Alex C.

I went on their site where it sounds like they'd make a serious solid cash offer on a rental home I am selling but had not yet listed with a realtor. First they made an offer about $55,ooo less than what I know is medium fair market value. I politely declined. They called me back next day and "offered" me a price about $10 to $15,000 below fair market. Since it sounded like it was to be a cash offer, "as is"with no realator's commission and they'd pay all the closing costs it seemed worthwhile for a quick painless sale.

They sent me a sales agreement to sign, but carefully examining it revealed one serious accidental (I hope) mistake and several serious clearly IMO intentional problems:
The serious accidental mistake is they put my personal home's address on the contract.
If I had signed it without noticing they would have had the right to buy my $600K personal home for $250K. I will assume that was an accident... not deliberate manipulation.

The big problem was the way it was written they had an escrow going about a month and a half.
In a cash sale, if that's really a cash buyer the escrow should be two, or at most, four weeks.
The way it is written during that approximately 6 week escrow I would not be able to sell the home to anyone else, but they could pull out of it anytime. It appears from looking at they site that what they do during the 6 weeks is list your property for sale and try to find someone who will pay substantially more than they offered you. If they don't they'd just pull out of the sale.
And they didn't even put up a regular earnest money good faith deposit. Only offer to file a promissory note for $2500 with the escrow company.

I noticed that on the Better Business Bureau site they have about 160 five star reviews star and no 4 star or 3 star. This is suspicious of bogus reviews.:No company is so perfect that no one would post a four star review. And the tone and writing style of all the reviews are similar.

Wife and I have purchased about 8 pairs of Hoka shoes... 5 directly from the company's site.
To our feet these are among the best, if not the best, we've ever worn.
They're not cheap, but occasionally the company has sales they'll email you about if you get on their email list.

One of the very best things about this company in our experience is how friendly their return policy is: In one case we went on line to return a pair we'd held onto for probably half a year... way outside their official return period IIRR. The site processed it smoothly, including printing us a prepaid return shipping label. Gave a full refund very promptly. No questions asked.

Our French style Patio doors Double pane windows at age of 25 years developed fogging between the inner and outer glass. We got a quote from the local door guy of $900 to replace the windows in the doors.
We saw the classy ad for Anderson on TV about a free quote and figured it wouldn't hurt to get a quote on what it might cost to replace the whole doors.

I called the number and asked if someone could call me with a ballpark estimate, before they came out for on site estimate. She said no and proceeded to make an appointment. The conditions of the appointment that she read to me made me suspect this was going to be a high priced high pressure a sales pitch:
Had to agree to be there as long as one and a half hours.
And to agree all members of the house and all co-owners, spouse, the property have to be present.
(So I'm interpreting this as how they're going to push hard to get a signed contract before they leave.)

The good and bad news news:
The good news: The day before the appointment the actual estimator guy called to confirm the appointment. When I asked him for a ballpark estimate for replacing the French doors, he was honest and willing to give me that. And that saved me and him from wasting our time with a visit.
The bad news: He said that replacing a pair of French doors would run anywhere between $7000 and $11,000.

Here, s the reality check from an independent site that doesn't sell or install door:
"costs. The average cost to install a set of French doors ranges from $2,000 to $5,000. Most people pay $3,500 for a pair of exterior fiberglass hinged French doors. This project's low cost is $1,000 for a single interior vinyl French door with a fixed panel,"
It's quite possible indeed I hope likely at the prices they charge That they would do a good job. But as I say they look like an overpriced high pressure vendor.
After all with the frequent fancy TV ads they run, you, the buyer is paying for their $#*! instead of just for your door. In my opinion you can do a lot better if you need doors windows and dealing with this company.

I occasionally want to download some free or paid utility or application software; but particularly with free stuff there's often (I'd almost say "usually") at least some adware or some intent to use your email address for purposes you'd rather not... and too often some malicious malware, or at least unmentioned (except maybe in the fine print) some other software that while not out-rightly malicious will slow down or even cause glitches in your PC.

Recently I was looking to download a Windows typing tutor as wife wanted to brush up her touch typing skills (they had gone stale from too much use of her iPad for thing that would have been better done on her desktop PC.)

I found dozens of them, many free and many rated 4 or 5 stars by users. But in virtually every case when I dug deeper I found they came with adware or tracking software.

So, long story short, I was delighted when I stumbled into lo4d.com, a Canadian site.
Here's why: They make very serious, and as far as I can tell competent, efforts to make sure that what they offer on their site is free of adware and malware or at least that they specify what's in it.
And they have quite a collection of software available on their site.

Here's another plus: Many places or service (even some trustable ones) require you to first download their download and installer software before you can download the item you came for. That software IMO is at best another necessary piece of shovelware and at worst itself contaminated with adware.

Aside from my brief subjective review above if you google
lo4d.com reviews
you'll find many favorable review of this site/service.

Alex

I spent quite a bit of time going through their reasonably smooth process to generate a codicil to a will. When I click on the link that gives the details of what I was agreeing they could do with the information I had entered (some financial info, my address, who I was leaving money too, etc.) They were as far as I could tell saying they would be sharing that info (selling it?) to others.
I was appalled. It was disturbing enough that I had to quit before printing my form.
I suspect I thereby got my answer to my nagging question regarding all the sites that offer to generate legal and other forms free (which was "why/how are they doing this free?")
That is, I suspect many of the sites that offer free form preparation are, like FormSwift doing it to get access to your info.
Their assurance, which I think I read on their site, that they don't sell your email address is minor compared to what they imply they will do.
READ THE FINE PRINT OF THEIR AGREEMENT before putting in the work to generate a form, I suggest. That is their terms of service and/or privacy policy.
I gave them three stars instead of just two because as far as I could tell the form they would have generated would have been appropriate.

