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Today I was informed that the Home Depot Painting Program is dissolving it’s current relationship with New Image Painting. This news hits home for me as our company has been a Home Depot approved contractor for a few years here in the Dallas area. Home Depot sells home improvement goods. Home Depot does not do the work of installation – they subcontract all installs from carpet, to electric, to paint. So they subcontract… HD subs to New Image Painting who in turn subcontract to our painting business. So when Depot decided to end their association with New Image Painting all the service providers across the country were affected. Salt in the wound of the current economic downturn. Below is the full text of the email sent to Dallas service providers.
Dear Valued New Image Area Services Provider,
New Image has been notified by The Home Depot Home Services that The Home Depot is withdrawing support and all activity for Paint Services in your location. Whereas this decision has been met with great dismay, New Image is intent on handling this transition with characteristic high standards. New Image will be taking a variety of steps to protect our business in the long and short terms. Please note you should perform and complete any existing contracts that have been executed, however, you should not perform additional estimates in the name of Home Depot.
Here are some quick reference points on how this will affect you initially:
Please note you should abide by and complete all contracts that have been started, scheduled and set.
We have been assured by The Home Depot that payments for performed contracts will continue according to schedule.
Please no longer perform any estimates for Home Depot leads and refer all pending contracts, leads and scheduled estimates back to The Home Depot.
Please treat The Home Depot staff with respect and a professional demeanor.
Please refrain from engaging in unnecessary creation of rumors, innuendo or hostility towards / about The Home Depot.
Please feel free to contact New Image with questions, comments or concerns at the following e-mail address: EDITEDWe anticipate crafting and implementing a resolution within the next 90 days. This event will be handled like any other business challenge and we will take the approach that best addresses the concerns that face us.
Expect to see additional communication from New Image on this topic. We will try to keep you informed as things progress. If you have additional questions or concerns that you would like to address immediately, then please contact us at: HDTransition@newimagemail.com
Sincerely,
Andrew MacGillivray
* UPDATE *
I received the following email from another home depot painting contractor today.
October 31, 2008
My name is Larry Larsen and I was also one of Home Depot’s service provider, for New Image. It appears that Home Depot will probably pay for the work we have done and I really think that is a probability, because we would be able to put a lean on jobs we have done if we are not paid, which would severely effect Home Depot’s reputation and I certainly don’t want to do that to anyone, but, if you are in the same boat as I am, you also have stores you have purchased that you have time coming to you on. I don’t see where Home Depot is liable for any of that. Of course I don’t know, yet. In speaking to a close friend of mine, who is an attorney I have known for almost eighteen years, he has suggested that we may want to consider a class action law suite to try and get re-inversed for our loss, if New Image doesn’t give us some kind of re-investment. I don’t know about you, but New Image is not making me any commitments as to how they are going to pay me for the time owed to me on the four stores I purchased, they simply say they are working on it and will be for the 90 days from the date of termination.
I have no desire to cause Home Depot, or New Image problems, but I don’t want to loose my investment either. My attorney did say that New Image may not have assets that would cover all of this. They may just be renting office space and have a staff that oversees the painting, not requiring them to have any tangible assets worth all that they may owe. That means that we may not be able to get anything from them.
My feeling is that if we all go in together the cost of having an attorney check all of this out and attempt to get what is owed to us would cost each one of us very little in comparison to what it would cost for each of us to hire an attorney individually. That way it may be worth our while to try to get our money, or at least some of it? Otherwise, it may cost each of us more than it would be worth to pursue it.
If you are interested in getting involved with this please let me know right away and I will give your name to my attorney. I am going to have my attorney continue to look into what rights we may have. Again, I don’t know if we will be able to get anything. That remains to be seen and it will cost something to find out. I look forward to a reply.
Larry Larsen,
…to contact Larry leave a comment with link to your website and I will send you his email address.
Filed under: Dallas Painting Tagged: | dallas service providers, home depot painting, new image, new image paitning, painting business, painting services
Yes we recieved the exact email on weds. we are servicing two stores in Arizona. I cannot believe that a big company with an aptitude for customer service would discontinue such a service immediatley with no notice. It does raise serious questions:
1. WHY??? We have a right to know, since we have invested so much money and time.
2. What about those of us who just took over stores a month ago and paid the $5000 administration fee… Any partial refunds?
3. Is Home Depost ever going to provide painting services again in the future?
I think it was Monday that we received the email from MNI. I was wondering if it was effective in other markets, I guess so. I spoke to Josiah, the owner of Blue Ox Painting, he said that we would be receiving a refund for the store deposits. I have not spoken with our New Image Painting Rep.
I think many of the Service Providers here in the Dallas area are going to present a plan to Home Depot in order to possibly pick up the service contracts on a store by store basis.
The refund would be the right thing to do. I have emailed the sender of the email and my rep. No response. It would be interesting to know if HD is giving up Painting Services or giving up NIP. Only time will tell, I just hope they don’t keep us in limbo for a long period of time.
My biggest concern is getting paid for 3 jobs. One I just completed and two I am under contract to fulfill. Still a little blown away and dissappointed. Two weeks ago was informed HD was going to new painting contracts, so I ordered some and other stuff. The day they came also came “the email” of the news.
I was contacted back in may from NI
and ended up giving them $5000 wnen they immediately informed me they would not be the service provider it would be GPC. And I was not entitled to any refund. They then said they would cover all start up cost with GPC. It is now Nov and I must pay start up because NI is no longer around.
