First The Wildfire, Then The Scams - Including Well-Known Companies Like Servpro

EDIT

Crosby, who is a consumer advocate and founder of The Counterfeit Report, was wary. He told them he was not ready to authorize repairs, but that they could assess the damage. When they handed him a one-page access form, he scrawled a few amendments: his insurance adjuster’s information and a line clarifying that he only wanted “evaluation, recommendation, documentation, and inspection.” “I like to memorialize exactly what I say,” Crosby later recalled. “And it struck me a little unusual that they didn’t have a problem with me changing a corporate form.”

Over the next 10 days, the company sent more than a dozen workers to his house. They moved furniture, wiped the walls, and dusted surfaces. Along the way, they copied a AAA Insurance representative on emails, leading Crosby to believe that his policy would cover the work. But Crosby started to notice they were cleaning surfaces that probably needed to be ripped out and tossed. Then they began causing new problems. As they tore out insulation in the attic, they damaged HVAC pipes and vents. (An HVAC technician would later deem the system inoperable due to the damage.) They also dinged the garage door, stained carpeting, and broke an attic access door.

When Crosby called his insurance adjuster to complain about the company’s shoddy workmanship and excessive billing, he was shocked to learn that AAA had never approved the work. In fact, they told him One Silver Serve, LLC, the franchise that had approached Crosby, was on their internal blacklist. When he told the cleaning company it would cost roughly $16,000 to replace the HVAC system, they initially offered in writing to cover the cost if he signed a liability waiver. Once he did, the company reversed course. Instead of paying, its lawyer told him he owed the company more than $62,000 for their services. Then, on Valentine’s Day, the company escalated it further. Its lawyer filed a mechanic’s lien — a legal claim against a property for unpaid work — on Crosby’s home. He couldn’t believe it. He’d never paid a credit card bill late, let alone had a lien on his property. “I pay all my bills a month in advance,” he said. “That’s how conscious I am not to jeopardize my reputation and standing.”

Based in Encino, California, One Silver Serve LLC is one of Servpro’s roughly 2,300 independently owned franchises. It benefits from Servpro’s national reputation, but operates with little direct oversight from the parent company. The quality of work, billing practices, and ethical standards are entirely left to the local franchise. About a dozen of Crosby’s neighbors had similar experiences with One Silver Serve following the Mountain Fire, according to county records and court filings. Each was approached by workers at their doorstep in the days after the fire, told insurance would cover costs, signed an authorization form, and later received exorbitant bills for cleaning. Some, like Robert Perez, a funeral director down the street, received notice of a mechanic’s lien for roughly $58,000. When Crosby, Perez, and others didn’t cough up the money, One Silver Serve sued them in the Ventura County Superior Court. Crosby’s insurance adjuster eventually declared the home a total loss from the fire — a determination that restoration professionals typically identify during their initial assessment, before cleaning commenced. Crosby has since filed counterclaims for fraud, breach of contract, property damage, and elder abuse.

EDIT

https://grist.org/extreme-weather/first-came-the-wildfire-then-came-the-scams/