servicemagic smoke and mirrors

We've got a gutter that leaks water onto our deck every time we get a hard rain. It splashes onto the house, and I worry that there's water getting into the foundation and behind the siding. Several warped siding boards near my son's bedroom may confirm this suspicion. After getting up on a ladder, it appears that the gutter was damaged at some point, probably by a tree branch or something that fell on it from above. As a result, it sits a bit lower than the ends where the downspouts are located. I've tried bending it back up with no success.

So I decided to try and get some quotes from some local gutter companies to have the gutters replaced. In addition to the new gutters, I was going to opt for some sort of built-in cover that would assist me in keeping them free from leaves and debris, a serious problem in our area all year long - not just in the fall. Unfortunately, I am starting to learn that there aren't many services for our town listed on the internet like larger Metropolitan areas. I guess I'm spoiled because I like to see websites first, if at all possible. There are a couple of companies listed in the phonebook, but I can't find any info on them at all. Who knows if they are reputable or do a good job?

I then happened upon a site called Service Magic that claims it will locate several pre-screened contractors for you. Submitting my request was easy enough and it was free. Most impressive was the phonecall that I had received from then within minutes of submitting my information. The man on the phone promised to find several companies and have them contact me to present a quote. After some time (over a week), I still hadn't received any calls from local companies and was thinking that Service Magic had struck out. I finally received a call from one contractor and he gave us a quote that was much more than I had expected. My wife passed his quote on to me, and I called him back to let him know that it was much more than we had expected. I guess seamless gutters cost a lot more than I was thinking they would.

When I phoned the contractor to let him know that we were going to pass, he informed me of a "special deal" that they were giving for an additional $200 off. Interesting that he didn't mention this when he originally quoted us. None-the-less, I'm not ready to fork over $1200 for new gutters. I'd rather spend that money on new flooring and try to fix the gutters myself.

So when it comes down to it, Service Magic may work well in large cities but in more rural areas like mine, we only got one bid/quote, which I could have gotten myself from the company listed in the phonebook. I guess that the company that contacted me via service magic was pre-screened though, so that is a plus. I can't really blame the site for there not being many contractors in this area, but it would be nice if they would just tell you upfront instead of giving false hope. Or a follow-up phonecall to let us know that they only found one contractor would have been nice. Also, since the only contractor to contact us took quite a while, I could have been busy searching on my own that whole time. I didn't want any overlap, so I waited for them to pre-screen them for me, as they had promised.

In this case, I'm not going to proceed with the project due to the cost but if this were something that I needed done ASAP, that week of delayed response would not have helped any.