FM Maintenance Hartford, CT????

[ZeroTolerance]

Does anyone do any work for FM Maintenance out of Hartford, CT? I now have to be a preferred vendor for the restaurant chain I used to service and have to go through FM Maintenance now. This is a 3rd party company the restaurants call when they need service work. Once the restaurant calls them they somehow determine which contractor they are going to use for the service work.

Curious as to how quickly they pay once the work has been completed and you submit to them all the paperwork and invoice?

Is this a good company to do work under?

Is it worth my money and time to get all the insurance coverages, etc to do work for this company?

What determines if I get the jobs when the restaurants call them for service work?

Whose to say if I get lots of work or no work from this company and how is that determined?

This decision could make or break me being self employed as the restaurants I used to work for used me for anything and everything they needed service wise. So this is a big step towards the growth or death of my company

[Kenscom]

I have worked for osi for 16 years. They did the fm facility maintenance thing. Fm facility maintenance wanted to take over my business with a 26 page contract that took all rights away from me. I walked away from 7 OSI accounts knowing that I would be out of business if I signed the contract. The contract is complete with a no compete agreement and when you sign the contract you loose all rights to collect money for invoices. I have been down this road before, and the minute another contractor beats your price they will find endless reasons to not pay your bills. The lawyer that wrote the contract for FM Facility Maintenance is married to a judge in CT. To collect from FM Facility Maintenance you will need to go to Hartford CT and sue them in the local court. Good luck with that. I may be wrong but I suspect that FM Facilities Maintenance will eat your profits till you quit, then go on to the next contractor.

[timebuilder]

We just started accepting some calls from them. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Right now, I have had only a handful (3 or 4) calls from them since Christmas. I don't know how many calls total for the Co.

I'm thinking this is a spinoff co started by an exec from one of the other brokers.

[Kenscom]

We just started accepting some calls from them. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Right now, I have had only a handful (3 or 4) calls from them since Christmas. I don't know how many calls total for the Co.

I'm thinking this is a spinoff co started by an exec from one of the other brokers.

The company came from the Enron group and changed the name to FM Facility Maintenance. I am still in touch with many OSI partners that are waiting for this maintenance iniative to end. Please let me know if they pay the bills without editing them to a lower price. I was involved with them for 4 months trying to get references of happy contractors that they paid. FM told me that if I sign the contract I can then get references from them. I have been around the block with companies like this and have never even come close to turning a profit working for them. I have been in business for 16 years. Please let me know if I am wrong about this one. Thanks

[Kenscom]

We just started accepting some calls from them. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Right now, I have had only a handful (3 or 4) calls from them since Christmas. I don't know how many calls total for the Co.

I'm thinking this is a spinoff co started by an exec from one of the other brokers.

So have they paid the bills without removing your profits yet? I have ran 3 calls without signing a contract with FM Facilities Maintenance for OSI Restaurant Partners lately. I will get paid full value of the bills due to no signed contractors wanting the jobs. I don't know why nobody wanted the work .

[flange]

try getting signed up to ge fleet services as a vendor. when i wasa new business, I did refrigeration for them and they were awesome to work with. paid well and guys on the phone were extemely knowledgeable,so you could explain the problem to them and get approval for repairs easily.

[ZeroTolerance]

Ya, FM maintenance has been a pain in my ass so far. I honestly don't think my time is worth working with these idiots.

Being a small business owner, I require materials to be paid up front if the job costs more than $1000. They won't pay you anything until the job is done. I could go on and on about how ****ty this company is but will refrain from doing so.

[Kenscom]

try getting signed up to ge fleet services as a vendor. when i wasa new business, I did refrigeration for them and they were awesome to work with. paid well and guys on the phone were extemely knowledgeable,so you could explain the problem to them and get approval for repairs easily.

So you are saying they do not take any of your profit and are easy to work with? I am still in touch with the managers that are now forced to use this company and they all say they hate it. Some of the reasons that they hate it is due to the markup on the invoices, and the service people keep quitting before they finish the job. The service techs that I have talked to so far hate it. But you as a business owner think it is great? I am not trying to slam you here but you are the first positive response for FM Facility Maintenance. I wish I had your positive experience with just one of the handfull of facility maintenance management I have tried to work with when they took over clients I serviced. I am thinking the no compete agreement alone is enough to scare me. Not to mention the other 23 pages of reasons to not get paid. It is the worst " they have all the rights and I have none" contract I have ever seen. Are we talking about the same company here?

[timebuilder]

So you are saying they do not take any of your profit and are easy to work with? I am still in touch with the managers that are now forced to use this company and they all say they hate it. Some of the reasons that they hate it is due to the markup on the invoices, and the service people keep quitting before they finish the job. The service techs that I have talked to so far hate it. But you as a business owner think it is great? I am not trying to slam you here but you are the first positive response for FM Facility Maintenance. I wish I had your positive experience with just one of the handfull of facility maintenance management I have tried to work with when they took over clients I serviced. I am thinking the no compete agreement alone is enough to scare me. Not to mention the other 23 pages of reasons to not get paid. It is the worst " they have all the rights and I have none" contract I have ever seen. Are we talking about the same company here?

Read again. He said he was recommending GE Fleet Services.

Not FM Facilities.

[Kenscom]

Read again. He said he was recommending GE Fleet Services.

Not FM Facilities.

My bad. It all makes sense now!

[Brndnh721]

I have been doing work for them for about a year due to servicing Outback locations and and can say they are a pain the ass. They take along time to pay usually about 45 days, there is a million phone calls involved for one job and you have to be careful not to go over there not to exceed amount which is hard if you send a employee out to the job. Because they need to know what you are charging per hour, the price of parts and the mark up involved.
Keep in mind they do try to get a lower price out of you for your work but from what I have seen it isn't to unfair , the only problem is all jobs have to be done by the hour. How they get paid is by taking 10% of every job for them selves. All my Outback locations hate using them and say they actually spend more money then before, so I don't see osi using them much longer, but like mentioned there is a no compete clause in there which actually screws the contractor and the customer since they wouldnt be able to use there old contractors. They don't take any of your profits.

[ZeroTolerance]

OSI is on a two year (trial period) contract with them. They switched to FM to try and save on costs and find the cheapest rates to help save OSDI money. I don't see this working. Also, they help keep tabs on what equipment has been serviced and how many times it has been serviced. In other words they help depreciate each restaurants equipment, something OSI hasn't kept track of in the past. All of the GMs and Regionals I know can't stand FM either.

[Brndnh721]

OSI is on a two year (trial period) contract with them. They switched to FM to try and save on costs and find the cheapest rates to help save OSDI money. I don't see this working. Also, they help keep tabs on what equipment has been serviced and how many times it has been serviced. In other words they help depreciate each restaurants equipment, something OSI hasn't kept track of in the past. All of the GMs and Regionals I know can't stand FM either.

Yes your exactly right, I don't see them using FM beyond that period, here in the northeast we were one of the last areas for FM to get up and going. They pretty much almost couldn't do it. The funny thing is that FM says they do all the checking for quality companies and proper licensing and they have never asked for any of my licensing info. The problem comes when OSI stops using
Them and the non compete thing will be a issue. But my way around that would to start a sister company and work for them that way.