A while back I mentioned that we had our roof replaced. While our experience with our homeowner's insurance company was quite good, our experience with the roofing company that we went with, Academy Roofing, was not.

Things started off fine, as they often do in the sales phase of the process. The salesman for Academy met with the inspector from USAA. This is as much for his benefit as ours, but we found it reassuring. (I have since learned that other roofing companies do this, so Academy is not providing a unique service here.) We did not know how much of our settlement to attribute to the presence of Academy's representative, but we appreciated his effort.

Once we inked the agreement, we had to wait a bit for them to deliver the materials. They said that there was a delay in obtaining the shingles we had ordered. Since we had no way of verifying this, we had to take them at their word, but unfortunately, this delay proved to be a foreshadowing of the future when it came to dealing with these guys. As for the actual installation and the roof itself, we are basically satisfied. We have a few quibbles about things that can't be changed, but there were no deal-breakers in the process. Now, that's not to say that there weren't some things that we wanted them to touch up. I have a friend who is a home inspector, and he went up on the roof for me to look it over. He found some minor issues (a nail sticking out, a small number of holes) that Academy needed to address. And thus began the problem, or part of it.

I talked to a couple of different people at Academy (the sales guy, somebody at their main office) and told them about the punch work. I was assured both times that they would talk to the person in charge of scheduling repairs, and he would contact me about getting on their schedule. Days went by, and it never happened. I got the direct line of this person and talked to him. He said he would contact me about getting on their schedule. Days went by, and it never happened. I talked to the sales guy again (about something else -- see below), and he made noises about them being understaffed. (Sorry to hear that, Mr. Sales Guy, but that's your problem, not mine.) He assured me that I would get a call about the repairs. We didn't.

To be fair, we did eventually get a call about scheduling the repair. Unfortunately, the call occurred on Rosh Hashanah, a sabbath day, during which I never bothered to turn on my cell phone. Furthermore, they were giving us less than a day's notice -- we were supposed to call their tech that same day to schedule a time when he could come over. I contacted them the next day and scheduled an appointment for a few days later. No one showed up. I wound up talking to the sales guy, who told me that we was surprised when our repair had been rescheduled (meaning from the date I had set after the sabbath). Apparently, they were a no-show because they had rescheduled our appointment without bothering to tell us. I told the sales guy rather sharply that he had better inform us when the new appointment was. For once, he came through, and they finally completed the repairs -- about five weeks after we first asked them.

The other issue that we had with them was with price. Not long after the roof went up, we got an invoice from the company. However, the price they were charging was higher than what we had agreed to pay. The agreement was for the amount of the insurance settlement plus a specific amount for some upgrades we had ordered. The invoice included a note saying that it reflected a price increase that went into effect at the beginning of August. Now, our roof went up on August 4th, but the materials had been delivered the previous week, in July, so a price increase couldn't have been applicable. Regardless, we weren't going to pay more than the price on our written agreement, so we withheld the money until we could get a correct invoice.

I eventually got a call from the sales guy to talk about the money. I told him about the price issue. He asked to see the insurance paperwork, which I faxed to him. He told me that my calculations were not correct because I had not included sales tax (which was included in our settlement, just on a separate page in the report), and I of course agreed that the sales tax should be reflected on the invoice. However, even with that inclusion, the invoice was about $65 higher than the agreed-upon price. The sales guy assured me that he would alert the central office of the change, and that he would fax me an updated copy of the invoice that same day. He did neither.

Over a week later, I got a call from someone at the central office concerning our unpaid balance. When I called her back, she still had the old, incorrect balance. I explained the situation to her and told her that the sales guy had copies of our settlement agreement. I gave her the corrected figure, and she said she would talk to the correct person in the office (apparently, she was the "billing" person, but she needed to get the information to the "invoice" person), and that we should expect a corrected invoice. A few days later, we did receive another invoice -- for the old, incorrect amount. Another call to the sales guy resulted in more promises and assurances, all broken. Eventually, the same week that the repairs took place, I was able to secure a corrected invoice from the sales guy.

During this entire episode, our position -- stated quite clearly to all Academy -- was that we had the money and were ready to pay, if only they could take care of these two things. The fact that they stalled for weeks and then took care of both issues within a day of each other leads me to suspect that this whole thing was an orchestrated effort on their part to try to get out of the repair, and to squeeze a few extra bucks out of us. Of course, I can't prove this, and frankly, I would rather not believe that, but under the circumstances, it is plausible.

Needless to say, we will not be talking to Academy the next time we need a roof, and I recommend that no one else does, either.