![]() ![]() “It has truly changed the landscape of what people expect in the marketplace,” replied Brasler. “If you’re looking to buy a major appliance, for example, Consumer Reports can really help you decide which appliance to buy, and then Checkbook can help you figure out which business offers low prices and ask good advice, get the item delivered and installed right.”Ĭonsumers’ Checkbook has been a pioneer in helping consumers save money and make better decisions. Brasler said Consumer Reports does a great job of evaluating products, and Checkbook helps consumers find the right places to buy the products. The focus of Checkbook is to provide unbiased ratings. Evaluating the Quality of Prices and Services “We are pro consumer, we’re founded by consumers and we’re here for consumers,” stated Brasler. “He thought there really should be a Consumer Reports for local services.” Consumers’ Checkbook was born in Washington, DC and has been an innovator in providing information to help consumers make smarter choices. “Krughoff was aggravated and believed there should be a way to find the best services that would do the best job,” said Brasler. He started the organization nearly 40 years ago after he kept bringing his car back to a repair shop multiple times to have the same repair done. It's worth reading.Consumers’ Checkbook was the brainchild of Robert Krughoff. We applaud the basis of this article it’s important to inspect your inspector.Īnother article published by Consumers’ Checkbook, titled How to Inspect Your Home Inspector, gives some good advice on how to find an excellent home inspector. While we’re extremely disappointed with this article, the main message is still a good one: not all home inspectors are equal. This would have helped to give legitimacy to the article. At least one excellent home inspector, preferably several, should have helped to determine what should and shouldn’t have been included as “too obvious to miss”. They made these inspectors look bad for not doing things that fall outside of home inspection Standards of Practice, and even home inspection standards of care. Would you ding a medical doctor for not checking your teeth for cavities? These items are not included in home inspection Standards of Practice (SoP), and in our humble opinion, are not “soon to be needed expensive repairs”. They also state the focus was to find “soon to be needed expensive repairs.” This included things like loose hinges to a vanity door, cut cords at window blinds, dirty filters at window AC units, trees and landscaping in need of care and trimming, and a doorbell that wasn’t working. The article says that Checkbook’s research staff identified 28 “too obvious to miss” items. The Star Tribune ran the same story as well, first stating that the home was rented by “Undercover shoppers from Twin Cities Consumer’s Checkbook.” This was later changed to the current version that appears online, which states that the house was located in the suburbs of Washington, DC. On the second round, they said that there was actually only one test house, located in the Washington, D.C. Reuben pressed for more details, asking how the results from every house could have been identical, and they got back to him a few days later with a different story. They claimed that there were indeed seven identical houses rented in seven cities. This didn’t ring true, so Reuben put in a call to Consumers’ Checkbook to ask about this. The location of the test house is not told, but it’s clearly implied that the test house was in the city that the story takes place in. First, the premise of the article is not candid. Each one of these articles gives the impression that the story takes place in that particular city. The inspections were labeled superficial and the inspectors were called lazy, sloppy, and ding-dongs. The basis of each article is that Consumers' Checkbook rented a three-bedroom house, hired 12 home inspectors to inspect the home, and the inspectors did a poor job of inspecting to a standard that doesn’t exist. These areas include the Twin Cities, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Puget Sound, Delaware Valley, and Washington, DC. We’ve seen the exact same concerning article from Consumers' Checkbook pop up in seven different areas of the country. ![]() This is a joint post from Reuben Saltzman, Charles Buell, and Barry Stone. ![]()
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