I was trying to get an apartment complex this AM & the PM asked if I was with Compliance Depot. I answered "No, but it sounds like somebody I should get with?"She gave me some info on them and I looked it up. (www.compliancedepot.net) You have to pay to play. Has anyone dealt with them yet and should we try to approach them as the RCIA as opposed to individually?
Until you posted this, I never heard of them. They have been in business since '05 and when I was looking for what it costs I found this:
Q: What are the costs associated with Compliance Depot’s Services?
A: The costs associated with the credentialing process are determined by the services requested by the Compliance Depot client.
So, I'm wondering how expensive it really is. Is this going to afordable for a small company? Since I signed up with Service Magic I would have said no, but I am approved by Service Magic, which is now next to the RCIA logo on the front of my sales book.
I don't think it's worthwhile as a sales tool, but if I DON'T join, I know of five or six apartment complexes I WON'T be getting. I read people wrong all the time, but I think the PM did me a favor she doesn't normally do by getting me their contact info. She probably wants it done, but only an approved vendor can bid.
Compliance Depot is a third party "verification" company. Most apartment, condo, and property managers are using them to verify your insurance, licensing, osha requirements etc. If you want to do work for apartment complexes, Condo associations, or PM's you need to join and have an account with Compliance Depot. You may get lucky and find one of the associations that do not require a Compliance Depot account, but as time goes by more and more are requiring this. Compliance Depot verifies your information, which in turn takes the time and effort away from the apartment complexes, Condo associations, or PM's plate. This is important to them because of liability issue. The cost is around $600 to start, and approx. $100. per customer that you will service under Compliance Depot. You will also have to have that customer or customers listed on your insurance policies, each of which will have a small cost to add. This is the cost of doing business with the "Big Boys", and as ART has found out, required if you want to do business with some companies. It means nothing to your typical residential customer, and isn't really a selling point to them either. Now to your commercial customer, this is a selling point, and in most cases required before they will even talk with you.
ART: You are lucky they gave you this info. It sounds like you have already made an impression and a good customer relationship with the appartment manager. If this is the case, you are half way to closing a job. I would jump on Compliance Depot, as they suggested, and get back to them ASAP with proposals in hand, or at least a great info pack and presentation as to what you can do for them. GOOD LUCK BROTHER!!!
Thanks Chris, I appreciate it. Who should I talk to to see if they'll give an RCIA discount. I don't think it would be proper for me to ask them AND it would be an excellent educational opportunity. The company who owns these apartments has them in a bunch of states and if we can show Compliance Depot that soft washing their customer's roofs it would make RCIA members the hands down choice.
Chris gave a very good explanation of what Compliance Depot role is. They are only a middle man clearing house varifying all contractors meet their minimum requirements in several areas. First the general liability insurance, (your insurance company will charge you about $100 for every property management company that oversees apartment complex maintance business to be listed on your general liability insurance policy). Second you will have to meet the minimum commercial insurance coverage on your business vehicles. (that may mean you will have to increase your current commercial vehicle insurance coverage. Third you will have to provide workers compensation insurance & have Compliance Depot listed on your policy as a certificate holder. If you currently don't have workers comp it will cost you a minimum of $1,000 each year for the first two years of being in business in the state of NC. This could go up based on your employee payroll. So you are looking at spending a minimum of $1,200 a year just to be qualified to meet Compliance Depot / & just one of the property management company before you can go on their property to do work.
Be sure & examine how much business that one property management company could give you if you went through all this up front expense. Then figure out how much profit would you make from that apartment location. It might seem like a great opportunity to get in & do some work there but remember you are in business to make money & some jobs there just isn't enough profit to bother with. (Kenny Rogers old song is so true, "know when to hold them & know when to fold them")
I need to vent. First off, this is my own personal opinion. With that said, let me begin. Back in August, I bid on a sweet 3 story apt. building. I get a call saying I was not the lowest, but the winning bidder. The Apt. Bldg. is run by a management company. They now tell me I have to contact this company called COMPLIANCE DEPOT, and go thru them...oh and there is a fee. This is where I went against my better judgement. They want ME to pay a fee to a company that will investigate my company on THIER behalf?? This sounds absurd..and it is. I mean they never told me about it before the bid..so it wasnt included. I figured if I do it its only $95 so I would eat it to land the gig. I dwelled over it for days, looking into compliance depot to make sure they were legit. I even talked to Alex about getting a WFP set up(would of been perfect for the job, and paid for itself this day). I asked compliance depot many questions before I sent them my check..such as what I would need to "pass". they refused to give me any info I was looking for until I paid the fee. Well, I paid the fee, for them to give my insurance agent a hard time about ridiculous additional insured to the insurance policy(which my agent gave in and did)..then they told me my auto insurance wasnt "large" enough. I told them my truck has full coverage and showed them....not good enough. I even looked into getting the additional insurance they wanted me to have...but the cost of that added with thier "fee" would of left me about $100 for the job. Compliance Depot wouldnt give me the answers to my questions before I paid because they would of never of gotten my money. I would of known I didnt qualify to thier standards. Shame on me... Dont do what I did I would like to induct Compliance Depot into the Hall of shame...COMPLIANCE DEPOT ..YOU SUCK!!!
