Rhino Shield

January 21, 2014 To whom it may concern: I would like to tell you about the experience I had and I am currently having with Rhino Shield. I was told approximately six years ago when I had a leak in my home I needed to have my house coated with Rhino Shield due to the fact that water was coming through the plaster.

This man suggested I call Rick Mariano. It turns out they are friends and this was not true because after the very expensive, very aggravating, so called 25 year finish my home experienced the very same leak. It turns out the leak was caused by two $10 gaskets in the second story windows in my living room. I guess Rick’s friend, the builder Rex should have probably known this.

However, on to my experience with Rhino Shield. During the process there was damage done to my landscaping and my driveway and it was soon discovered after they left they had missed some areas, as well as, some small blistering began and failure to contain the water from running through the decorative trim on my home. At this point, I was told I needed to pay additional money to do some work around some areas. I was charged for these repairs I thought should have been warranted.

Here we are six years later and for about the last year and half I have been experiencing more and more blistering, as well as, leakage through decorative trim around certain areas of my home. I have been in contact with Rick Mariano, who seemed to be an honorable guy. Now, I tell Rick it is time to repair what is happening to my home as I am doing some remodeling inside and out. His response was, “Not a problem, me and another guy are going to come over and look at it.” My response was just have a couple of guys fix the damage where your product failed and he insisted on doing it his way.

So I met Rick and one of his associates and said, “Do you happen to have somebody that can pressure clean my home and then your guys can fix the areas where your product has failed?” I went on to show him more areas that should have been sealed where water is leaking under causing a major eye sore at my home. My grounds keeper is constantly having to paint over them as they stain my home. I also showed Rick an area where a plant had been removed that apparently had not been painted. Rick said he would get back to me with an estimate for the pressure cleaning.

Low and behold, I received a call from Rick. Rick goes on to tell me I have a bid for pressure cleaning. It is $4,800. I quickly realized what Rick had done.

Clearly, Rick Mariano, the owner of Rhino Shield in Jacksonville was trying to profit from the failure of his product and workmanship. In the past, the approximate cost to pressure clean my home is roughly $1800. My immediate response was, “I will get my home pressure cleaned, you just send your men to fix the damage.” His response to me was, “Yes, I did build in some money because its only fair that you pay to redo the stucco.” Mind you the stucco was perfect until it was incased in Rhino Shield which entombed it in water where it then dissolved. With this I naturally became enraged and text him, “I will just go ahead and contact the person who awarded you the franchise.

Maybe they will see it different.” With that my assistant went on the computer to track the roots of Rhino Shield. She came up with home base in Destin, Florida where we put a call into the company in hopes of resolution. What we encountered was a person by the name of Catherine. As good as she was at running me around, one would assume that I am not the first person to have this problem.

She was well rehearsed and a master of “BS.” I kept telling her, “I just want to speak to the owner of Rhino Shield.” She kept insisting that Rick was an independent franchise and no one had control over him. My answer to her was okay, “If I wanted to open a franchise who would I speak to?” I told her I wanted the name of the president of company and she told me that she was not allowed to give that information out. Apparently, she thinks I am as *** as Rick Mariano does. My assistant immediately went back on the computer finding Steve Dominique, CEO’s contact information.

All of a sudden when my assistant contacted this very same girl asking for Mr. Dominique, we encountered an entirely different attitude. It was amazing! Very politely telling me three times to wait that she was going to connect me with the president.

This never happened. She came back and said, “We are having phone trouble. Give me your telephone number and I will have him call you right back.” This was early Friday morning January 17, 2014 and here it is Tuesday January 21, 2014 and I’m still waiting for that phone call.

This has prompted me to take this further action. Photos available upon review.

The issue, long story short, is that the "3-day cancellation" window was NEVER discussed and I found it by chance in the small print on the back of the contract late in the evening on the third day. My husband called the following day to expain that we were cancelling and 2 months later, they got back to us and told us we were outside of the 3 day window and would not get the almost $5000 deposit refunded.

My advice is to not sign the contract unless you are 100% sure on this huge investment. Thank God we did not give them the remaining $18,000! Yes, a 5000 square foot exterior costs $24,000!!!

Guess we will just call this charity and spread the word on the way they do business. Joe Pesci said it best, "They F#*% you in the drive thru!"

My house was built in 1949 and is a brick and wood combo. Needed to have a good bit of wood work done and some replaced.

Was told I would get a receipt for any materials needed and would reimburse them for the exact cost of materials. Never saw a receipt was just given a total. Had a crew of 3 guys. Erik, their foreman, was extremely rude, disrespectful and condescending.

I had to have numerous conversations with him about work that I was not happy with and he was a complete jerk. The other 2 did the majority of the work. At one point, he told me I needed to hire someone else to fix the work that I didn't like and that they could come back to paint after I had someone else fix it (at my expense) because he needed to move on to the next job. After I told him I wasn't going to pay anything until the entire job was complete to my satisfaction, he changed his tune.

Erik is a bully and I would worry how he would treat customers that didn't stand up for themselves. They damaged numerous pieces of furniture, outdoor decor, plants, and all of my landscape lighting. A couple of weeks after they finished, I had to have my entire septic system pumped out because it had all backed up, backed up the sprinkler lines, and ruined the sprinklers. The reason for all of this was because they had unplugged the aerator for the system when painting and never plugged it back in causing the whole system to shut down.

The aerator is under a concrete box and doesn't make noise so I didn't notice that it wasn't plugged in. I called Roman, their supervisor, to inform him of what had happened. Erik, of course, denied that he had unplugged it. However, they had to unplug it to paint.

Roman offered me $250 for my costs to repair the system, which didn't begin to cover it.

All in all, they don't stand behind their work or their workers. Definitely not worth the price we paid.