I am a service provider in California,
San Fransisco Bay Area Contracted by NIP.
I am very disapointed and let down by NIP and HD.
I received a call from a NI Home Depot contractor in Canada who said that a new Home Depot Painting Program was on the way and that they were already approved as a result of prior work with New Image.
I would like to see a similar development here in the American painting market.
my husband and i contracted with NIP back in feb of ’08. we bought into 2 stores for $10,000 and i refered my brother-in-law who bought into 3 stores in the seattle area. After being told by NI that we could expect around $70,000 in revenue for each store during the year. we earned a total of about $3,000 during our time with them. my brother-in-law says he was told he could expect even more because he was buying into stores in the busy seattle market. He earned $0 in jobs during his contracted time. Turns out our stores were never entered into the “mynewimage” site correctly so our stores never generated any leads. infact i called the 800-homedepot number at one point to inquire about the services just to see how the leads got to us and i was told after giving them my zip code that the stores in my area did not offer painting services. I reported this to my RSM and the problem was never resolved. I have been skeptical of NI from the day we got on board. I have also been told by an attorney that the likelyhood of getting any money out of NI is highly unlikely. When i speak with New Image’s regional manager the story changes everytime. in the begining i was told contractors would be credited at a prorated amount based on the amount of time left in thier contracts. I was initailly told that we may be entitled to a full refund since we were never set up properly to receive leads. then i was told there will be no variations to the prorated amounts. now im being told not to expect anything. The person to contact is Michelle Sanderson (regional manager) her numbers are 804-517-3523 (cell) or 804-448-1371 (office). At this point i dont know what to think. I feel like this was a scam opperation from the get go!!!
I wrote a check for 1 store in the amount of 5,000, on 6-27-08. I have not done 1 estimate, I have been ignored, led on, and felt like I am being scammed. I don’t even think Home Depot ever had me in there system. I have called them every week, had my lawyer send them a letter, even offer to settle a prorated amount and still no answer as to how New Image Painting or Home depot will resolve my investment. I to was given Michelle Sanderson as a contact and she has told me that she can not do anything for me at this point. Well, as you can read it is January 2009 and I still don’t have my money. I am in Missouri and realize litigation would cost me more than my investment. I think the company that i have put calls into should be the one answering our questions, National Service Group, the parent company of New Image Painting, College Works Painting, Empire Painting…….
i purchased majority of the stores in Oklahoma city around September and was informed right after my checks cleared,i received the same email that all of you have. I have a attorney working on it but i just received the last email about NI not having any money but that is hard to believe since it seems that they have all of are money. i believe unless NI files bankruptcy a class action is the only way to go.
I am an ASP for Colorado, received the same letter, and have been calling HQ in ATLANTA for answers. No avail. we all have been scammed , and if they had 1,000 contractors that means they made 5,000,000$ on this absurd fraud. I just spoke with the district service manager and he said THD will not be giving any answers. So, we are left with our asses hanging in the ice cold wind, CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT, is the only way!
I am an ASP near Toronto, Canada and speaking on behalf of nearly 80 other ASP’s. NI informed us in October that the HD contract was over but we would get paid. It is now March and none of us have seen a dime. The NI president finally informed us today that he is no longer with the company and that NI is in receivership. We too invested $5000 per store and start up cost like shrts and signs. I am just sending this out because it seems that NI and HD on both sides of the border are practising the same type of business tactics and that they should be held accountable. If at least, then this should be brought to the attention of North American buyers as bad publicity may force them to change the way they treat future business partners. Good luck to all.
I loaned someone money to do this… a worse idea has never been conceived in my head. I’d like to get involved in solving this mess.
I dont know if anyone is still reading this blog but yep, the same thing happened to me. Maybe a little worse. When we found out that we lost the 2 store in our area we had only been with NI for about four months. We finally did get payed for the jobs that we had done but the damage was already done. We have now lost our house plus the damn 10 grand NI and HD cost me in startup costs. If there is no legal liability to HD (because NI does not exist anymore) then I think thats a bunch of BS. 10000 dollars could do me alot of good. I mean for crying out loud we all had HD name badges right. I think if anything that shows that we represented HD just like any of their employees. Maybe I should just go into a HD and decide for myself how they should pay me back.
I got involved with the Home Depot and New Image early 2008. First red flag was when I got to my store they were giving leads to myself and another ASP even though I was supposed to be the exclusive ASP for that store , I finally got that worked out and I was recieving leads and did approximately 10 estimates , closing one job for about $800 profit. Typically I would do the estimate then give the customer the price and with the insane 25% markup they looked at me like I was crazy and would basically kick me off their property. I tried multiple times to contact NI reps via phone and email to ask for some help as to what I could be doing differently. I was ignored and not contacted for months. When I finally did get a call it was to inform me that my RSM was no longer working for NI and hadnt been for 2 months, and they said something about NI no longer working with HD and it would be taken over by a different contracting company similar to New Image, needless to say that was the last I heard from anyone. I sent a heated email to someone supposedly in HR named Ricky Chu at New Image telling him this has been a horrible experience communication and organization was horrendous and I was not happy, he responded by terminating my contract after only 6 months of work. This was crap and I have not been able to contact anyone or find out what happened to NI. Huge rip off I cant believe I fell for this, I was loaned the $5000 to startup and now am in debt, we need to do something about this lets get something together people and expose HD as the rip off artists they are.