Welcome to the LeafFilter North Community

A posting about Leaf Filter Gutter Protection was posted on 5/15/14 and it needs to be removed. It's very long and has Leaf Filter and the date at the top. It's spam that was never supposed to be posted.

Leaf Filter North and all of its separate entities (locations) claim to be the manufacture, use W2 (employees) to do the installations; AND their sales people are corp. taught to deceive the customers.

Commercial acct rep etc (list out from up to $30+ per ft and sell 4 as little as $10.

They subcontract 99% of the labor and sales. They have/do charge "Leaf Filter" customers for services, despite a "Lifetime" warranty on "ownership/dealer" liability games.

A little research can go a very long way, when it comes to buying a solution instead of a smoke and mirrors Good Luck

We saw them at a home show and made an appt for a “free, no obligation estimate”. I wanted to see how much this would cost since they needed to come out to the house.

We are new homeowners and I had no idea as to price. They made an appt for a Saturday Morning and the salesperson, George, was very nice and respectful. He brought the price down from $3500 to $2800 and wanted us to finance this at $46 a month for 6 years at 12% interest. Also to get this price we had to sign a contract that day.

We told him that the product sounded great but we could not afford it at this time. He then got his boss on the phone and the boss was very rude and condescending to us. Trying to shame us into signing a contract saying “Why did you have us come out if you can’t afford it?” and “you can’t afford $46 a month?” I said I’m not going to sign up for a 6 year commitment for this.

It’s not that important to me. The whole hard sell thing put us both off and we probably wouldn’t have gotten even if we could pay in full just because of the attitude of the manager.

I have never dealt with a more aggressive sales pitch from the moment they pressured us to sign up at the home show and then the rude unprofessional sales person

Backstory, my wife and I both went to the local home show a couple months ago and we were looking for a gutter guard for our new home that has large maple trees that filled our gutters last fall. We talked with all the like companies and requested more information/estimates, one of which was Leaffilter who was very pushy from the moment we initiated contact with them at the booth. The next day, I must have received a handful of calls and messages from Leaffilter trying to schedule a date to come out to our home. I called them back later in the day after work and told the lady that I got the original message and there was no need to call another 4 times. I proceeded to schedule a time a few days later when I had the other two companies coming out and then the real fun started.

I had Leaffilter come out first in the morning followed by Gutter Helmet and then Leafguard in the afternoon since we wanted to meet with 3 companies to get an idea of the cost and differences in each system. The leaffilter man showed up approx. 15 mins late and after introducing himself he proceeded to walk around measuring the home, after that he came in and gave me a short presentation on their product and what not. At the end he presented the price and said do we have a deal? I said no because we had others coming out, as I said that the Gutter Helmet salesman pulled up outside, 25 mins before my scheduled time with them. The Leaffilter guy who saw him said 'well I see you have Gutter Helmet coming as well" and I said yeah is there an issue. He then went into a tirade on their product saying they voided something with my roof and that they are going to lie to me about their product etc. I have to admit I was a little taken back by his anger towards this competitor and it left me kind of unsure how this next appointment would go. He then said, I tell you what I will give you an extra discount if I signed right on the spot, I responded back that I was not making a decision until I met with all the companies, spoke to my wife, kindly asked him to leave and I would be in touch if we were interested in moving forward. To my surprise as he walked down my driveway to his car, I see him flip the bird to the Gutter Helmet salesmen parked out on the road. Very classy! I just shook my head and laughed at the lack of professionalism of this guy. He sped off and then the Gutter Helmet guy came up and the first words after introducing himself were "I can only imagine what you just went through with that last guy and I want to assure you that the company you just met with is not a reflection of our industry as a whole." He proceeded to do his measurements as he gave me a presentation/video to look out, afterwards he came back in to the kitchen and went through each slide which was very informative and I learned some gutter things I had never thought about. After that, I told him that I really liked the way the product looked and the functionality seemed to make sense but I had another company coming out. Unlike the Leaffilter guy, the Gutter Helmet guy said that is ok and didn't go into all these extra discounts, sign today, etc.....he left me his card with a folder with brochure literature etc and said he would follow up later on this evening. I said great as I needed to talk it over with my wife later on. He left and went on his way, was very professional and did nothing that the Leaffilter guy said he would. As for the third company, Leafguard came on time and was also very professional. The man had a similar process as the others and then he presented a price which included taking down our existing gutters which I thought was silly since we have fairly new ones so the extra cost of the system plus loosing my current gutters didn't make sense. He went through their sales pitch like the others but I again stated I needed to talk stuff over with my wife later and the sale person left and mentioned he would follow up as well.

In conclusion, I conversed with my wife later on that evening and we decided to go with Gutter Helmet since we liked the way the product looked and how professional the salesman was. Also, about 30 mins after we made up our mind the Gutter Helmet sales consultant followed up around 7pm by phone and asked if we had made a decision. I said we were between two so we needed to get the price down a little and the salesman worked with with me, within our budget, and sent over the contract via email about 30 mins later. Leaffilter nor Leafguard ever followed up with me which I thought was not very professional.

Based on my experience I would say buyer beware on this Leaffilter company, at the very least do your research and have the other companies out so you can make an informed purchasing decision. The whole sign on the spot type thing, really rubbed me the wrong way as looking back now it seemed like an act of last desperation since they knew the other competition was coming and they would loose the upper hand once they left, unfortunately for them I was really just doing my due diligence on each company and they the sales person shot himself in the foot.

I had this system installed in 2010. If this truly is a "lifetime" warranty then why are they not using stainless steel screws/washers to install them?

The rust from their screws streaked down the new gutters that I had installed at the same time. I spoke to a rep at the Philadelphia Flower Show about it and was told that there should not be rust.

Someone from the company came out to replace the screws but did not seem to know if the new ones were stainless because he was "just a worker". Changing the screws did nothing to improve the looks because the rust still remains on the Leaf Filter as well as the streaks on my gutters

Signed up at a trade show for an estimate. They wasted no time getting to the house for an estimate.

The gentleman told me he was the ' commercial accounts manager' and that he normally don't estimate but they were very busy and he had to come out. After an hour of hearing him bash and bad mouth every other system on the market he gave me an estimate that basically was about $30 per foot. That is when it began. He said since he was the commercial accounts manager he would put my order in as commercial and give me commercial pricing.

Was still way too high ($7300) after another two price drops he called his boss. (Beau- I think it was) Beau said he was gonna 'bundle' my order in with a big order he was placing but I had to agree to let them install my system the next day. Now how are they gonna order my material with another and install the next morning?

Any way he dropped the price to what was about $10 per ft. This I feel is very shady and asked them to leave.

After the system was installed I noticed every shrub and bush around the home started to turn a gray color and eventually every last tree, flower and blade of grass around my home had died. All LeafFilter's fault.

Also the neighbor's bushes and trees are starting to look pretty bad too. He had some questions about my yard dying and then started to notice his stuff was dying in his yard too. So now he's mad at me when he should be mad at LeafFilter. Please be careful while dealing with this company.

You could loose your trees like I did.

Thanks for reading.

Shane C. Berlin, CT