# Do you Safeguard folks work around the clock???



## mtmtnman (May 1, 2012)

A friend of mine's wife does all his uploads for him. They have been with Safeguard for 2 1/2 years. She started on an upload at 3:30 this afternoon. Was a 100+ yard T/O followed by another initial. Finally got the second one done at 10:30!!!! 7 friggen hours for 2 work orders!! She has 4 more to go! WTF is wrong with Safeguard that they have to make there uploads so damn difficult? Hell i cuss 5 Bros site but if i had to deal with SG i would toss the computer out the damn window!!!


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## GTX63 (Apr 12, 2012)

Yes, it is a PITA. I had office folks doing uploads during the day and I would cover the overflow in the evenings and into the mornings. System would choke over more than 250 pics and you would have to restart. Error messages would prevent you from advancing thru the order. Their servers would crash and you would have a bottleneck of orders waiting to upload. If all you had to do was the field work and your done, I would say your treading water. But when you spend as much time on their vendor web as the actual job, then you have to start figuring if it is really worth the time and effort. Newbies don't figure what it costs them in manhours to complete the clerical end for Safeguard.


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## BPWY (Apr 12, 2012)

I never had that many issues with their site.


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## mtmtnman (May 1, 2012)

GTX63 said:


> Yes, it is a PITA. I had office folks doing uploads during the day and I would cover the overflow in the evenings and into the mornings. System would choke over more than 250 pics and you would have to restart. Error messages would prevent you from advancing thru the order. Their servers would crash and you would have a bottleneck of orders waiting to upload. If all you had to do was the field work and your done, I would say your treading water. But when you spend as much time on their vendor web as the actual job, then you have to start figuring if it is really worth the time and effort. Newbies don't figure what it costs them in manhours to complete the clerical end for Safeguard.


I would say screw it, zip the files up, scan hand written notes and tell them to deal with it themselves. I have NO patience for crap like that!! She has a 3 meg connection and when they do work for me are able to send 250 - 300 pics in under a minute. Sounds like screwguard needs some bigger servers or stop nitpicking the vendors to death so they aren't submitting so many photos. It really amazes me when i do broker direct work, the agent comes in when i am done and snaps a half dozen photos and thats all but with safeguard your likely to get charged back without 300-400 pics......


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## PropPresPro (Apr 12, 2012)

mtmtnman said:


> I would say screw it, zip the files up, scan hand written notes and tell them to deal with it themselves. I have NO patience for crap like that!! She has a 3 meg connection and when they do work for me are able to send 250 - 300 pics in under a minute. Sounds like screwguard needs some bigger servers or stop nitpicking the vendors to death so they aren't submitting so many photos. It really amazes me when i do broker direct work, the agent comes in when i am done and snaps a half dozen photos and thats all but with safeguard your likely to get charged back without 300-400 pics......


More than once, after submitting 10-20 pics, I've had a broker complain that I "flooded" them with so many pics, they had a hard time going through them all!
How's that for perspective.


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## GTX63 (Apr 12, 2012)

mtmtnman said:


> I would say screw it.....


That is what we did.

Some of the issues were the servers being overwhelmed.
Other times the crashes were immediately after IT upgraded the system.
Whatever, I lost patience with them calling my staff about 50 late orders when they were done and sitting on the hard drive waiting for three days while they tried to get their website back up.


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## mtmtnman (May 1, 2012)

GTX63 said:


> That is what we did.
> 
> Some of the issues were the servers being overwhelmed.
> Other times the crashes were immediately after IT upgraded the system.
> Whatever, I lost patience with them calling my staff about 50 late orders when they were done and sitting on the hard drive waiting for three days while they tried to get their website back up.



Exactly. Why the hell are they calling when it's there own damn fault??


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## GTX63 (Apr 12, 2012)

The scorecard. That is what matters to them.
I recall the web site crashing on a late Wednesday or early Thursday once. They didn't get it up and running until the following Monday. They were just one more company to us, did a lot of business with them but they were never our biggest plum. But they started calling and emailing with the old "The following orders are past due and must be uploaded immediately or risk reassignment" nonesense. It was a You problem that took my office away from everyone else so we could get the orders submitted and maintain their scores.


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## STARBABY (Apr 12, 2012)

glad I didn`t sign on with them, sound like a big clust **** there!


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## SwiftRes (Apr 12, 2012)

I have done most of the updating in the past but the past two weeks have had someone helping me get caught up on SG lawns. She said she has no idea how I put up with their site. We have one specific work order that everytime you go into it, gives an Application Error. Sometimes it hangs on photo uploads. Sometimes it crashes part-way through an order and we must close all browsers and start over. 

I don't really mind the complexity of their orders, as it does often cut back on missed photos, either because the updater on their end can clearly see the photo in it's correct slot, or an updater on our end can't not put a photo in a required slot.

When it's sailing along, I can get a trashout done in probably 20-30 minutes. If it's going slow it can be an hour or better. When it's going fast, I can get lawns done in 5 minutes each, when going slow, can be 10-20. I also am very fast on the updating, so the average is probably more time than that. Definitely depends on time of day. The girl helping me update said that we should be able to charge them back a few bucks everytime the website crashes in the middle of an order.


