| Eric Frei Administrator - Brisbane L5 (Dip) Hort Cert III Arb + some
Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Brisbane
Posts: 6,928
|  Big Yellow Pages Ad| Fraud| Customer loses 90 year old oak tree
"Free advice"
"We're experts"
"We're Arborists"
The ritz of the big ads and the big gear.
Too bad when it's all a con, and fortuneatly the media helped in this case.
The offending lying company was Cartwright Tree Care in Kansas
Here's their website, great con job. (they care) LOL  Welcome to Cartwright Tree Care
Here's the news story, READ IT. Tree Case Ends Up In Court - News Story - KCTV Kansas City
Here's the video (4mins 21mb WMV), cop a load of the HACKS and THEIR PPE, no-one has a helmet let alone eye protection! www.treeworld.info/video/cartwrighttreecare.wmv Quote: | Tree Case Ends Up In Court
POSTED: 5:15 pm CDT May 7, 2008
UPDATED: 8:35 am CDT May 8, 2008
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Barb and Chuck Miller have always enjoyed landscaping their shady Brookside home.
But last year a lightening strike fractured a limb from their 90-year-old pin oak tree, and heavy winds caused the limb to crack even further until it was resting on their neighbor's roof.
"The limb was on the neighbor's house," Barb Miller said. "We thought it was an emergency."
A quick check of the yellow pages led them to a full-page ad by a local tree-trimming company.
"Found Cartwright tree with full-page ad. Certified arborist, emergency services and we called them," Chuck Miller said.
They called Eric Cartwright, the owner of Cartwright Tree Care.
KCTV5 News found Cartwright out and about in the metro cleaning up after last week's storms.
"The guys get kind of excited. The adrenaline flows with work like this. We just get out and do what we can," Cartwright said.
And that's what Cartwright said he tried to do last spring for the Millers, providing them with a bid on the job the very night they called.
"It was an emergency job on top of a house," Cartwright said.
He was set to take care of the limb early the next morning.
But once they arrived, the $1,200 tree-limb removal turned into a $7,250 project that would change the landscape of the Millers' home and the entire neighborhood.
"Once they started working on the tree, they came back and said, 'Oh no. The news is much worse.' They told us that carpenter ants had pretty much destroyed the tree," Barb Miller said.
That destruction, according to the Cartwright workers, meant the 90-foot oak would have to come down.
The Millers chronicled the loss of the tree during the course of the day with digital pictures.
It took just 12 hours for the giant pin oak to fall. All that was left behind was a massive tree stump measuring almost 60 inches across.
Bob Haines is a certified arborist and has been for more than two decades. He looked at the pictures the Millers took as their tree came down.
He said the tree didn't need to be removed.
"And you could tell by the discoloration that there was not very many if any at all hollow spots or decayed wood in that tree that was being removed," Haines said.
Haines said he recommends any tree work be done by a certified arborist, but that's what the Millers thought they were getting when they called Cartwright.
"Eric specifically told me, 'Ma'am, we're certified arborists. That's what sets us apart. We care," Barb Miller said.
But KCTV5 News' investigation uncovered Cartwright is not a certified arborist. In fact, he's just a member of the International Society of Arboriculture. For a $105 membership fee, you can be too.
"All you have to do is pay your dues and you're a member. Certification. You have to take a test," Haines said.
KCTV5 News paid a visit to Cartwright at his Grandview, Mo., offices to ask him about why he took down the Millers' tree.
Asked whether it was a healthy tree, Cartwright said, "You know what, some say it was. Some say it wasn't."
Miller said she plans to plant another pin oak, but she knows it will never grow to the size of the original in her lifetime.
"I bought the house for the tree. It was gorgeous. It was a part of our family life. And we would have done anything to save the tree," Barb Miller said.
In the end, the case of the 90-year-old tree ended up in court.
Cartwright sued, saying the Millers wouldn't pay.
The Millers countersued, saying Cartwright should be the one who pays for unnecessarily taking down their healthy tree, and they hired Haines to testify as an expert witness.
"That was a very, very valuable tree and it should never have come down," Haines said.
Ultimately, a judge ruled in the Millers' favor.
"It was just a bad episode for everybody," Cartwright said.
Cartwright said he now has a certified arborist on staff, but that staffer is on vacation in Florida.
| What a rip off anyway with $1200USD for a limb removal, wish I could rip it into people that well, I'd have my own jet! 
Also the video is in this closed thread. Scam | Cartwright Tree Care Kansas |