Master Contract Services - Vancouver, BC

Dear Complaints.com:

First of all, thank you for providing this wonderful medium for people like me to voice our concerns.

Master Contract Services of Vancouver, BC is owned and operated by David Koop and Garry Bateman. While they bill themselves as “Fire & Flood Restoration Specialists”, they also provide other contract services.

Being fire and flood restoration specialists, David Koop wisely maintains relationships with home insurance companies and their employees. It is through his relationship with Chubb insurance that I met him. David came in and completed a very thorough and professional report in regards to some areas of our home that were showing signs of water ingress.

Even though the repairs at our home did not qualify for an insurance claim, because David had done such a good job assessing the damage and because he claimed his company was competent in completing the work, we decided to hire his company, despite them being billed as fire and flood restoration specialists and without asking for any references. So my wife and I hired Master Contract Services to address some water ingress issues we were having with our home. We entered a contact where they took on the role as “Prime Contractor”, responsible for managing both their work crew and sub trades.

Due to the unknown nature of the tasks at hand (without knowing the severity of damage and exact source of ingress) David was billing us by the hour for his crew’s time plus a 21% markup on all costs (including sub trades, materials and his crew’s time).

>From the beginning, I expressed concerns to David Koop about his crew’s productivity. And throughout the project, productivity issues were a common theme for us. When I’m paying someone for their time, I appreciate them working in a productive and efficient manner.

Towards the end of the project, I was losing faith in the abilities of Master Contract Services to complete the work we still had outstanding and we were approaching the upper limits of David’s “best guess” verbal estimate for the overall cost for our project. I made the decision to remove and scale back some of their higher ticket work tasks from our list. And despite the reduction in their work load, they still ended up billing us ~$190,000. Just ten thousand less than the maximum of his verbal estimate to me of $120,000 - $200,000.

In the beginning, David Koop was keeping us involved with the selection process for sub trades. However, as the project progressed, sub trades were selected without our involvement and in some cases, work was completed without quote or hourly rate determined in advance.

One of their sub-contractors, a roofing and flashing company by the name of Precision Cladding, we learned was billing us outrageous rates for their services. (Visit http://precisioncladding.funnymovies.net for more detail). And despite our clear instructions to not pay Precision Cladding’s final invoice, Master Contract Services went ahead and paid them anyway. However, seeing that Master Contract Services was earning a 21% markup on all costs I can understand if productivity and sub contractor over billing was not of prime concern to them.

Then there were the pair of senior citizen cabinet making specialists that Master Contract Services hired to be paid by the hour to install exterior cedar shake siding. These guys even made David’s crew look speedy. And at ~$130 per hour for their time, their costs were outrageous for the work completed.

We even caught on that Master Contract Services was double billing us for taxes. They were taking sub-contractor invoices and material costs which already included 7% GST (which they get back as a business registered for GST) and adding their 21% markup and then adding another 7% GST on top of that.

There were other issues we had of course, but considering that we are engaged in a litigation process right now and since Master Contract Services has threatened to sue me for libel and/or slander if I publish anything that could be considered as such, I’ll just stick to the facts I believe they are already aware of and continue to have my legal council review my comments prior to publishing.

If Master Contract Services continues to avoid taking responsibility in regards to the issues we have raised with them, we will continue pursuing our litigation process until we are satisfied.

Of course, I still remain hopeful that Master Contract Services and I will be able to come to an amicable resolution to our matter. If David Koop would simply acknowledge some responsibility for the concerns we’ve raised with them and adjust our account accordingly, I’d be more than happy to close this issue.

Sincerely,

Craig

The author who sent this communication is a natural person (as defined in BARRON'S Canadian Law Dictionary).

Without prejudice; all rights reserved.