Complaint Review: Safeguard Properties - Cleveland Ohio

We were vedors for Safeguard (SG) for a little over 4 years. In that 4 years time, we witnessed changes that adversely affected the vendors to the point of putting us out of business, but favored Safeguard. SG lost 2 huge lawsuits: 1 with Bank of America (BOA), and 1 with HUD. Both costing them MILLIONS of dollars. Once the lawsuits were said and done, the following requirements/changes began to occur. It was because of the following that we finally had to close up shop and find another industry to work in.

1. REQUIRING vendors to have commercial vehicle insurance and workman's comp even if the state the vendor resides and works in, doesn't require workman's comp, SG was requiring it. This is ILLEGAL. They can't FORCE a company to purchase insurance if the state the work is being performed in doesn't require it. According to our local laws, unless a vehicle has LOGOS on it, it's not deemed a commercial or company vehicle, yet they were requiring it. Both cost were found to be too costly and hard to manage since SG pays out 30-45 days AFTER work has been completed. (If chargebacks didn't happen).

2. Charge Backs for work completed MONTHS in the past were happening. Charge backs for erroneous claims too. One of many incidents that occured was, we were charged $180.00 back for 'debris' left behind. Of course, I challenged the claim and asked for the pictures that they were basing their claim off of. According to their claim, HUD found the debris. HUD vendors have to take pictures just like SG vendors do. So, I asked for the pictures that the HUD vendor took of the debris. SG sent me MY OWN PHOTOS that I took for the grass cut bid!! No debris was left behind, it was grass needing to be cut and properly bid according to SG's guidelines. Another, more recent, charge back, just happened. $800.00 for 'non-performance'. Ironically enough, this charge back happened AFTER we quit and was based on a property that we NEVER went to!!!! 

The charge backs have increased tremendously, and bids were constantly being cut in huge amounts. It's our belief that these charges are happening due to the loss in the lawsuits and SG is doing anything and everything they can to recoup their losses. 

3. Absolutley unattainable Contract to sign. The latest and greatest contract that SG wanted their vendors to sign had several flat out stupid stipulations. One stipulation was, any property that a vendor winterized, that property was the SOLE responsibilty for that vendor. So if another vendor, or realtor, or pissed off home owner, or vandal, decided to enter the property and compromise the winterization, the vendor was responsible for ALL damaage done!! That's beyond unreasonable!! We can't control what happens to a property once we left it. Yet they had all vendors sign that they would accept responsibility. Secondly, vendors had to sign that they, as well as no sub-contractors, could NOT lein a property for non payment. Impossible to sign if you NEED subs to complete a job because that's a legal right subs have if they don't get paid! Also ridiculous to request a vendor sign that if the vendor hasn't been paid for jobs completed. 

4. Bids were being cut to 40% BELOW industry standards. SG's expectations were beyond stupid. We started to LOOSE more money than we were making due to the cut bids, charge backs and waiting on payments.

If you are a vendor currently,...CYA!! If you are thinking about becoming a vendor for SG, steer clear. There are better companies out there