How a Home Service Agency Failed To Get Their Clients Results and Threaten Those Who Complain

For over a year we’ve been privately solving complaints from a home service agency’s clients. Whether it’s barely working on Nilson Silva’s Master Touch Pools (and charging thousands a month for nothing), there’s a systematic problem with this home services agency’s ability to drive results.

This isn’t the end of the world. As agencies grow, mistakes are made and things happen.

But after over five different businesses approached us asking us to audit this agency’s work, and seeing how barely anything had been done – this is a systematic problem. 

Here’s the key points from this article:

• Ongoing Issues with a Home Service Agency – The article highlights a systematic failure by a home service agency to deliver results while charging clients thousands per month.

• Ongoing Complaints from Businesses Using This Agency – Over a year, multiple businesses have approached me with concerns about the agency’s lack of work, despite continued billing.

• The Case of Fox Air and Heat – Richard, the owner of Fox Air and Heat, paid $14,775 to the agency for a website, SEO, and social media, yet a full audit showed that almost no substantial work had been done.

• SEO and Marketing Failures – The agency failed to improve rankings, generate leads, or properly manage Google Ads and Google Business Profile for Fox Air and Heat.

• Threats and Retaliation – When Richard decided to cancel services, the agency cut off his website hosting and disabled his Google Business Profile number, leaving him without customer communication for two days.

• Demand for More Money – The agency continued to send emails demanding an additional $8,030, despite not delivering results.

• Call for Refund and Ethical Resolution – This article urges the agency owner to refund Richard’s money and warns that further failures are likely to continue.

The final straw and reason for us publishing this article was when this home service agency threatened legal action against those who don’t want to pay for his lack of work. We don’t like seeing our friends threatened, and so we can’t stay quiet any longer.

In this article we’ll go over how a home service agency threatened Richard and Fox Air and Heat after they discovered no work had been completed which helped their SEO.

Richard and Fox Air and Heat have spent $14,775.00 with this home service agency. 3 payments of $1,800 = $4,800 for the website in total. The additional $1,995 per month was supposed to be for social media and blog posts for his website.

When Richard first approached us, we conducted a full audit of this agency’s work which you can read about for yourself here. In short – barely anything had been done, all while the agency was charging $2k/month plus the $5k they initially paid to set up the website.

Objectively, nothing substantial has been done for the site. For SEO alone, we’ve done more in the last 2 weeks than this agency has done in the last 4 months.

(last 6 months of SEO data)

(last 30 days of SEO data)

For more context, here are the metrics published by their own team.

In this agency’s own reporting, the leads that did come through came solely through Richard’s own referrals.

We can also observe Fox Air and Heat’s Google Ads, to which we don’t see any iteration or progress being made which would generate calls.

The same applied directly for our Google Business Profile.

In short – we see no evidence of ROI beyond Richard’s own brand.

This home service agency was still charging a $2k/month price tag for their services. But digging deeper, the articles Fox was paying almost $2k/month for aren’t ideal at all. Extensive uses of Clipart, keyword stacking, and no EEAT content besides listing their local service area.

For example, putting the article into our article grader tool it’s a C+, and that’s insanely optimistic grading. It’s more like a D in our opinion based on the recommendations we see here:

Areas for Improvement:

1. Lack of Authority & Trust Signals (E-E-A-T) –
   
   
   • The article lacks credibility-building elements such as references to industry experts, statistics, or case studies.
   • Adding a quote from a heating professional or linking to authoritative sources would improve trustworthiness.
2. Limited Local Relevance –
   
   
   • While it mentions Forney, TX and Terrell, TX, the content does not include geo-targeted elements like local temperature trends, customer testimonials, or references to local HVAC regulations.
   • Including insights about common heating issues specific to Forney, TX would help with local SEO and engagement.
3. SEO Optimization Issues –
   
   
   • The article does not optimize for People Also Ask (PAA) questions or other keyword opportunities.
   • Actionable Fix: Add headers or sections addressing common searches like:
     • “How often should I get my heating system checked in Forney, TX?”
     • “What are the signs that my furnace needs repairs?”
4. Missed Internal Linking Opportunities –
   
   
   • No links to related content, FAQs, or service pages (if applicable) are included.
   • A strategic internal linking plan would boost engagement and improve SEO rankings.
5. Too Promotional at the End –
   
   
   • The closing CTA is too direct and could be softened to feel more natural. Instead of saying “Look no further,” consider leading with value-driven language:
     • “For expert heating installation in Terrell, TX, Fox Air and Heat is here to help. Contact us for a consultation on the best solutions for your home.”

