Haystack Help spends a considerable amount of time and money to make sure the companies that are listed on haystackhelp.com offer fair pricing, quality work and outstanding customer service. We go deep into the histories to check for criminal and civil charges, make sure they carry the necessary licenses and accreditations and to ensure they are in good standing with all agencies and departments.
These extensive, rigorous, and sometimes costly checks are performed on each and every Haystack Registered Company to give you peace of mind. Kelly Poto is the investigate researcher who dives into each company and owner's background.
"I've been doing this for about 8 and a half years now," Poto said. "I developed a process for several other companies. Chris and I have worked together for some time. So it just seemed natural."
When a company requests to be listed on haystackhelp.com, we ask for a list of detailed information about the business, owner and other key employees.
"If I don't have the owner's full name or I don't know the exact corporate structure, corporate name, then it makes it impossible for me to do that search."
Once Poto has that information in hand, she can immediately get on the computer to start seeking out information. Obviously, no one wants to work with a company that has an owner or manager who has a serious criminal history.
"The Colorado Bureau of Investigation which is our CBI report, we search based on a full name and date of birth and pretty much with that information we can come up with just about every search that we need."
"As far as finding any kind of criminal, fraudulent activity, having been arrested before anything like that is going to be found through the courts and their public information as well as through the Colorado Bureau of Investigation."
"We take the name and the National Sex Offender Database is of course a national deal, so what we do is we take that information and we put their first and last name in and there's almost always some sort of identifying whether it is a date of birth, middle name, photos, anything like that."
"If there's any sort of question that there's not enough information that's come back, then I put that into my form as a question that we need to ask."
Haystack Help goes even further, going through civil court records to check for past lawsuits against the company or owner.
"I've had one company recently that had 3 or 4 hundred court cases and at first I thought that was going to be very overwhelming but ultimately they were the plaintiff in all of the court cases."
"Of those 400 cases returned I think 10 or 11 of them, they were the defendant, and we did have to go through and insure you know was this case dismissed, what was the age of the case?"
"There are explanations to everything that you couldn't probably fathom."
"We would just take that information and then we give them the opportunity to say, well this is what the situation is, most everything that I've ever run into has to do with small claims and stuff like that."
Poto also checks state, county and city databases to see if the companies have the required licenses in their profession.
"DORA stands for the department of regulatory and with that it can be everything from a cosmetologist to a doctor or to an electrician, to a plumber, fill in the blank, there are probably 2 or 3 hundred sorts of businesses that are required to be registered through the department of regulations."
She also makes sure a company is registered with the Secretary of State.
"If you are incorporated in any way, an LLC, a C-corp, and S-corp, anything like that, you are required to be registered through the Secretary of State and that's to keep track of trademarks, names, and things like that, so that you don't have a company that's going out to use your name. That's your safety net I suppose."
Each Official Haystack Registered Company is also asked to provide verification of liability and workers compensation insurance so consumers are protected.
"If something happens to the home or to the individual while that contractor is there, you want to be reassured that you are going to have the coverage if there is something that goes wrong."
"If you're bring sent out to do work, and a contractor is hurt on the job or one of their workers is hurt on the job, then they have coverage to take care of that. And really it's just the sign of a strong company."
Poto also checks with the Better Business Bureau to see if the company is in good standing with a limited number of complaints.
"It's very difficult for you to have an F-rating on with the Better Business Bureau. That just means that you're simply not dealing with any of your problems."
Poto's years of experience doing this type of investigative research have given her a special touch for vetting companies and good owners.
"We've had owners who have had possession of marijuana. Now that's where you have to determine how long ago did this happen, how long you've been doing it, was it when you were a juvenile or young. But we do address the issue with the client and if it is a recent problem, we probably aren't going to approve them or renew with them.
Situations like that are where Poto's seasoned judgment comes into play.
"Based just on my history in doing this, I can judge is this a case that is more serious that we need to address or is this something that is kind of a moot point and not really something that is relevant to what we're doing."
The research and databases used at haystackhelp.com are available to any consumer who wants to check out a company or individual. But it does take considerable time, effort and money. Which is why haystackhelp.com does the work for you.
"We definitely invest money into each of the companies we do background checks on. But that's how Haystack takes the difficulty of finding a good company out of the consumer's hands and presents it in an easy to use manner."
"It is really truly an investigation."
Other services may say they background check and vet the companies listed. At Haystack Help, we actually do it.
You can use any company we list or feature on Haystack TV secure in the knowledge that we've looked into their history and feel confident that they are a good business.
Don't settle for a second-rate, unreliable service. Go with an Official Haystack Registered Company.