Armstrong Painting & Construction An Angi Horror Story

The point: Angi does not verify required licensing information. It appears that only actual requirement to be an "Angi Certified" professional is to pay for it.

“Angi Certified” Professionals and Licensing

It may interest you to know that Isaiah Armstrong was listed at the time, as an “Angi-Certified” professional. He is currently again listed as an “Angi-Certified” professional. But what does this really mean? Let’s dig into it.

Licensing

The only reason I ever used Angie’s List / Angi was because I believed, apparently mistakenly, that Angi would verify that professionals to whom my job was sent were actually licensed.

But this is not the case.

As part of the complaint resolution process I attempted with Angi, I mentioned that my research discovered that Isaiah Armstrong was an unlicensed contractor running an unlicensed business. I received this in an email from Angi:

I have also contacted our Service Provider Integrity team to audit the Provider's licensing. Each provider is responsible for reporting their licensing status through our licensing attestation program. Our Trade Licensing Department will then perform audits to ensure the accuracy of these claims. Whether a provider is listed as having a license or not, we encourage members to follow-up with service providers directly to make sure that their licensing information is accurate and up-to-date.

Shortly thereafer, I received another reply:

After receiving your message, we researched this company’s licensing status and determined that, based on the company’s service description and the nature of the work indicated by member reviews, this company is required to hold an Alabama Residential Home Builders License or Specialty Construction License. Despite thoroughly researching license verification using public tools, we were unable to confirm Armstrong Painting & Construction's compliance with these requirements.

We ask all companies to attest to their compliance with all applicable licensing laws governing their trade(s), and their attestation is our initial means of determining licensing information and assigning a license status to a company. We then rely on reports such as yours and our audit program to check the accuracy of these attestations.

So Angi does not verify that their “Angi-Certified” “professionals” are actually even licensed! They just allow providers to say they are licensed or (in Isaiah Armstrong’s case) that licenses aren’t required even if it is clear that such licensure would be required. They instead wait for one of their users to be hosed before looking into the matter.

To repeat, Angi does not verify that contractors are actually licensed before allowing them to advertise and accept jobs on their platform as licensed contractors!

On his Angi page, Isaiah Armstrong says “No License Required for Trade”. Among the many trades he lists on his Angi page are “Plumbing,” “Electrical,” “HVAC”, “Roofing,” and other trades that are required to be licensed in the state of Alabama. This means that Isaiah Armstrong is actively advertising himself as qualified for, and possibly accepting, jobs that would require him to be licensed despite not having such licenses, and Angi is enabling him. He’s not licensed in any of these fields, nor is he a licensed general contractor so he shouldn’t even be subcontracting them out.

Angi has been informed of this information repeatedly, and has not taken action.

This makes Angi’s service completely useless. The entire point of the service is that they are supposed to take care of checking this for you. If it’s just reviews, I can get those from Google or Yelp. I can get recommendations from Facebook or any number of places. There is literally no reason for Angi to exist if they are not going to actually verify the credentials of people they are recommending.

If you would like to check Isiah Armstrong’s (lack of) licensure, you may do so at the following addresses. These are all among the service categories he lists on his Angi page:

As of May 15, 2022, he is not listed at any of these addresses. As far as I can tell, he’s just some guy who decided to start a construction company. As a reminder, in June of 2021, Angi told me: “this company is required to hold an Alabama Residential Home Builders License or Specialty Construction License.” (above) He currently holds neither of those, nor any other license. And yet, he is an “Angi-Certified” professional for a bunch of fields that do require specialty licensing? I wonder what changed…

But as we will see, this is just scratching the surface of Angi’s problematic behavior.

Back: Angi's Role Next: The "Happiness Guarantee"