BBB Warns Against Manchester Business

The St. Louis Better Business Bureau (BBB) is issuing a warning to consumers about a contracting company with a location in Manchester (Read BBB alert below).

According to the BBB, a couple linked to the contracting company Insurexx, has left a trail of unhappy customers across the Midwest and now Insurexx is advertising a Manchester location at 11 Hedgewood Ct.

BBB Investigator Bill Smith said Insurexx appears to be doing the same type of work that Homestead Contracting was doing. Homestead was owned by Gloria Diane Schoeller.

"And now she is the president and owner of Insurexx," Smith said.

Smith said Schoeller's husband, Jeffery Wolfson, has been connected to both businesses.

"We have several people telling us they dealt with him when dealing with Homestead and Schoeller had told us he has ties to both companies," Smith said. 

Smith said Wolfson has an extensive history of bad business and unhappy consumers.

"We have just has had multiple problems with him, and now his wife surfaces as the president of this new company, Insurexx," Smith told Patch. "There are people across the Midwest who haven't been paid for the contracting services for this company (Homestead). They've had to go to court and sue them and in most cases ended up with nothing. A lot of people have lost a lot of money by dealing with any company operated by both of these people. We just urge people to use extreme caution when doing any business with any company affiliated with either one of them."

Town and Country - Manchester Patch contacted Schoeller for a comment on the BBB allegations. She referred Patch to her attorney Scott Rosenblum.

"I think the article (BBB's press release) contained a number of inaccuracies, including the duration of the realationship between Miss  Schoeller and Mr. Wolfson," Rosenblum told Patch.

"If somebody can show us something is inaccurate then we will correct it, but so far, nobody has called us," Smith said in response to the only comment by Rosenblum.

The Better Business Bureau issued the following alert this week:

St. Louis, Mo., Sept. 19, 2011 - A Missouri couple who have left a trail of frustrated consumers and businesses across the Midwest, have ties to a new contracting business that is attempting to expand its operations nationwide, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) warns.

The new company, Insurexx, is headquartered in Lebanon, Mo., and lists another address in Manchester, Mo., in West St. Louis County. Its website, www.insurexx.com, says it does work in Missouri, Illinois, Kansas and Oklahoma and expects to move into other states. 

The president and owner of Insurexx is Gloria Diane Schoeller, who most recently operated Homestead Contracting. Homestead, which also had offices in Lebanon, faces numerous complaints from business operators who said the company did not pay them for tens of thousands of dollars in contracting work on foreclosed properties.

The Missouri attorney general’s office said in March it was investigating Schoeller and her husband, Jeffrey A. Wolfson, for their dealings with customers and contractors.

Jeffrey Wolfson has a long history of legal problems. In May 1999, a St. Louis County Circuit Judge barred him from ever “owning or having any supervisory role in a home remodeling business.” That ban came after numerous customer complaints registered with the BBB and an investigation by the attorney general’s office into allegations of consumer fraud. The court ordered Wolfson to pay $264,000 in restitution over five years. In August 2000, he was sentenced to five years in prison when he returned to contracting work and failed to make restitution payments.

In April 2009, the BBB reported that Wolfson and his company, Home Centers America, failed to complete a home addition in Overland, Mo. The project – at the home of a 76-year-old woman - was completed by volunteers working with the American Subcontractors Association’s Midwest Council.

Michelle Corey, BBB president and CEO, said Wolfson and Schoeller “have been thorns in the sides of consumers and businesses for more than a decade. Based on past experience, anyone dealing with this couple should not expect things to end well.”

Schoeller, who also has used the name Gloria Diane Wolfson, registered Homestead Contracting with the Missouri secretary of state in December 2008. The company’s former website said its services included home inspections, insurance loss clean-up, property preservation, mold and hazardous material removal and re-build work. 

Homestead used Craigslist ads to hire subcontractors in Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas and other states. By the end of 2010, Homestead was virtually out of business, leaving numerous contractors unpaid for projects across the Midwest, including dozens of projects in the St. Louis area.

Most of those contractors said they performed work on foreclosed properties that included grass mowing, boarding windows and doors, changing locks, roof repair and cleaning out the properties.
 
A couple from Washington, Ill., said Homestead has paid them about $800 of $10,000 they are owed. A woman from Topeka, Kan., said she lost more than $3,000 to Homestead after the company refused to pay her company for several home preservation projects in that area. A woman from Harrisburg, Mo., said she lost about $5,000 for unpaid work. “It was horrible,” said the Harrisburg woman, adding that the work and stress associated with it worsened already serious health issues.

A man from Redfield, Ark., said Homestead still owes him $18,000.  “They haven’t paid me a nickel,” he said. A St. Louis area paralegal said Homestead never paid her for $4,500 in work. A man from Sunrise Beach, Mo., said he has received a single $500 check out of $5,000 he is owed. Several contractors said they dealt with both Schoeller and Jeffrey Wolfson over payment disputes.

Missouri records show that Schoeller registered Insurexx in late March, shortly after a TV station in Kansas City aired an investigative story on Homestead, Schoeller and Wolfson. In an interview with the TV reporter, Wolfson said he had no ownership in Homestead and was acting only as a consultant for the company.

Schoeller told the BBB that Wolfson was an independent contractor for Homestead “developing marketing and identifying companies that Homestead Contracting could contract with.”

Schoeller also said that Wolfson was involved with media and marketing for Insurexx, but did not represent Insurexx in any supervisory capacity and is no longer working for the company. The BBB urges caution when dealing with Insurexx, Schoeller or Wolfson and warns businesses to be especially wary of paying any up-front membership fees to the company.

A YouTube video for Insurexx, which was removed from the site Monday, says contractors hoping to work for Insurexx must pay an initial membership fee of $200, a second fee of $400 after receiving their first job and then a $50 per month fee for continuing use of a job software package. In addition, “Insurexx will ask you to purchase hats, shirts and other company-identified materials including a picture ID badge” at an additional cost of about $50, the video says.