taneemit T
map-marker Melbourne, Victoria

Devine Landscaping- Beaware of Dodgy Guys- very poor quality and left without completing the job

I employed Devine landscaping company (from serviceseeking.com.au) to do my landscaping few months ago. They did not finish the job completely and asked for full payment saying remaining work is very little and they really needed to pay their labourer. And they would come back and finish the job the next day. Been waiting for almost 3 months now and they never came back. I tried making contacts using phone, email and sms. They kept saying they would come and fix it next week and they didn't. They asked me or my wife to stay home many times saying they would come but never did. I was pretty *** trusting and paying them the full amount without them finishing the job. Now they do not even reply phone calls or emails. There are two guys behind this dodgy company. One is responsible to traps the customer with his nice words and once they get paid, he disappears from the scene. Other one, rude and least skilled in communication - mainly does the job (or should I say bad job?). Work quality wise, they did not put Tuscan topping around my house as required to be enough to cover the base of the house. Slope is also not right so the water goes down and affect the slab and my builder already warned me about this. They did not excavate and level my backyard. It is pretty uneven (which they were supposed to fix). They put some natural grass at my backyard but there are so much gap in between the grasses and even after 3 months of completion of grass, we can see gaps between grass square carpets. At the front, they put some merbau wood border which were not aligned and part of wood already came off. They put different plants and grass than what I asked for. Pavers are not aligned and on diffent levels (due to ground not being levelled). This is really a very terrible company to go with. Stay away from them. I initially had doubts about their competence as they said they had overseas qualification. But I still go ahead and lost the money. What they left unfinished are going to cost me about $2000 extra. Lesson learnt - better pay a bit more for to someone qualified who will get your job done nicely and hassle free. I did contact serviceseeking.com.au about this landscapers as I booked them from that website. serviceseeking.com.au confirmed that they got so many complaints about this landscaper that they already blocked them from the website. Note that these guys are now using other service websites like servicecentral. How do I know they are dodgy: 1. They never provided me any official receipt. After asking them for a while, they sent me a word document just typed saying the amount received. Receipt missing their business address and contact details. They never disclosed their business details. Thus once you paid them and face any issue afterwards, you cannot find them. 2. They got multiple phone numbers. I got phone calls from them from 5 different phone numbers. I think they use different sets to trap different customers. Once they are done with them, they change to different sets. I've been chasing them up for long enough to find about all these other numbers. 3. They are not professional at all. I received very strange personal SMS from their number during the work which they said was sent by one of their teenage kids by mistake! 4. When asked for other works they had completed, they took me to a house in Point Cook and they just took me straight to the back yard without even asking the owner/tenant. I think it was all setup. 5. Work quality clearly tells how bad they are! 6. Finally, they are banned in serviceseeking.com.au due to customer complaints - which signifies that I am not the only one having issue with them. 7. They never turned up in time. Even to start, they delayed it by 4 days. When worked, they turned up in the afternoon. No respect for customers' time. Keeps lying and telling you they would come but they do not turn up. I have decided to complaint to ACCC on this matter. Businesses like this should not be allowed to operate in Australia. I am also seeking for refund for work they have not completed and a compensation on delay and not turning up. Would not hesitate to take a company (or team of 2 guys) to court if I needed to. It is clearly a robbery when they tell customer to pay the full amount with the promise to finish the job and never come back! Good luck staying away from Devine Landscaping. Their website is: http://www.devinelandscaping.com.au/.
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Loss:
$5000
4 comments
Guest

Hi, great your letting people know about this company. I also had a huge problem with another landscaping company called "Discovery ", they do a lot of work on the Mornington Peninsula.

We were burnt badly by their terrible lack of management over their own time and costs. We were left with a huge bill and only a quarter of the job done.

They became very nasty and went down a legal path. I was actually quite intimidated by them and would recommend to never use this company.

taneemit T

Hi There,I just sent you a SMS. My email is taneemit@***.com.