Moving away from poorly written articles with no unique content, their local service pages are a disaster as you can see from this example. The website as a whole is lacking the critical ingredients needed to rank.

There’s no signal to Google that Fox Air and Heat have trust signals which help them rank, which this local service agency was responsible for collecting.

We all goof up at times, but what matters is what we do to fix it. Even bad experiences and poor results can be fixed by addressing Richard’s concerns, offering solutions, or refunding the $14,775.00 the agency has collected from Fox Air and Heat.

Here’s when the agency’s true colors start to show:

After Richard decided he’d no longer be using this agency’s services, Richard continued to receive emails asking for more money. Otherwise his website would “go down”.

Whenever you leave an agency, there’s usually a 7 day grace period for collecting the businesses’ assets and making sure they have everything. This includes website hosting, Google numbers, and other assets which the client owns.

Upon seeing the lack of work done and deciding to cancel services, the local service agency almost immediately cancelled hosting for Fox Air and Heat without warning. This required an emergency rescue on our part.

Imagine you have customers wanting to call you, but they suddenly can’t reach you because your former agency cut off your website. 

They also disabled Fox Air and Heat’s Google Business Profile numbers. Out of spite for leaving? Maybe. But this meant customers couldn’t reach Richard for two full days.

After rescuing the website hosting and making sure we don’t totally go dark, the agency owner sends an email to Richard threatening to collect an additional $8,030. “Non-payment is no longer an option”.

This was the last straw and the reason we’re writing this article. We can’t in good conscience keep this information to ourselves anymore after so many local service businesses have been burned by this agency.

In response to this email, I recommended Richard ask for a full refund and an apology from the agency owner – which at this point, is the moral and ethical thing to do.

See my emails to Richard below:

If you’re wondering what my Facebook links were to, it would be the agency owner bragging about selling more packages while half his clients are privately messaging us asking how to fix their mess.

After showing Richard all the lack of work completed, he agreed that a refund was warranted. Here’s the email he sent back to the agency owner in response to him threatening Richard:

Eventually, their team responded and we asked Richard to forward their response to us.

This was the email sent to Richard.

My advice to Richard was to initiate chargebacks and that we should do a podcast episode, going over the actual performance data so we can show others how to conduct a proper SEO audit.

I also recommended us to not do verbal discussions, since this would likely be a waste of time and result in not much getting done.

I decided that I’d message the agency owner personally to help us come to an “amicable resolution”, in their own words.

This was his response.

It’s not too late for the agency owner to do the right thing.

As we mentioned before, the good news is that it’s not too late to make things right with Richard on the local service agency’s part. Our struggle is that similar things have happened before with Nilson Silva at Mastertouch Outdoor Living and with Anthony Hilb at Bloomington Landscape. Both have approached us asking for help, and we see the same thing going on here.

This article is a strong nudge for the agency owner to do the right thing and refund Richard the almost $15k he’s taken.

We have other stories we can publish on this agency’s failure to deliver results for local service businesses, but we want to keep things as objective and straightforward as possible.

But it’s not too late for the agency owner to make things right and refund Richard his money.

If you’re a local service business, this should give you all the motivation you need to own your own marketing and prevent being held hostage by one agency.

Dennis Yu

Dennis Yu is a former search engine engineer who has spent a billion dollars on Google and Facebook ads for Nike, Quiznos, Ashley Furniture, Red Bull, State Farm, and other organizations that have many locations.

He has achieved 25% of his goal of creating a million digital marketing jobs because of his partnership with universities, professional organizations, and agencies. Companies like GoDaddy, Fiverr, onlinejobs.ph, 7 Figure Agency, and Vendasta partner with him to create training and certifications.

Dennis created the Dollar a Day Strategy for local service businesses to enhance their existing local reputation and make the phone ring. He’s coaching young adult agency owners who serve plumbers, AC technicians, landscapers, roofers, electricians in conjunction with leaders in these industries.

Mr. Yu believes that there should be a standard in measuring local marketing efforts, much like doctors and plumbers need to be certified and licensed. His Content Factory training and dashboards are used by thousands of practitioners.