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## BPWY (Apr 12, 2012)

I was hoping their "new and improved" system was better.

I haven't done any work for them since April so have not experienced their "new" site.


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## mtmtnman (May 1, 2012)

So Swift, How big did your zone get?? My buddies doubled in size!!! Montana USED to have 13 zones, now they have 7!! East to west his zone is 200 miles and north to south 150 miles!!!!!!! With as few orders as they get in Montana there is NO WAY IN HELL a contractor can cover this area!!!!


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## SwiftRes (Apr 12, 2012)

No change as far as I know.. We cover 1 zone P&P and 3 zones REO. The P&P zone is probably 100 miles tall by 100 miles wide, and i live 50 miles away from it. The REO zone extends from right where I live basically, all of the way north, so it's probably 150 miles tall by 100 miles wide.

I get decent trip fees on most of my P&P WOs. Only time I don't ask for one is usually when it's a decent bid approval.

Got 4 REOs this week so far, as close as 10 minutes away and as far as 3 hours.


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## SwiftRes (Apr 12, 2012)

I'm about to go nuts. I have two REO completions to upload. First one only has about 250 photos, was no debris, but second attempt now, first attempt did 20 photos and hung, now it's at 60 photos and hung.


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## mtmtnman (May 1, 2012)

SwiftRes said:


> I'm about to go nuts. I have two REO completions to upload. First one only has about 250 photos, was no debris, but second attempt now, first attempt did 20 photos and hung, now it's at 60 photos and hung.


So the 1st one you didn't make a flippin thing on as there was no debris and now you have tyo fight the system huh? Glad i didn't sign up with SG. I can stay home and go broke. It will just take longer........


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## GTX63 (Apr 12, 2012)

Looks like the site is down this morning for "maintenance". I show only 8 open orders for them anyway so they just got bumped to the back of the line for today. I won't have people sitting around on my dime while they can fix their update bugs. I wouldn't be suprised that the IT guys for Safeguard are nothing more than promoted cubicle flunkies.

Swift, I was told that when your trying to go to the next page of an update and the "Error" screen pops up, just hit the back button and try it again until it opens up. FWIW.


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## SwiftRes (Apr 12, 2012)

Still 466 after discount. Locks, mow, shrubs, 1 cyd, gutters, and cleaning. That's also one of the banks with least allowables. Rarely do I get one with no debris. Other three are about 25, 30, 20. 



mtmtnman said:


> So the 1st one you didn't make a flippin thing on as there was no debris and now you have tyo fight the system huh? Glad i didn't sign up with SG. I can stay home and go broke. It will just take longer........


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## mtmtnman (May 1, 2012)

SwiftRes said:


> Still 466 after discount. Locks, mow, shrubs, 1 cyd, gutters, and cleaning. That's also one of the banks with least allowables. Rarely do I get one with no debris. Other three are about 25, 30, 20.


Oh, Wasn't a FNMA then as you got locks to boot. They are averaging $250- $300 per property here and the crappy work shows that's all there getting.......


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## SwiftRes (Apr 12, 2012)

Yeah that specific bank only allowed two door knobs and outbuildings. We don't do FNMA through them. I did hire a guy a few weeks ago that worked for AMS for a year on one of their local crews. He did all FNMA for them.


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## dustint3161 (Aug 24, 2012)

This happens to me a lot with the photo upload halting. You need to close out of all browsers, and sometimes you also need to end the process iexplore.exe because it'll continue to halt no matter how many times you keep logging in. No issues with the system this week so far.


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## NewEnglandProp (May 23, 2012)

expected me to work 24/7 years ago, but finally I told them "You can expect me to breathe underwater also, doesnt mean that it will ever happen"


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## BPWY (Apr 12, 2012)

NewEnglandProp said:


> expected me to work 24/7 years ago, but finally I told them "You can expect me to breathe underwater also, doesnt mean that it will ever happen"





Unless they give me a guarantee of work load I am not giving them a guarantee of staffing.


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## GTX63 (Apr 12, 2012)

Groucho Marx during a commercial pitch-

"...and if you are not fully satisfied with our product, please return the unused portion to this address, and we will promptly return the unused portion of your money."


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## 68W30 (Sep 8, 2012)

i did 150k with SG the first year in business it only cost me 149k to do it lmao


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## PropPresPro (Apr 12, 2012)

michael.biasi said:


> i did 150k with SG the first year in business it only cost me 149k to do it lmao


So you are one of the rare vendors that SG brags about, having figured out how to make a profit with their pricing. . .


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## BPWY (Apr 12, 2012)

I've bought a lot of equipment thanks to the big screw........... for cash money too.


If you cover their remote stuff that nobody else is dumb enough to do they'll compensate you for it.
My lawn business would not be today what it is if it wasn't for the work they gave me the last two winters, especially the winter of 10/11.
I was able to cash money buy $10,000 of lawn equipment that year. Now granted buying used you can buy more pieces.
One Walker new is around $12,000 but I didn't buy a new one. I got a used that needed some work. I bought a new trailer
and several pieces of Echo commercial grade equipment was also new.

This year 1/4 of my back up work truck was paid for (cash) by a large trash out we did in April.


All this said I don't trust them any farther than I can throw them. But I do recognize the place they've had in building my lawn biz.


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