#2
It's painfully obvious that Compliance Depot is replying to this thread touting themselves as a great company. I just heard their name today from an apt. manager and came home to do some research on them and the first thing that popped up was "Compliance Depot Scam" so I read it and found they, apparrently, have horrible customer service and treat most of their contractors rudely and like criminals. And won't answer any questions and even when a few of the contractors, who had all the necessary insurance, portrayed them to the properies as NOT having the right credentials. Sounds to me like they really don't know what they're doing... OH! And, a Compliance Depot owner or employee got on that thread and started INSULTING the vendor who was reporting him and spelled many words wrong in his post, like "repercussion" was spelled "repricusion" or something like that. Anyway, I will not be joining after reading so many horrible things about the company. And.. they are not an official member of the Better Business Bureau because when they were, they were rated an "F". They've had 9 complaints in less than 3 years and that's quite a few for a small company with only one location. This is my opinion but they are definately NOT the industry standard. Anyone can call and verify insurance, but do you really have to be RUDE to all the insurance companies in the process? NOPE. Now, I'm waiting for the company to respond to this, like in the other scam threads... or someone to come on after me and say how AWESOME they are... my advice keep googling them and see for yourself!
3 I have been bilked out of $185 by this company not counting the increase in insurance I was required to get before being compliant. There were no jobs and in fact they were taking the paint turns in house at most propertys while they were taking my money. I have filed a complaint with the Colorado Attorney General. At best this is just preditory.
4
Compliance Depot is nothing but trouble even if you have a multi-state contract with a company you will have nothing but hassle getting paid for it. Compliance Depot has lost us over $50,000 in just ONE YEAR due to "random" computer errors that make our insurance somehow not acceptable. They never answer their phones and when they do, they give you fake email addresses that always get returned by mailer daemon. They never return your calls when you leave a message and most importantly, they somehow never find your paperwork after you fax it. Our insurance is not paid monthly, we pay yearly so there should be no reason why we are compliant one day and then screwed the next. We even had to triple our insurance to meet their new standards, which we did no problem but then a month later looky looky we are not compliant again! A property in Beaverton OR is holding a $3,000 check for us we were supposed to pick up on Tuesday but compliance depot says they fixed the problem last week......we are still not compliant.....they are a scam.
5
Where do I begin?
I have experience with compliance depot from pretty much the beginning. If you want to do business today, you will deal with them like it or not. It’s not fun or easy and it feels a lot like extortion. Some companies won’t even pay you for work performed in the past unless you are currently compliant even though you were compliant when the work was performed! My company has definitely been injured financially by this company and I’m sick and tired of it! My insurance broker told me that they have rejected the verbiage in several accounts because of the lack of a coma. Weeks and Months have gone by trying to get money that I have already earned. My credit has been maxed out for over a year because of this and all the while I carry a huge accounts receivable. It might be different if I thought they were doing the apartment complexes some good but they don’t. They hurt them by making the compliance issue slow motion. What used to be handled easily is now painfully slow and inefficient by way of red tape.
As far as insurance is concerned I carry plenty on the trucks as well as Liability up the wazzoo. What a wart Compliance depot is on the face of the service industries. America will never recover unless this kind of crap stops. I hope someone from there reads this and gets a clue but I'm not holding my breath. The insurance companies should be doing this for free
__________________
Elephant Roof and Exterior Cleaning Raleigh North Carolina David Hoover 919-207-0666 Benson NC. Roof Cleaning Raleigh NC
Great post and information David! I have never heard of this company and after reading the stuff posted here, I'll just stay away from the big dogs and be happy with my porch. If they call me or I end up on commercial properties one of my questions will be to them... "Do you use Compliance Depot"?
Art, if I can make a suggestion. I think you are putting the cart before the horse, especially when you have to go through a third party just to make a few bucks. And what will that cost you? And... will CD work for you as they should once you pay them and meet their strict and changing rules? So... here's the cart before the horse part. You have been in the roof cleaning business for 4 - 5 months. Let the apartment buildings go, leave the commercial alone for a little while before you go nuts trying to meet all their requirements and spend even more money before you even do the first sq. ft. Get a bunch more residential under your belt first. It's going to be easier (I hope) if you are making some money cleaning residential and ease into the commercial. My opinion and you know what they say about that!
Brett- I hear you loud & clear and you are correct. I went out Monday to several hotels, businesses, and apartment complexes with an educational brochure and some business cards to try to drum up some business because I haven't cleaned a residential roof in about a month. I would prefer not to be chasing commercial work right now, but the residential side of my business is currently dead and as the guy who writes the checks I better get something that pays pretty soon. This particular complex was inviting because its near me, moderately dirty, and in another life I was the punch-out carpenter on this job when it was being built. It's 8 big buildings and some garages so I could have priced CD into it and the parent co. has 6 or 7 other complexes within 15 minutes of me. If I had known it was that hard to bid the job, I would have driven on by.