Scott Sinclair and crew arrived when he said they would on April 3rd and completed this somewhat large (for a residence) job in a timely manner working four days spread out over six days. Everything seemed to go smoothly with him coordinating his tree cutters, the branch haulers/cleaner-uppers and then the chippers. <br /> About 17 Leland Cypress trees were removed, a maple pruned, and some 75-120' tall trees trimmed of dead, crowded or hanging branches to make them safer in future storms. They pruned the large maple that 'the other tree company' had recommended removing, but which four tree companies bidding the job after that did NOT recommend removing. We were glad to have saved this particular large maple as it is a beautiful old tree and provides us a shady corner in the yard. When they were finished, the yard was raked and clean, as well as the driveway. <br /> Scott Sinclair sat down with Husband to settle and the invoice totaled much more than we thought it would by about eight hundred fifty dollars. In review of the original 'bid,' we then saw that he did not include in the diagram several trees. Husband had not looked at the diagram closely to see that it did not include the Leland Cypress and one large cedar that was actually intertwined with one of the trees he DID include. Why were they not included? We don't know. Removal of the Leland Cypress was the main reason for us collecting bids to begin with. Then they don't appear on the original bid? So anyway, Husband wrote the check. When I later reviewed the invoice more thoroughly, I felt this was not right. The invoice/contract itself was not clear. The price of clean-up was now increased from 4-7% on the bid to 8% on the invoice. And we were overcharged more than a hundred dollars on tax - he charged 12.4% instead of the 9.5% he is supposed to charge. He also charged 40 dollars for the cable. This had not been outlined in his bid that he would separate labor and materials and then charge us for the materials after the fact. <br /> <br /> This did not sit well with me. We chose him because he seemed to know what he was doing, and his was one of the lower bids, and then we ended up paying more than the other bids. <br /> <br /> Under odd things happening and things that make you go 'hmmmmmm,' we list this: A few days after the job was completed, I noticed that our climbing rope that had been draped across a dog house in our yard was not there. I emailed him and let him know our rope was missing. He said he packed it up and took it because he thought his workers left it behind. We found this curious because that rope was there the first day he came to our yard to bid the job and it was rather prominently displayed on that red dog house right outside the house back door all the days Tree Harmony was in our yard and he would have walked by it numerous times. After a few emails back and forth and phone messages, he called around 9 one night and said he was in the area just down the road and would drop it off, but that we did not need to go outside to meet him. We left the outdoor flood lights on because we wanted to be aware of when he came. We stayed up a bit later...until midnight or so, but did not hear anybody pull into our driveway before we turned in for the night. The rope was in the back yard when we woke up in the morning. We found it odd that we had not heard him or that he waited so late that we would have been sleeping to go into our fenced back yard. <br /> <br /> I emailed him with my thoughts and let him know his bidding process was a bit messy and unclear. He told me he appreciated my informing him of a few things. He has been in business how many years and bid how many jobs? I had a difficult time believing this information was new to him. <br /> <br /> He did end up sending a check for the overcharging of the taxes. At first I told him we felt we had been overcharged closer to a thousand dollars given his bid, and still do, but I offered a smaller number for him to refund because I get the sense he would not HAVE more to refund, and also just to be finished dealing with him. <br /> <br /> Too late, I checked with the state agencies. I find Paul Scott Sinclair is indeed registered with the department of revenue, twice in fact. He has a current license to do business in the State of Washington as a contractor. I cannot confirm L&I coverage under either of the two UBIs I found under his name. <br /> I find no certification with ISA for him as an arborist, so his page on Angie's List is a bit misleading. While he calls himself a professional arborist, he is not actually <em>certified</em> as an arborist, but he is a licensed contractor. I always thought a person had to negotiate a certification process by an official authorizing agency in order to claim a title so clients know that person has been tested on mastery of the subject matter. (He had told husband that he took classes, but never got certified as an arborist.) I also did not find him on the Master Builders Association roster or the GreenBuilt roster as he has listed on his Angie's List page. <br /> I thought about the fact that he wrote our bid on that small piece of paper while saying he did not have his formal contracts with him, then brought the contract (with the TBDs on it) on the first day of the job as Husband is rushing out the door with no time to examine closely. I notice two other reviewers on here having some confusion between the bid and the contract amount. I wondered if this was by design that he does not have his formal contracts with him the day of the bid. I am curious if anybody else has had this experience. (?) Can Angie's List contact other reviewers and check that out? <br /> In phone messages from him, several times he took pains to say that he values the relationship with us and wants to help keep our trees pruned in future. Reading several articles since, it has been made plain to me that If one of his workers had fallen out of a tree and sustained severe injury or worse, Tree Harmony would have had no coverage to pay for it and it would have fallen to our homeowners insurance policy to cover it. If the cost to treat the injury had exceeded our limits of liability, say the person needed lifelong nursing home care (perish the thought), our life savings and assets would have been on the line. We could have lost everything we worked our whole lives for due to his refusal to carry proper insurance. <br /> <br /> In fact, I am coming back in to this site to update it again (5/14/2013) because nothing has been done to change his status on Angie's List, he is still not covered under the state's L&I and he still claims membership in organizations in which he has no membership. I have also informed Angie's List about my dismay that nothing has changed on his page. <br /> <br /> Additionally, on Saturday, April 6th, one of his tree cutters did not show up that morning due to illness. He did show up in the afternoon, however, and then worked later than the rest of them. This meant he was up more than 80 feet in a tree all by himself with no ground support as everybody else had left the premises including Scott Sinclair. If something had happened and he had fallen or a branch landed wrong or on the neighbor's house, there was nobody there to deal with it. Is this industry standard to leave one of your tree cutters up in a tree with no support? I don't see how it could be! And tree cutters do sometimes fall out of trees. <br /> <br /> We are of the opinion that if you value a client relationship, as Mr. Sinclair repeatedly told us he did with us, you don't put their future finances at risk by not carrying L&I coverage. &n