Compliance Depot

From another BBS concerning these scamming companies.


Originally Posted by CompDepot
Allow me a moment to defend our company...first of all, we are not scamming anyone. We are a legitimate brick and mortar company that provides a valuable service to our customers.
To respond to the above critique...I'm sorry if you had a bad experience, but that is rare and may have been due to a hassle that you don't feel you should have gone through. Our customers are too large to screen every vendor that they use. In order to alleviate this problem, they hire us to screen all of their vendors. This saves them time, money and risk. If a company hires the wrong vendor and that vendor turns out to be a criminal, there could be serious repricusions to the company if the vendor strikes again.

For a legitimate vendor that has all of the proper insurance and licensing, they receive a "clean bill of health" and move through the process quickly and efficiently. CompDepot doesn't make the requirements, it's your client that does. If you don't meet the standards they require, then you won't be compliant no matter what coverage you think you have.

I agree, if you are too small or don't do enough work that a $95 compliance fee is too much, then it's probably not worth the time to go through the process for you or your client.

I'm sorry that you had a bad experience that lead you to post hateful criticism about our company on the internet and hope that some day you will be able to work with some of our clients again. We deal with almost every big player in the industry, so sooner or later you will probably run into us again. Hopefully, you will have a better experience next time.
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See all those red words? Those would imply to me that they should be the ones footing the bill to police thier vendors. Not the other way around. This tactic of FREE for the folks needing to hire vendors only creates a "strong-arming" of the folks that want/need to bid on jobs in order to gain revenue for thier businesses. Do you disclaim to these "Clients" that your service is actually costing them more due to middlman fees that in turn HAVE to be passed on to Customers? Do you disclaim to them that your recommendations of having all the un-needed "additionals insured" etc, is actually costing these customers more?

For all the Property Managers etc that use or are thinking of using Compliance Depot..... You are being sold a bill of BS! There is no way that making your vendors or even possible vendors that you may never hire go through a fee based middleman is NOT going to save you any money. The added headache, costs and time involved with redundant "Compliance" crap is passed on to Clients. You are only going to get the highest bidders to do the work and pay those fees. Your alliance with Compliance Depot is bad for your business!

PS.... As you see, the vendors are smarter than you at Public Relations and SEO. The vendors are your entire reason for existence. You ought to stop scamming the property mangers. They are the real victims.
 
Or "Compliance Depot Complaints" the trend seems to be they make you submit your ap and fee before they tell you what it takes to comply. So then they run you through the ringer getting additional coverages and adding "additional insureds" etc. If you don't you don't get "approved". If you don't get approved they will just have to find someone else and collect another ap fee.

They appeal to a PM's laziness.
 
It may be a racket, but it is legit. They work for some big corporations I am with Comp Depot have to be, I've made good $$$$ from a couple companies that required Comp Depot

It takes away the hassle from the company that hires them. Few of the biggest Management companies and REIT's use them. Like the 3rd biggest in the country, they have over 149,000 units. You can either sign up or not, if you dont sign up, you dont work for them

Mike you say they will only get highest bidder, wish that was true, contractor may factor in the $95, but still have fair to low bids to get the work, its just how it is. Unneeded Additional Insured, maybe they are, but all the big companies try to cover their azzes. I have something in my contract that says any Additional Insured will be charge $106 for each. Heck get mad at the insurance companies that now charge for Additional Insured, use to be a free addition not any more for most. Got to love big biz, they will get you coming & going, no matter how much you complain.

Comp Depot is a PITA, if you have one letter wrong you have to take it back to your insurance company and send it just perfect. I have a feeling Comp Depot will be around for some time
 
"If a company hires the wrong vendor and that vendor turns out to be a criminal, there could be serious repricusions to the company if the vendor strikes again."

WTF is a repricusion? At least we know this guy is a true college graduate. Thank goodness they are there to dot all the t's and cross all the i's.

This it typical scumbag ghetto slumlord techniques just like the old $45 credit report they run on people who don't even have an extra $45 to buy their kid's formula.

We need to start hiring someone to check out these scumbags who kick single mothers out to the curb after 60 days but don't pay their bills till after 120.
 
Ill add the 95 on to the bill....now I just gotta figure out what the cost for all this extra insurance is gonna be.

