Purpose
This site’s is intended as a place to compile all the information available about Premium Home Service, so that others can use it to educate themselves and support requests for chargebacks through their credit cards for work not done, if necessary.
The business concept behind Premium Home Service seems solid, and there are plenty of people who are making a living, not getting rich, from it. Almost 100 people in the Philippines alone rely on it for their income. Of the almost 400 technicians on PHS’s active roster, some are bound to be legitimate and honest.
There’s nothing to stop PHS working as a legitimate business that doesn’t hide behind fake addresses, and that does quality work with qualified technicians. We therefore intend to keep this site active until PHS “goes legit”.
To us, that means:
- No more fake addresses or pretense of being a local business; all addresses on Google lead back to a legitimate PHS representative.
- The “electronic agreement” is revised to remove the legally meaningless language around not allowing chargebacks.
- Memberships are not charged until the end of the 7 day trial period, and refunds are made without objection when requested in line with the electronic agreement.
- Competent, certified technicians are used for all jobs.
If this does happen, we’ll know about it, both from reviews and also from our contacts within PHS.
We do not expect this to happen, so the site will probably be up until PHS is shut down by the authorities. The site is very low-effort, so we are OK with that, as long as it can help out a few people who might otherwise have lost money.
Background
The idea for the site came about when the site owner was looking to have some work done on his property. He found a local service company through Google and contacted them. Unknowingly at the time, he was put through to the PHS call center in the Philippines who signed him up for their membership and arranged an appointment.
The technician never showed, and nobody called to follow up, so he searched for information about PHS online and came across all the concerning reviews. Unworried, as the electronic agreement states that cancellation is free within 7 days, he requested a refund by phone and wrote it off as a minor inconvenience.
Unfortnately PHS ignored their written agreement, and responded by email that no refunds would be allowed. Multiple follow-up emails and phone calls were either ignored, or met with the same flat denial and refusal to respond to questions or references to the electronic agreement and the cancellation clause. The PHS representative went as far as to challenge him to take legal action, stating that PHS had legal counsel ready to fight any attempt at enforcing the agreement.
Our group member attempted to contact someone at PHS who would respond, including making a visit to the stated address of the “local business” – there was nothing at the address other than a donut shop and a vacant storefront. Having reason to regularly visit Chicago, he even attempted to contact the owner of PHS through Facebook and arrange to meet and resolve the situation at PHS’s registered address. No response was received.
It wasn’t until our group member made reference by email to being aware of the owner, Yosef, and the presence of the call center in the Philippines that anybody from PHS responded. They wanted to know how we know about Yosef, and about the call center, and finally offered a refund once pressured in this way. By this stage it was clear that if we hadn’t been this persistent then nobody from PHS would ever have done anything, and no refund would ever have been seen. The decision was made to set up this site so that anyone in the same position would have easy access to the information that we gathered, and could use it to ensure that PHS abides by the agreements signed.
To summarize, this site would not exist if it wasn’t for the way in which PHS treated a customer who simply wanted a refund in line with the agreement.
“Sucks” sites history
Websites set up by unsatisfied consumers, in an attempt to equalize the balance of power which tends to be stacked in favor of corporations, have a history going back over two decades, and a record of successfully withstanding any legal challenges presented. One of the earliest examples is that of a gentleman in Texas who was ordered by the owners to take down his appreciation site about his local shopping center. He has kept the full story online at his website http://taubmansucks.com/, which is an interesting read.
Another notable example is that of https://royaldutchshellplc.com/, which has withstood all legal challenges and attempts by the Shell Oil Company to remove it; this is due to the fact that like this site it is very clearly a complaint site, and no reasonable person could confuse it as being run by the company themselves.
PHS filed a legal action with ICANN, the controller of internet domain names, attempting to take over this site. Their request was soundly rejected.