The ONLY reason I give them two stars instead of one star is that when you call their phone you don't have to wait excessively long to talk to a rep.

I own a three year old nice, expensive, Kenmore refrigerator. Nice until it stopped working. The compressor, and approximately $500 part, has, according to my local very trusted licensed appliance technician had failed and needs replacing. The warranty says that for 10 years Kenmore will replace the part under warranty. Just the part, not labor cost. OK. But they will only supply the part if it is installed by their own certified technician. They refuse to send the part to me or my tech. This is in direct contradiction to the warranty language with says NOTHING about it has to be installed only by their certified tech to get the part under warranty.

Wait, it gets worse:
# They can't get their tech out to me for three weeks.
# The tech will charge $129 to tell me what I already know.
# I called Sears home service to try to get an estimate of what the labor would cost to install/replace the compressor. I got a run around passed off between different departments, but none of them could tell me that. I've probably spent a useless frustrating hour on the phone.
# The phone reps are unable to give me any way (phone, email, chat) to directly contact any real service tech to get even a guesstimate of labor cost.

And the final nail in my coffin is that the earliest they can get a tech out to me is three weeks. And then the tech is only coming out to do a diagnostic and estimate. No promise about how long to do the repair.

By the way: This refrigerator was sold by Sears, branded "Kenmore", but turns out it was manufactured by LG. It turns out LG has had a lot of compressor failures. I hear there may even be a class action suite regarding that.

I would have given this only two stars. But I have to say it's "average" when compared_among_ home warranties. That's because on_average_ as far as I can tell home warranties are all not very good for most people most of the time. Among other exclusions, they exclude pre-existing conditions. Although this is understandable and reasonable, the problem is you don't know when you later have a service issue if they going to weasel out of it saying it is related to a pre-existing condition.
I was also disappointed and surprised when was getting water dripping from freezer into fridge. Turned out the drain line was clogged... a simple cheap service repair... but it was not covered by some sort of weasel exclusion. So was charged $65 to have them have a guy come out just to_tell_ me it was not covered. Could have just called any local service and had them actually unclog the line for $65.
Finally they had poor and flawed communication when they set me up for a service call from Sears. Their note to me indicated I should call Sears and set up the appointment. The Sears rep told me, "no"... that know the appointment have to be set up by the rep at the home warranty. It took about 10 days to straighten out this snafu. Fortunately the refrigerator was not totally nonfunctional. If it had been totally down we we would've been without a refrigerator and a fridge full of spoiled food for 10 days while they looked were straightening out their miscommunication. One other thing: When I filed a complaint at the Better Business Bureau I got a call from one of the higher-level reps saying they would give me a $65, courtesy credit service call. Three months later I'm still waiting..

I've used Just answer probably over 20 times in about the last 8 years. Generally it's been between fairly helpful and very helpful. I use it mostly for legal advice, tax advice, and financial questions.
Generally the experts have been reasonably quick, pretty helpful, and sometimes VERY patient in answering my many follow-up questions.
Got help for a tiny fraction of what it would cost calling or walking into a lawyers office.
One possible downside is in contacting a lawyer your conversation is NOT (unlike contacting a lawyer directly outside JustAnswer) protected by lawyer-client confidentiality. So, at least potentially, if you revealed something on just answer that could damage you, it COULD somehow comeback and bite you.

Sometimes I' e had trouble in ther interface finding the topic... that I KNOW is there... to post under. And not always clear to me if and how I have a chice of whjc expert to toss my question to

I like very much (comparing this service to getting legal help on LegalZoom) that you get WRITTEN responses, and there's no clock ticking on my interchange with the expert.

Joined with the business membership... approx $200... knowing I'd likely have both personal and business questions.

First I Was more than a little disappointed that you have to wait for an appointment, and didn't have the option... as I do on Justanswer... to submit a detailed question by text on a webform and get a written answer.

My first experience was good, asking an accounting/tax question thru the connected 1800accounting.
Answer was clear, precise. The guy was knowledgeable and helpful.

Second experience not so good.
I set up a contact with the lawyer with a tax and estate question.
First I noticed had little choice of lawyers... once I said my issue was in the state of Oregon, only one.
Second, noticed I had to choose an appointment much further out in the future then I liked, more than a week, and at a time of day inconvenient for me.

Then when he did contact me he said that my question requires a specialist. That he could not answer. Or Would not. It was actually a simple straightforward estate tax question... that probably with a bit of research... IMO in less that the 30 minutes of consult time I was entitled to... One I believe any lawyer or any careful Google searcher could answer within that 30 minutes. Instead he gave me a list of other lawyers I could contact. But I would be charged their normal hourly rates, -25% discount for being a legalzoom member. That would have been a budget breaker for me. And defeat the purpose I joined LegalZoom for.

Based on my experience with the legal question I would say JustAnswer is more useful. Much faster, often within an hour, and you get a written response, with option of talking on phone.

One advantage of legalzoom. One reason I tried... is... unlike JustAnswer... if talking with a lawyer, not an accountant... your communications are protected by lawyer-client confidentiality laws. Not so at JustAnswer when communicating with lawyers there.