by 
Surety bonds for the non-insured home inspection company are a necessary part of doing business in the State of Arizona and I’m sure there are other states that require them or soon will. I applied for one this year from the Ralph Rigo Agency in NY. After filling out the paper work, getting a cashier’s check for the five grand and checking off the expideted return request I waited for the bond.
Ten days after they recieved my money and still no bond I gave them a call. Seems they sent everything out priority mail 8 or 9 days ago and told me that I should wait another 3 days to see if it didn’t show up. That’s when things started to smell bad. I requested to talk the the owner Ralph but keep getting a different person who said they could take care of me. This is how they proposed to do it. Give us your master card number and we will re-issue another bond for you at the rate of $24.95 and oh yeah, by the way we will send it out right away by snail mail. Unless of course you’d like to have us FED EX it for an additional fee.
After explaining to the second lady for a second time that I already paid for the bond issue in my application but did not recieve it and I had already paid for an expidited mailing, she relented on the bond re-issue of $24.95 but she couldn’t priority mail it unless I paid for another expedited fee of $4.00. It was lost on her that I already paid for the priority mail service. Her reply, we can’t help what happens to the mail and that I should be happy that there gonna re-issue the bond without charging me again.
I couldn’t believe my ears, were talking about 4 bucks! I ask again for Ralph, a ten minute wait on hold and Ralpf comes on to explain that “we don’t control the mail and that if you want your bond priority mailed out the next day, to please give my credit card info to the receptionist”. I explain again that it’s already been paid for so would he please send it out ASAP to which he replied, it will go out regular mail. I’m getting the feeling they never sent it out at all. When I asked if they had the tracking number Ralpf steadfastly refused to believe there was any such service offered with priority mail and even if there was they wouldn’t bother with it. Hmm, legal paperwork representing $5,000 deposited in a trust account and no tracking number.
So Ralpf, I say, are you telling me that you’d rather lose a yearly recurring customer than place my bond in a $4.00 priority mail package? I kid you not, his reply, “I’ll place your bond in the mail”. Things must be done a whole lot different in NY. Is it possible that this is standard operating procedure, hold back the bond and see if the customer will pay for a re-issue? In effect paying for it twice. Sounds like NY. Hope I haven’t been scammed for the $5,000 to boot.
Copyright © 2005 by Bob Kille. To read other home inspection related articles or to view home inspection software and book publications by Mr. Kille, click on this link. www.inspectorsuccess.com