I complained to Consumers Affairs Victoria first and after a month of trying to get a response from Devine, they gave up and today they called to advise me to go to court. They also said that they thought Devine got no building license and are illegal to work. Now they are investigating further against them for serious action.

Definitely that is probably not going to help us and to get any compensation or to get Devine to complete our job, we need to go to the court. Happy to assist you on this.Hope to talk soon.Cheers!

Guest

Hi Taneemit,

I had a similar experience and have decided to take them to the court.

Can i get your number so that I have 1 more person's backing.

I can speak to you in detail.

My number is 042198****.

Thanks

Guest

Hi Taneemit,

I had a similar experience and have decided to take them to the court.

Can i get your number so that I have 1 more person's backing.

I can speak to you in detail.

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taneemit T
map-marker Melbourne, Victoria

AVJennings - AV Jennings/Sekisui House - Awful customer service, very incompetent builder

AVJennings - AV Jennings/Sekisui House - Awful customer service, very incompetent builder
AVJennings - AV Jennings/Sekisui House - Awful customer service, very incompetent builder - Image 2
AVJennings - AV Jennings/Sekisui House - Awful customer service, very incompetent builder - Image 3
I am having the worst experience of my life by dealing with AV Jennings. Sales rep was nice and all good - saying how good AVJ is and will be cause Japanese #1 builder - Sekisui House bought out AVJ Contract homes etc. As soon as you sign contract, no one cares. They got many big budget projects in Docklands to think about than your little $200k-$300k house! Worst part is the phone number given to contact customer representative is not even answered. In last 5 months, I already got 4 different customer service reps. I got only 2 weekly progress updates after asking for it several times. Tried to contact their managers but never received reply or could get to them by phone. But as I said - they don't care just like the customer reps. Never got any stage completion confirmation and invitation to inspect but only invoices which needs to be paid within 10 days. If bad communication and customer service was not enough, they got incompetent workers and site supervisor (who is also rude and arrogant) to complement it. From the beginning, there are bad workmanship and awful quality of work. So many errors throughout. When showed the bad mortar work to supervisor, he said it would be fixed when washed. Never did. Bought expensive light colour brick. Supervisor used "God knows what" chemical to clean the bricks and white bricks first turned into GREEN and then rusty RED. We contacted the builder within a week and advised that this probably happened due to the use of wrong/strong chemical during brick clean up and also advised to contact brick provider to take some immediate action. Site supervisor completely ignored us and blamed it on bad weather, mould etc. and said another wash before handover would clean it up and definitely it's not ACID BURN. 2nd wash after couple of months was a failure and finally AVJ decided to contact brick supplier. Supplier confirmed that it was acid burn (strong chemical used during brick wash) and now that the handover is delayed a further 2 months - AVJ trying to get a chemist who is going to test his magical chemicals (again) to clean up the rust from the brick. There are also cracks (already!) in several places in the house and the boards they used to build. They put wrong sized Ceaserstone benchtop in en-suite and when asked the site supervisor about it, he said - he was very sure that was exactly what we ordered. Came home, checked contract and contacted the colour selection lady at AVJ (who is better than the rest in AVJ) - who confirmed that it was a mistake. Thats also taking months to replace and fix. As per contract, builder is to pay for the water usage. One customer rep confirmed that I will be receiving a check for that (that was 3 months ago) and then she left AVJ and new rep go no clue and even us sending him all the emails about previous conversation with other rep, he just doesn't care to do anything about it. Customer rep and site supervisor doesn't seem to talk to each other! when site supervisor is telling me that the handover will be delayed indefinitely, customer rep is telling me to go for pre-handover inspection. Their bagged and painted job looks so ugly and made my house the ugliest in the street. AV Jennings/Sekisui House is the other name of disaster. If you do not want to go through periods of stress in your life, waste your money on a bad quality house, do not go with this builder. They are rude, don't communicate, don't answer phone, doesn't care to call back even if you leave voice message, bad quality work, delays - there is no problem that I did not have with this builder. They are BAD in every single department. And guess what, my house is still not ready and I dont know when this will be completed. If anyone is interested to see the photos of disaster, I will be more than happy to share. Some are so silly that it will make you wonder how AVJ are in construction business.
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10 comments
Guest