I've 2 million general liability for 4 years now, I had no idea theres all this other crap....I need Employer's Liability of 500,000, Excess Liability of 1 million, a million dollars in auto liability and million in bodily injury. Dang insurance may end up being the deal breaker here
 
bigchaz said:
Ill add the 95 on to the bill....now I just gotta figure out what the cost for all this extra insurance is gonna be.

I've 2 million general liability for 4 years now, I had no idea theres all this other crap....I need Employer's Liability of 500,000, Excess Liability of 1 million, a million dollars in auto liability and million in bodily injury. Dang insurance may end up being the deal breaker here
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Charlie it is a PITA, I ended up having to add ANY AUTO and a couple other stupid things, it didnt cost much but it did cost.

Its over kill and my insurance guy said a lot of companies are getting rediculous now and its going to get worse. Frickin insurance companies, maybe you should get stock in them like your oil company stocks. Just big biz making it hard on the smaller guys and lining their pockets
 
Yea thats what it is, ANY AUTO...not sure what my regular auto insurance covers and if it would be through them or if I need the Any Auto separate from my normal auto insurance and do it under my General Liability insurance. Gonna call both tomorrow to see

Haha maybe I should buy some stock LOL but I agree with you on that one... definitely prefer residential for sure where the insurance is more of an advertising investment than anything else (meaning Ive never used it for claims...knock on wood)
 
I have had to sign up for Compliance Depot for some gutter cleaning out here... Although, I hate having to pay $100 to sign up... It was still worth it for $2000.00 gutter cleaning. Plus they give you a list of properties that they work with that you can now bid on when you sign up...

I went around and talked to managers and landed some more quotes... None ended up falling through but I will renew and try again.
 
bigchaz said:
Yea thats what it is, ANY AUTO...not sure what my regular auto insurance covers and if it would be through them or if I need the Any Auto separate from my normal auto insurance and do it under my General Liability insurance. Gonna call both tomorrow to see

Haha maybe I should buy some stock LOL but I agree with you on that one... definitely prefer residential for sure where the insurance is more of an advertising investment than anything else (meaning Ive never used it for claims...knock on wood)
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On the Any Auto you may have it, but it may not be written up like that. I forget the exact way my agent explained it, but I had it but it isnt written in the Insur Cert, he made a call and verified, then was able to change the Insur Cert to say Any Auto, didnt cost anything, but a couple the other requirements did cost, it was all under $300 for the other additions
 
The last time I had to do this I just gave the information to my insurance agent and he spoke with them and handled it for me. A good insurance agent will handle a lot of things like this for you if you ask them.

I have had to do this for Compliance Depot plus one other company (can't remember the name right now) but both times I didn't do it until after my bid was approved and I was getting the job.

It was a little work but I would do it everyday. So far it has cost me about $95 total and have made $8750. Pretty good ROI. There are a lot of things in any business that are a PITA but it's just the cost of doing business.
 
So when you provide a service for a fee are you scamming a customer? Let's look at the fee $95 wow what a get rich quick scam they have going on. Bottom line is they provide a service that makes life easier for property managers and business owners. Quit being narrow minded. most pm's work their tails off and have a lot going on all the time. This service compliance depot provides takes one more thing off of their plate. The pm can now rest assured that all of your info is up to date at all times. This saves them time from chasing contractors around asking for updated ins info. That $95 takes care of the paperwork processing and also puts you on a priceless list of qualified contractors in their database. That database is searchable by any of there clients. It's also a marketing tool. I can walk into any pm office and if they ask if we a compliant we can say yes and you can verify that through compliance depot or my insurance carrier. It's another way to separate your business from others. If you want to stay a mom n pop keep thinking small.
 
