HomeStars.ca has a rating of 1.9 stars from 197 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about HomeStars.ca most frequently mention credit card, bottom line, and cancellation fee problems. HomeStars.ca ranks 109th among Contractors sites.
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I've been using home stars for a couple months now and I'm extremely satisfied with their service. They're always updating me on what I can do to be more successful on their platform and really show they care about building a long term relationship.
I was promised a job per month. Stuck in the contract for one year. Payments of $348.04 monthly total for the year $4176.48 and NOT ONE JOB! Terrible leads, most of the time they did not fit my profile. The leads are sent to too many contractors at once and clients mostly never answer the phone or completely waste your time.
They promis lead generating on this website as the biggest of the sale, why else get homestars? When i have discrepancies with what leads im getting from the site, I was told its my fault for not getting enough reviews, when i have 98% they say 99% might be better lol. I tried to cancel this service, calling, sending emails and blocking my account, they persisted and finally billed me another 400.3 months of junk leads (if any came in) with another 4th month. 1600 dollars in the $#*!ter with these guys. You can get better jobs on kijiji.
Tip for consumers:
$#*! em. there's better lead generators like houzz
Products used:
brand builder
This year was so bad! I've been with homestars for three years now as a business owner marketing with them. My account manager was Jessica Lee. First two years were wonderful but this year was garbage. No costumer service. Seems like they were doing the bare minimum with me. Sending me one lead a month for over 100.00$$$ if any knows leads that's really bad. Other websites I can make $5000. 00 off a $15.00 investment. I'm not going back unless I get a better manager and even then I'm very skeptical. I have spent over $700.00 this year $130.00 a month one year contract and I'm stuck in this sh@# show now. I've made $800 off the site and it's summer I should be raining in leads from them but I guess I don't take priority this year. Watch about. Just go by monthly and only in the summer time. Winter leads are rare.
Tip for consumers:
Only go monthly only in summer time. I warned you.
Products used:
Marketing
The contractors have no skills, no licences.
No construction skills, no formal apprentice, no schooling. They lost there sales job, years ago, An sign up with homestars scam, to ripoff homeowners in Toronto. The TV ad is all about sales only.
Tip for consumers:
Scam
I hired two companies based on glowing HomeStars reviews. Both of them were terrible. My bathroom renovators had to come back 6 times and things are still not fixed. The plumber overcharged me then did complete my plumbing up to code. I had to have it redone by another company who didn't have a great review but was amazing and reliable. I won't be using them again.
I bought a Lennox EL16XC from Mersay Heating and Cooling. The salesman told me it was large, but should have made me aware that it was too large for the area it was going into. I told them it was unacceptable and was then told it could be changed for the EL XC13, which I agreed to and was told that they have one in stock. After taking out the old unit and them installing new coolant, I noticed that the new air conditioner was the Merit series 13ACX. Not something I wanted. Had they made we aware of this I would have cancelled the order. The model I wanted was on back order and could take anywhere from 3 to 10 weeks to get. So I had to settle for the Merit Series. Suffice to say that I am disappointed with my experience with Mersey.
Albert Elliott
I have been a contractor with home stars for 7 years and have slowly watched their service diminish. Not only are contractors charged to be on the system, but also charged to access leads. This double dipping this is no good for hard working service providers.
The second major issue is with their review process, the management of this system is arbitrary and not as strong as they say it is, we have a mid 90% ranking and yet still we get false or extortionist reviews that are not pulled off after extensive work on our part proving the inaccuracy of the review, on the flip side we have reviews that are a 10 for work we did not even complete. We also have clients that honestly review us and the review is never added to the site and tried another review that was from a false customer and it was let on the site. I no longer have faith in their system to accurately represent our customers opinions of our work. Negative reviews from log ago are weighted to heavily and continue to affect out business dealing with new clients
I do not recommend at 600$ a month this is a good investment for starting business and exsisting business have to stay on our all the review equity built is gone.
We have been with them, paying, for 2 years. When we first started they were great. Now that they have been bought out they have been getting suckier and suckier. Not because their rates are sky rocketing. If I get $5 for every $1 I spend with them it's still works. It's their customer service that is frustrating me the most. Although, I did hear the them at a banquet stating that we (the contractors) are not their customers, it's the homeowners.
They no longer answer the phones when we call, it goes to voicemail. They refuse to communicate in the manner that is convenient to us when we need to speak with our rep directly. Disgruntled employees are able to pose as customers and leave negative reviews (the investigation link is for show). Job leads are not evenly distributed. We have a great rating (98%) and we know people with less ratings in our field and we compare notes. They are getting leads almost daily while we were not.
Honestly, Homestars was a crucial stepping stone to getting our business going. But with these new price changes, unfair distribution of leads, and poor customer service now, I could not recommend another company to sign up with them.
I used to be proud to be part of HS, but now I'm looking for an escape route. If things stayed the same and they raised their prices, fine, I wouldn't like it but we would manage.
We subscribed to a three month contract with Homestars, at which time we were to receive a call to from our rep to discuss options of continuing our service. In the meantime we were also to receive thankyou cards in the mail from Homestars to promote reviews and to post to our profile throughout the three months we received four emails confirming that the cards would be sent to us, but we never received the cards. We did not receive any calls from our rep prior or even after the three months, subsequently we were billed for the fourth month. It took an additional month of numerous calls and emails to the rep and our Homestars consultant to finally receive our refund. We ask our customers and in those three months we did not have one call come in from our Homestars website.
In our opinion they are eager to get you onboard, but once you are committed to, we did not think our monthly payment of 210.00 was working using Homestars.
Homestars takes money from contractors for listing their services which gives them a vested interest in getting listings listed regardless of the track record of a particular contractor. In short, Homestars does nothing to protect the homeowner from unscrupulous contractors and therefore they cannot be trusted. I know, I have been defrauded of 15,000 dollars by a contractor who paid for a listing on Homestars. Steer clear of Trevor Augustyn, owner of Hawthorne kitchen Design.
With over 146 home improvement service categories in Canada, you can connect with a reputable home professional that will get the job done on HomeStars.