I needed a stump ground. They came by and looked at it and I agreed to the price by phone. Then they just came and did it without warning, paperwork, nothing. I work a few blocks away and I would have been happy to meet them and discuss the approach. No phone call, no nothing. My neighbor said they were in and out in 15 minutes. I believe this to be accurate. Many of the reviews here state how FAST they are. 15 minutes for is this is VERY fast. However it is NOT careful or thoughtful. They basically ran a small tank up my brick driveway apron, and for lack of a better description: "mushing it" and continued down a sidewalk that I paid to replace just a few years before. I did not hire them on another occasion because of their heavy equipment and the brick driveway. I found someone who was able to do it without a giant truck.The stump was ground out fine, but the driveway took hours to fix and I believe a tree a few feet away is now dead, either by this aggressive approach or from having a small tank crush the roots which are close to the surface. Now comes the shell game approach to customer service: I called the Brobst the same day, and expressed my concerns. They sent the driver back, nice guy, but I can tell by the way he pulled up and the way he left that he is not careful. In my opinion he was overly confident and aggressive with heavy equipment. We had a chat and nothing was resolved (although I did like him as a person) The driver admitted that they have pads for this type of thing. They weren't used nor were they even on the trailer from what I could see. At the end of our conversation he asked me how I wanted to pay...which I thought was pretty gutsy considering how much damage had been done, and I said that I would want to talk to the owner. Clearly he did not "get it." I spoke to the person in the office, the driver/operator, and the person who gave me the quote. The office person said all my messages had been relayed, the operator told them that the issue had been resolved, after another call with the office person, we agreed that I would come in Monday with pictures as I was traveling and was not happy. Friday I get another confusing call as I am traveling from the person who gave me the quote. Nobody seems to be communicating well at that company and which is only adds to the frustration. Eventually I speak with the office person again, and she asks me what I want, and I reply I would like to hear what the owner thought was fair. The office person calls back and says that the owner was willing to take $25 off of the bill. which is just laughable and enraging. It would have taken less time to carefully dig the stump out and cut it out with an axe than to reset the bricks, potentially have to dig up another tree in the spring and replace it, and deal with the tracks left in the tree lawn and the sidewalk. I lost on this situation big time and gained nothing. As a business owner I would be ashamed to have caused such a mess and expect to be paid, and in my line of work not only would I have not been paid, I would likely be in court over such sloppiness. It is bad business to show up and cost clients money. I will be thinking about it this in spring when I dig up the old tree, buy a new one, dig a hole and plant it...I bought like $1500 worth of mulch in the last two years from them. I guess that doesn't matter. My advice before using this company would be to proceed with caution. You might get better service from a smaller, tighter outfit that is less concerned with being "fast" to get more quantity of work and find someone who puts quality first.
