CompleteHome.com is a waste of money
I signed up for www.completehome.com as part of my campaign to get a free Mac Mini. The whole completehome.com site is a thinly-veiled attempt to get you to pay for stuff you could get free at lots of other places on the Internet. Fortunately, the one-month trial only cost me a dollar, and I'm supposed to get a $20 Lowe's gift card out of it. I ought to come out ahead.
Their "Home Improvement" category offers four services:
- How-to guides.
- Coupons.
- Pre-screened Contractors.
- Decorating Secrets, Services, and
CouponsSavings.
None of these things is compelling. In fact, they're asking you to pay $9/month to have access to non-exclusive content that they pretty much recycle from free places on the web. Sigh.
- How-to guides
- This is content they ripped off from other places, or bought. Either way, you can get it for free by searching around. All they have done is made fancy PDF files out of it. Frankly, HTML loads faster in your web browser. Their "value added" PDF files don't add much value. Wilway Lumber Sales Inc., for example, has many of the same how-to guides, and you don't have to pay for membership to their site.
- Coupons
- They show 8 companies and say "Here are just a few of the Home Savings Coupon services offered:" Bah! It's all of them. Whoopie. Here's some examples of what you get:
- Free roller and tray set with two-gallon paint purchase from MAB Paints. Looks like they've got stores in Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky,
Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, New York,
North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. If you're not in one of those states, you're out of luck. Even if you are in one of those states, there's only 3 or 4 stores in some of them. The chances of one being near you are pretty slim. - You can get $6 off an order of $25 or more from Gardener's Supply Company. Here's some nice non-exclusive, recycled content. You can get the same coupon plus various others for gardeners.com from savings-center.com.
- Members get $5 off the regular wholesale purchase price of one 2-gallon purchase of Duron® premium paint. There's a limit of one coupon per customer per visit. Again, so what? If you already belong to AAA your AAA membership probably gets you a better deal than this. According to the AAA South web site their members save up to 30% on Duron manufactured paints and select sundries. AAA is an organization that has a much better track record of providing actual value to its members.
- Free roller and tray set with two-gallon paint purchase from MAB Paints. Looks like they've got stores in Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky,
- Pre-Screened Contractors
- Here's another place where they don't actually do anything. It boils down to 2 things: finding a contractor and Finding a REALTOR®. The REALTOR® finding service is just a link to realestate.com which you don't have to pay for anyways. The contractor finding site is the same kind of deal. It's just a link to servicemagic.com, which will match you with contractors and service providers for free anyways. Both ServiceMagic and realestate.com are services from LendingTree who, again, will do lots of stuff for you for free.
- Decorating Stuff
- This is nothing more than a PDF file with a single coupon worth 15% off at American Blind and Wallpaper Factory. Then they give you a link to the blinds and wallpaper web site. So what? You can get comparable coupons without paying for membership to a web site. Just search Google. Here's an example.
The bottom line is that they ask you to pay for links to stuff that you can get for free. The moral you should take away from this is to search for this stuff on line before you go pay someone to do it for you. It might be worth a one-time $9 fee to get access to someone else's work, but $9/month for access to this stuff is just outrageous.
March 1st, 2005 - 19:24
I signed up for CompleteWasteofTime while trying to get a free iPod. When I tried to cancel, after recieving my $20 gift card, they wanted to extend my trial membership. I didn’t want to sound like an a$$ the first time I called them and say, “I’m through with your service becuase all I wanted was the $20 gift card and a free iPod!” But now, thanks to your posting I can say to them that I don’t feel they are worth it. Thanks for putting in the time to research and post this
April 16th, 2005 - 18:19
Ok, so I cannot believe people are surprised by the fact that it is a waste of time. At least you people know you signed up for the services. From what I hear, most people who get involved with these types of companies do so w/o even knowing they joined thru some sort of partner deal. Do yourselves a favor and keep checking your bills for these people for several months after cancelling. FYI, the parent company of this program is Trilegient (do a search for them and see what wonderful info you come up with). Another one to watch for is Vertrue (formerly Memberworks). Beware!
