some work. Just like HomeStars' contractors can be rated, I rate HomeStars as a "0" stars - and will strongly encourage everyone not to use the site. It's nothing more than a contractors' club.

Tried to log a comment on homestars.com regarding a bad-service experience I had with a service provider. Apparently, homestars.com did not feel the need to post my comment notwithstanding that it was a legitimate and courteously drawn complaint . So my question is, is homestars.com impartial in their comments' section?

I agree that Homestars is a scam. I noticed a crazy number of 10 star reviews nearly always from reviewers that were just posting once to Homestars, which generally indicates a bogus posting (not always, but usually). When I tried to post a negative review of a company that was truly horrible, I noticed that my review and another negative review posted the day before me, was 'flagged for verification'. when I read what that meant, homestars basically said "This could be because a company has contacted HomeStars to say that they do not recognize the review as one of their customers and we are now trying to verify the content of the review." which goes to the crux of the issue. The contractor that I was critical of, gets to control the reviews. 10 star reviews, no problem posted right away. reviews that are critical? They get flagged and not factored into the rating. bogus.

I thought that homestars was a fair company and that they were out to protect the consumer until I had a run in with a kitchen manufacturer that supplied a curved cabinet door through one of *their* approved dealers, or so he was until he messed up the job and then they turned on him and forced him to write a deceitful account of what took place even to the point that he is saying that *I* owe him money!
They have intimidated not only him but also another installer to lie to the BBB. So I posted my review on Homestars and then they said it was not allowed due to the fact that I did not pay them directly, despite the fact that I have proof that they supplied the cabinet door that is peeling and will not replace it.
Now you would think, if Homestars was out to protect the consumers, that they would want to ensure that the truth of the matter(s) be told, but here is the thing, the manufacturer is saying that I am not their customer and I cannot write a review of their product unless I paid them directly. BUT, at the same time although they claimed to me in writing that they do not deal with the public and all their dealings are through Dealers/Installers, so it distances them from any kind of implication. Homestars, even though they were made aware that this company has made this clear, has left up a 10 Star review of this company from another homeowner. This is just wrong in my opinion and I will NOT trust any reviews on Homestars again, they pick and choose what they publish.
Another example would be that they edited down my review and took out some of it about Brampton Hardwood Flooring, so they don't look nearly as bad as they are. I wonder how much they got paid for that?
Plain fact is, this cabinet door is not being replaced and they won't protect the public by allowing the truth to be told, they are a private company and they don't give a darn about the consumer, bottom line is that they are consumed with their own power to veto whenever they choose to do so.

I would like to ask the owner or any employee of homestars this question. Just googly computer repair Toronto reviews. Your website will come first. Just explore the top result and you will see that all of these companies especially with over 100 reviews are fake. You really can tell from the title and the content. Very clear they have been posted by either the owner or freelancers. I would agree that bad reviews for premium listing will not be posted. I'm not blaming you homestars but shame on you Google.

scam,

1) I wanted to hire a contractor for flooring project. He was busy and was not providing any quote; Upon my complaining he started insulting me "on the phone" while on email exchanges he was polite. I reported this to Homestars and they said contractor must be hired first before you can place any reviews. All these contractors know about that and they make sure they 'pick' customers who provide good reviews.
2) I went to another contractor; Against my better judgement I agreed that the floor be prepared based on his recommendations and the crew that he sent to my home. They asked for cash and did the floor prep in one day. This was the worst floor prep job I saw. It was 1/4" drypack job which was peeling off as we were vacuuming the floor. So I had to tear 85% of it out and pay for the disposal bin, etc.
3) After >$2k of repairs, and then some extra material cost on my part to prepare the floor for tiling myself, I hired another contractor from the same site; who again wanted cash. His performance was very bad. He was very polite, but his work was terrible and he was very careless. Evey time I would point his mistakes to him, he would get upset and say; "It is not you; I should not have accepted the job". I would come back from work and see what he had done during the day while I was away and would point out the parts that had lippage, un-evenness, etc. This ( pointing problems ) happened perhaps twice. Meanwhile he was getting paid cash. He was 2 days away from completion and I found yet another "series" of issues and sent him a very polite text pointing the issue. Next thing I know, he came to our home @ 10pm and packed his stuff and left. The job was left unfinished. My wife and I insisted that he be paid, but because we did not expect to pay him that night I had to write him a cheque. This is where he was refusing the money; He probably knew that if I paid him by cheque I would be able to write a negative review and his reputation would suffer. In fact, he was saying that I don't want you to say I left the job unfinished if you give me the cheque.
Anyway I had to make a promise to him that I would not put a negative review so that he would take the cheque and as he claimed pay for the salary of his assistant.
This last guy did not even have knowledge of mortar. For instance he would mix the polymer modified thinset with water. Then an hour later he would add water to make it thinner as if he is dealing with paint while right on the bag in the mixing instruction there is a statement saying you should not add water once mixed. Another thing: to make his job easy, he would used 1" thick mortar between tile and floor. which cost me 3 times as much as it should have to provide the mortar. Another issue I pointed to him in the final night was in a span of 1 foot there is a variation of 1/4" in tile setting and floor is uneven...just horrible. I have pictures to show anyone who is interested to prove I am not exaggerating any of the above.
Since I have promised I cannot mention the names but these are three instances that I have dealt with contractors on this site. They all had perfect or near perfect score.
I hope this helps other people with their decision.

I wrote two complaints about a pool company named Leisure Industries, Homestars never published them, I wrote emails twice and still no answer, there is something really fishy about this company. The only reason I can think of is that they avoid publishing negative reviews for certain companies.

I recently posted true review about Paradise Contracting LTD of Milton to which the owner, Jamie, responded incorrectly. I responded back to highlight what was incorrectly stated and with pictures to prove my side of story but after a few days I noticed that my negative review with pics about Paradise has been taken down and only the good reviews remain. This clearly proves that there is some kind of unholy Nexus between Homestars and the contractors. Not a site to bank on.

Home stars is a site that makes money off holding companies for randsom and scamming innocent contractors out of their advertizing dollars.
If you really feel you are a service to people, why do you allow comments that personally attack company employees. This is unprofessional and terribly hurtful to the company and his family. Anytime someone googles my company name. there is a review that pops up from Homestars calling my husband a creep. How do you justify this as fair? Please help me understand why my future customers and children have to see this untrue and nasty comment.

Homestars is big fake company reviews as owner of business that paid to homestars for 1 year all reviews was great from my customer since first month that I cancel my account with them every month have negative review so we try to check it and we took 5 customer that we did great job from them those customer written the review when our tech was at the location and surprise none of those review was publish and even without any response from homestars but when 1 customer complain even without to be at his house the review publish same day so we try to call that company and as fake company we still waiting for them to response 5 months also when I ask to remove to my company from there list even that I have 60 good reviews and 6 fake reviews they didnt response for that so for the owner of homestars its better for you and your staff there stand behind there words and publish outside how your company working if you paid all great you stop pay than you discover real fake homestars company I hope that one will help for another companies outside dont spend your money on them.