I just replied to an ad on the ‘puter for a “Certified Home Inspector”. The ad was vague, but I am not terribly busy so I thought, what the heck, and responded. Simply saying “I’m a certified home inspector looking for work” noted my credentials briefly, and asked “what company and type of company are you?”.
Just got a reply back saying “We are a company looking to expand in this area of work. We have quality leads that we have paid for, and want to know what you would charge us to take the leads and do the inspections for us.”.
Ummm…red flag.
I told them (now only interested in what they were trying to pull), my base price and some of the variables that make that price go up.
The question: I am pretty certain I should forget about it, due mostly to the vagueness and “paid-for lead” sentence, but want some input from other inspectors here.
Have you ever run into something/someone like this?
Am I correct in thinking I should just stay away from it?
Thanks for any input.
Jed
Replies
It's hard to know. When building envelope specialists became required here on larger multi-family dwellings, some engineering firms recruited in much the same way as they sensed an opportunity to expand the range of services they offered - even though they themselves had no expertise in the area. Or it could be a couple of guys working the phones in their parent's basement. Find out out where they are and drop by. You will know pretty quickly if you are wasting your time.
I've run into several - the latest are doing foreclosure inspections - I haven't heard of anyone actually doing these "pay for leads" inspections - I suspect they are simply feeds from agents of their clients looking to buy and you get the wonderful opportunity to cold call 'em.
"Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive... then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
Howard Thurman
http://rjw-progressive.blogspot.com/
I'm embarrassed to admit I got into something like this a couple of years ago.
A realtor gave my name to a company, I think it was called "Intrepid" (I think I still have some emails from them)
She gave them my name and told them I was a handyman.
They called me and gave me an "assignment"
They called me a "home inspector"
My assignment was to go look at an empty house (double wide) out in the country
I drove 40 miles and up and down dirt roads and finally found the place
IT HAD SAT EMPTY FOR 5-6 YEARS
A tree had fallen on the roof and punctured a hole in it
I took a lot of pictures of the house and all it's problems and emailed the pictures to them.
I even kind of wrote up a report
I was kind of proud of my report and detailed pictures.
I emailed my info to them and they called me and asked some questions about the condition of the double wide
AND THEN I NEVER HEARD ANYTHING MORE FROM THEM
These clowns never paid me.
I got busy doing something else and forgot about them but I think I have some emails from them, asking me some questions about the house - what it would take to get it on the market and sell it, etc.
I should have asked them up front what they would pay me (but I thought I would try to impress them and land a nice gig)
What a joke
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Edited 8/14/2009 7:38 pm by mrfixitusa
That's exactly what I was thinking.
If nothing else, I thought they might ask me to do things that would violate the code of ethics or some type of conflict of interest.
A company that is "growing in this (inspection) part of the business", might be some real-estate or construction outfit that would pose such a problem.
Call me a nancy boy or whatever, but the ethics code is there for a reason, and so far I have not violated it. I am a carpenter and remodel a house or two here and there but haven't violated the code because it makes sense not to.
I don't plan on doing it now.
Thanks for the input from everyone so far...No Coffee No Workee!
I got a solicitation similar to this to do "draw" inspections for an out of state engineering company I never heard of, working for a bank. Their checks cashed OK. I wasn't sure until the first one was cashed and my bank didn't call me.
Thats a bad deal. But you only did one .
I got called when I was working for the public and being a regular coffee drinker at the real estate offices. I guess tey thought I didnt have enough to do er somthin. I got called by a mortgage company to winterize a repo. I spend 4 hours on it and billed them. Ive never recieved a dime but I didnt act on it either . I wanted to show them they didnt have to pay me right away. I showed them.