May 2nd, 2005 - 09:46
I am shocked that these people are still allowed to solicite for more memberships. Last year I clicked on a link about a $20 gift card. When I read the information about the CompleteHome membership, I backed out of the screen. A couple of months later I was reviewing my statement to find them charging $8.99/mo. on my charge card. I didn’t even give them my account information. Triligent supplied CompleteHome with personal information about me in order to charge my cr. card. I had signed up with Triligent for a travel program when I lived in a completely different state. I cancelled after the initial free membership and was still charged $89.99 for the year. Then the next year I was charged again $89.99 and again last year. Each time I got refunded the money but not until after complaining and filing a report with my cr. card company. Triligent had some sort of spy program running that recognized my visit. Then they supplied CompleteHome with my account number. When you call Triligent the operator can transfer you to CompleteHome yet when you talk to a representative they act as though the company has nothing to do with Triligent. Well, today I received a letter from my bank promoting the CompleteHome membership. It’s time to let them know what type of company they are endorsing. Please file complaints with the BBB. They need to know these types of scammers.
May 8th, 2005 - 20:25
I am so grateful for this information. My 78 year old aunt came over today with this card from CompleteHome saying they hoped she would continue her membership for a year (she never had a membership) and that, unless she contacted them, they would automatically bill her $89.99. She wouldn’t know a computer from a refrigerator – I have no idea how they got her name or card #. But she’s an old woman on a fixed income and had no idea how to get out from under this. Call the BBB and warn your friends and family members to read postcards that look like junk mail before throwing them away. This seems like an incredibly sleazy operation that must be hooked into a lot of different sources for card numbers.
July 19th, 2005 - 13:08
There is no doubt,this is a big time scammer.
To me,most of what they cover are things that dont get damaged often or when damaged, is not worth repairing. You will save yourself a lot of pains checking your local yellow pages for a contractor than waiting some couple of weeks for Complete Home to get you one who will end up charging you triple for what you can get at half the cost.Ah!, please check your cr. card monthly for the next 12 months after cancellation otherwise you will be paying that $8.99/month for the next God knows what. I thought I was the only one that feel this way about them.
August 25th, 2005 - 09:42
Thanks so much for the info. I received something about CompleteHome in the envelope with my house payment, which, coming from them, I thought was legitimate. Thank goodness I looked on the web and thank you all for sharing your experiences with this crooked company, you have all saved me time, money, and who knows how much hassle!
Claudia
December 10th, 2005 - 13:55
If you really want the gift cards from these offers, use a prepaid credit_card or a virtual account number with only a dollar or two on it to sign up. Then they can’t bill you at the end of the trial.
January 7th, 2006 - 14:53
mmm Waste of money? But CompleteHome is just the kind of website I am looking for to take advantage of. I signed up my whole family into CompleteHome a total of 7 people. I spent $7 dollars and I get 7 $20 Lowe’s Gift Card…that’s $140 for $7.
Tell you what: Once you sign up for the service, wait three days so they send you an email with information about your policy, then at the fourth day they will send you an email with a link to a form where you gotta fill out where you want the gift card be shipped to. Wait a week and half, and check your mail for the gift card. Now, once you received your gift card, call CompleteHome, and cancel your membership no matter what they tell you, you stick with a big NO, I WANT TO DISCONTINUE MY MEMBERSHIP. Finally, they will give a confirmation number, write down just in case. And that’s it!
If you are organized enough you can get more gift cards from other websites that I found like CompleteHome.
You need gas? Go to http://www.greatfunsite.com/
Want a Circuit City card? Go to http://www.buyersadvantage.com/
Movies? Go to http://www.netflix.com
Anyways, if you know more websites like this one, please let me know I will try it and let you know how to take advantage of it
Actually send me an email, because I dont check this forum so often.
Thanks.