Are Cheap Housecleaners a Scam?
If you see a very cheap housecleaning service online for your area, you might be tempted to give them a try. It can be very helpful to have a professional do the cleaning in your home, and to get that service at a low price is appealing to anyone who struggles with bills or with simply keeping their house clean.
Online shoppers may be wary of extremely low-priced services of any kind, and they might have concerns about the price of services being too good to be true. Should they be concerned about a cheap housecleaning scam or are these kinds of services generally safe to sign up for? We are going to look at what kinds of scams are out there for housecleaners and if there is a way to find a decent cleaning service that is trustworthy and reliable.
What to Look for
Always be wary of any product or service that seems way cheaper than you would expect it to. In order to find out what the normal price is for a service like house cleaning, you can compare prices in your area. Find out what the average rate is right now, and then that tells you if the suspect service is abnormally low.
A low-priced service might not be a red flag on its own, but if there are no positive reviews for the company or no reviews at all, then you definitely want to consider that a red flag. It’s a good idea to take time to look online for any reviews for companies that you are not sure about. Be careful about trusting reviews that are listed on the site itself, as those could be fabricated by the website. Use third party review sites to get a better idea as to what people think about the company.
What is the Scam?
There are several different kinds of house cleaning scams, some of which target the housecleaners and some which target the consumer who wants to hire a cleaning service. The ones that target the consumer will generally offer very inexpensive services in order to reel in the potential customer. They may communicate back and forth a few times in order to establish trust and to try to appear as if they are a legitimate cleaning service.
The scam usually involves asking the customer for an upfront payment, which could be a small downpayment for the service or the whole cost of the cleaning. Most legitimate cleaning services will only ask for payment after the cleaning has finished. That way, they give the customer a chance to look at the results and see that the work is up to their standard. Not all legitimate cleaning services operate this way, so asking for prepayment is not necessarily a sign that the service is a scam.
After the fake cleaning service receives the money, they will usually stop communication and disappear or will ask for more money. A red flag for consumers is when the service keeps pushing back the date of the cleaning. Another red flag to look for is if the cleaning company will not come do a site visit before cleaning. If they do not want to meet in person, that should be suspicious to the consumer. It could mean that there is no actual cleaning company.
How to Spot Legitimate Cleaning Companies
Any legitimate cleaning service will be willing to communicate over the phone and provide details for all of their services and prices. They will have consumer reviews listed somewhere on the web, even if it is only on third party sites like Google, Yelp, and Trustpilot. Newer companies might not have many reviews listed, but you can make the most of the reviews that are there by contacting the reviewer, if there is an option to do so. If the review is fake, then the account may not be active or able to communicate.
Be careful about paying any money to a service you have not used before and whose representatives you have not talked to over the phone or in person. Legitimate companies will not ask for more money than they initially agreed on. they will not change the terms of the agreement with you, and they will do everything in their power to make the customer happy and maintain a good relationship.
Legitimate cleaning services will generally have prices that skew toward the average. Exceptionally low rates should be a red flag that the service is either not legitimate or may not do a good job of cleaning for you. High prices may indicate that a cleaning service offers in-depth cleaning or has a great reputation and can afford to charge more.
Other Cleaning Scams to Look out for
The cleaning service scam that targets individuals that want to start their own cleaning service is quite common. These scammers ask the individual to clean their home before they move in. They will then send the cleaner a money order for more than the agreed upon amount. They ask the cleaner to pay the difference to a moving company who will be working on the same home. But there is no moving service and no individual moving into the home. The cleaner is simply out the money they paid, and before they realize it, the scammer has disappeared with their money.
Another scam to watch for is a phishing tactic. The scammer will ask for bank details or other private financial information before they provide cleaning services. They use that information to access the customers accounts and steal their money. They may also ask for the customer to download an app to access the services.
These are just a couple of scams that have been around for a few years, and these target unsuspecting consumers and cleaners. Please keep yourself safe by being aware of these scams and using the tips provided in this article to spot red flags. You do not have to be taken advantage of if you know what to look for and you know how to tell legitimate cleaning services from fake ones.
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