Hondo said:
So when you provide a service for a fee are you scamming a customer? Let's look at the fee $95 wow what a get rich quick scam they have going on. Bottom line is they provide a service that makes life easier for property managers and business owners. Quit being narrow minded. most pm's work their tails off and have a lot going on all the time. This service compliance depot provides takes one more thing off of their plate. The pm can now rest assured that all of your info is up to date at all times. This saves them time from chasing contractors around asking for updated ins info. That $95 takes care of the paperwork processing and also puts you on a priceless list of qualified contractors in their database. That database is searchable by any of there clients. It's also a marketing tool. I can walk into any pm office and if they ask if we a compliant we can say yes and you can verify that through compliance depot or my insurance carrier. It's another way to separate your business from others. If you want to stay a mom n pop keep thinking small.
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Nobody in my office here is thinking small. I agree they provide an awesome service that helps the PM. That said, the PM should pay them. Not us. They are scamming contractors by requiring these fees before any contracts are awarded. They offer this to PM's FREE in order to squeeze us. Everytime I hear that Compliance Depot or similar is involved I educate the PM that it isn't needed for me to comply and that forcing me to pay a third party to prove I comply is only going to cost them more and that I will charge for the estimate.
Most accept the proposal and if I get the work, their billing usually just has me send the required info before they send out a check.
The $95(one peice of chrome dressing on my Harley) is not the issue, it is that they aren't working for me or making my life easier as you state they are helping the PM. The PM is the customer and the PM is the one that should be paying the fees.
 
We had to pay the $95 just to find out what the insurance requirments were. Put the new policy in place inorder to bid and then the client didn't do the work.We billed them the $95 and have never been paid.
I refuse to pay again until I have a signed contract and know the insurance requirements up front.Comp Depot harrased the hell out of me with phone calls when I didn't renew.I had to get pretty ugly with them so they got the point I wouldn't renew until I was awarded work.
 
Hondo said:
So when you provide a service for a fee are you scamming a customer? Let's look at the fee $95 wow what a get rich quick scam they have going on. Bottom line is they provide a service that makes life easier for property managers and business owners. Quit being narrow minded. most pm's work their tails off and have a lot going on all the time. This service compliance depot provides takes one more thing off of their plate. The pm can now rest assured that all of your info is up to date at all times. This saves them time from chasing contractors around asking for updated ins info. That $95 takes care of the paperwork processing and also puts you on a priceless list of qualified contractors in their database. That database is searchable by any of there clients. It's also a marketing tool. I can walk into any pm office and if they ask if we a compliant we can say yes and you can verify that through compliance depot or my insurance carrier. It's another way to separate your business from others. If you want to stay a mom n pop keep thinking small.
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Hey, try this and see how far it goes:

Next time you get a call from one of your "busy" property managers to bid a job tell them they will have to run their D&B before you can look at the bid.

Inform them that you don't do any bids without a current credit report. Tell them this is the way for them to "separate themselves from the others. Ask them if they want to remain "mom and pop" companies or if they want to "comply" and make the big time.

When they ask you to ballpark the bid tell them you can't do that until you get their credit report - and by the way, the D&B is $240.00 - just make the check payable to "Tony Shelton's Credit Checking company". :big_boss:

I think we are on to something here.

(BTW, nobody is complaining about them using a verification service. The complaint is about the audacity of making a vendor pay for it. WE ARE NOT THEIR CUSTOMERS. This is a bad precedent to set)
 
Kory, Maybe Ron will hire me to check business licenses before you can view the forum. I'll do it for $25 each! Just give me your credit card number and we'll get started right now! :)

BTW, I just gave you another dot - so get off my case! :)
 
I have used Compliance depot and have gotten work out of them and still get calls from their clients. I guess I think of it as I pay $95 a year for ad space on their site for my target demographic. They also keep all of my info and records up to date so I dont have too. The first client that made me do this was a national apartment company and they paid me the fee back once I provided all my info. Now I gladly pay my ADVERTISING FEE. I have made 10's of thousands because I did like Hondo said and seperated myself from my compition that think like many of you do.
 
Tony Shelton said:
Kory, Maybe Ron will hire me to check business licenses before you can view the forum. I'll do it for $25 each! Just give me your credit card number and we'll get started right now! :)

BTW, I just gave you another dot - so get off my case! :)
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LOL your too funny!

Side note
Many other businesses charge fees that are add ons or bs fees. Like you said Tony appartments have a credit check fee, Car lots and loan companies do too. I hate paying inflated prices for Doc stamps and other bs but hey If I want what they have I have no other choice.
 
What a bunch of lowball'n, I want everything handed to me for free, bunch of baby's. Kreisle aren't you one of the ones who was pushing the UAMCC so hard and collecting the almost $500 fee. What did the members get for that? From what I hear and read my $95 was well spent!
 
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