Independent consultant

Australia Building Services

Home Owners Warranty

PH(02) 8713 ****

Mobile 0419 42****

If we did not have the help of them we would be in the ***

THIS IS FOR ANY ONE THAT NEEDS HELP

ITS ONLY A PHONE CALL

Guest

Are you in Melbourne? Can you share the details of the independent consultant.

My house is still a mess with cracks and other than fixing it ... they are blaming it on me saying my landscaping wasn't properly done. I ended up putting concrete all around the house (though they were complaining only about one side of the house) ...

and cracks still didn't stop. Now they are saying I should have put concrete at the front of the house too!

Guest

Do not build with them they are incompetent of completing any thing on time & to Australia building code we have now got a independent building consult to over see all work. eg.

They now have to fix all there F UPS & its a long list.. :x

Guest

*** artists, dodgy and deceitful. Even before you sign.

Guest

I had the worst experience of my life dealing with Sekisuihouse as well!!!!! :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(

Guest

We would not recommend you guys to build with them (Sekisui House) and dont do the same mistakes as we did.

Their sales person from Kellyville mentioned and guaranteed that we will have no problem building one of their display house. That is the main reason why we signed contract with AV Jennings at the first place. Turned out we had to have our house size cut and are having issue with double garage.

In addition, to that our Design Assessment application were rejected by Council twice and almost lose the Government first home grant worth of $17000. Took them more than forever to build 2 storey house.

After moving in, we found some many issues related to their neglience and slackness.

1st issue - Dishwasher

3 months ago we started to use our dishwasher for the first time resulting in disaster; the dishwasher was leaking water from the bottom of the door to all of our kitchen floor. A plumber came and had a look and mentioned that the dishwasher had never been installed and placed properly. In addition to that, the drain pipe from the dishwasher wasn't drilled so the water couldn't go anywhere.

2nd issue - Rain water tank

They never installed our rain water thank properly and did not even bother to show it to us on how it work on the handover day. When I complained to them, their rude customer service staff just told me to contact the manufacturer directly. Turned out that the problem was pump was short circuiting the power due to incomplete works / defects.

I am currently dealing with Fair Trading in order to resolve this building dispute.

Guest

Sekisui homes are disgusting any way I do not know why people build this *** the design of the houses are cheap and boxy.

taneemit T

Sad to hear that Janet. For me, it's now more than 1 month overdue and still waiting. I got a report from brick supplier confirming builder's mistake during cleaning phase.

Now they are trying different chemicals to clean up my bricks. Still not thre yet. There are defects inside the house. I decided that I should definitely hire house inspector during pre-handover - just to find out what other mistakes they made!

My customer service guy and site supervisor never answers phone calls or emails.

I ended up getting in touch with construction manager of Victoria. He sounds reasonable and at least follows up, replies email and responds to phone calls. if you are still finding it hard to get in touch with anyone, I can pass on his details to you.

Good luck getting the house done in time!

Guest

I am in the same boat as you almost . Really bad workman ship and we have been waiting for a painter for six weeks our house is delayed because I can't get thought to any one at the Melbourne office, in fact they didn't even have a manager in that position till yesterday 15.3.2012.

Eventually when I demanded answers and refused to get off the phone until I could speak to someone then finally I was called up by two managers apologizing about delay and basically bagging all the staff about all the *** going behind the scenes very unprofessional. We are meant to be in our house in 3 weeks time but it is looking more like 3 months time.

taneemit T

House still the same. Worst of all ...

they went beyond the completion date. :(

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