Bear Fence

TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE. i have read some of the other reviews on here and there is an ongoing theme, They don’t seem to care about getting new clients. Phone calls are not returned and I am asking for their business! Called on a Tuesday night, no one returned my call the next day. So 2 days later I called again, got the receptionist, she said that Chris Finlay was on the phone and would I like to wait. I stated no but to please have him call me back (again!). Left my phone number and waited… and waited… and waited. No return call. I will be calling Alpine as they seem to have terrific reviews on here.

Okay, I guess I am not the only one who feel like Bear Fence sucks! This review is just for the first impression and no services were provided to us. I first contacted Bear Fence last month to have someone come out and give us estimate on our fence. We scheduled an appointment for October so a week before my appointment, I called the office to confirm the appointment. I called on Wednesday and the receptionist told me that she will have someone call me back to confirm since she does not schedule his appointment. Friday came, no one called me back so I contacted their office again and the receptionist said «here is his cell phone number just call him yourself» Why? WHY do I need to call him myself? Aren’t you suppose to provide service? I guess they don’t know what that means… Monday came… no one call me back so I feel like I’ve had enough of their non existent service that I called their office and just cancel the entire appointment altogether.
DO NOT USE BEAR FENCE…

We used Bear Fence in the past with no problems, but now their customer service SUCKS! Maybe there was an owner change? Anyways, they are going downhill FAST and there is no stopping them. I’ll be amazed if they are still in business at the end of this year.
I called the office 2 different times to try to get someone out here to give us an estimate. The first time I called in I was told the owner would call me back to set up an appointment. Nobody called me back in a week. I called the office again a second time and I was told the owner himself was in charge of my neighborhood area and he would come out to give me an estimate on so and so day. Turns out someone else, Jeremy, comes out to give me an estimate instead of the owner I was expecting. Okay, fine with me because someone at least came out. I arrive home 7 minutes late and Jeremy was already gone and there was nobody in sight. He must have gotten to my home early. I gave him a call to ask him when I should be receiving the estimate from him. He told me he’ll send it by email.
One week later and still no estimate. I call the office and the office sends me the estimate by the next day. The estimate we received for replacing our wooden gate was $ 800+. Really?! The material doesn’t even cost that much! After attempting to communicate with Jeremy by phone, email, and text message about different prices for either a 5′ high gate and a 6′ high gate, I simply gave up. I asked the office if I could have someone else handle my project, but they still put me with Jeremy. It should not be so much work for me to try to pay people.
Here is my frustrated email to Jeremy. I don’t usually get angry, but I got to my boiling point with him:
«Hello Jeremy,
I got your message on my answering machine. You mentioned replying back to my email for August 28^th on August 29^th, but I have not seen any emails from you in my inbox, spam folder, or trash. I do not believe you replied to my email at all.
Phone calls don’t seem to work because you’re driving. Text messages don’t work because the office still needed my email after I text messaged it to you. Text message also doesn’t work because I told you I need an estimate for a 6′ gate and I still get an estimate for a 5′ gate. Emails don’t work because your emails never make it to me. After 3 weeks I still don’t know how much it will cost for my gate to be replaced. At this rate I won’t even get the right estimate by the end of the year.
Please get someone else in charge of this project because it doesn’t seem like you are taking us very seriously.
Thank you,
Jennifer»
I am so glad it didn’t work out for us with Bear Fence because we have found another company that charges only $ 300+ for the wooden gate we want fixed.
DO NOT USE BEAR FENCE. THERE IS NOTHING GOOD ABOUT THEM. BAD COMMUNICATION. TERRIBLE PRICES. LONG WAIT.

3^rd time calling with no return call. I was told Jeremy would call back when he was «off the phone» but Jeremy doesn’t call back. Horrible customer service! ZERO!!!

Bear fence replaced our existing patio fence. The job was completed quickly. There were two gates installed. One was working and satisfactory from the get go. The other, would not latch. It was a simple to fix — adj of the locking mechanism (my opinion). Jeff came and adjusted it once but it still did not latch. It took several weeks and a little aggravation to get Jeff back out to fix it again. But he did come and he did fix it. All in all, the fence is in working order. Would recommend checking the work very carefully before the employees leave the site (shame on me).

They came out about a month ago for a driveway gate estimate… A month later I’m still waiting for them to give me an estimate. They have made no contact with me at all.

We had our vinyl fence replaced by Bear Fence after the fires of 2007 and were very pleased with both their prices and their quality. But it was a week ago, when I contacted Jeff for a repair on a gate, that cemented our loyalty to this company. Since the needed repair (now, 8 years later) was no fault of theirs, I fully expected to pay for it… especially after another company I contacted refused to come around for such a small job. Well, Jeff, offered to do it gratis; and that is exactly what happened. They fixed the gate so that it now works perfectly, and didn’t charge me a cent. That kind of service is practically unheard of in this day and age. Bravo Jeff and Bravo Bear Fence!

I needed a run of pipe over 10′ which can’t be had at Home Depot or Lowes. I called bear and they walked me thru my options and gave me great recommendations. I got there 10 mins before close. They stayed late for me. Cut to my exact length and charged me next to nothing.
Everyone in there was extremely friendly and professional. Next time I have fencing needs I’ll be going to Bear.

I had used Bear fence in the past for a large (70ft+) installation of vinyl fence. However, after I received an estimate for my fencing project, I could never get in touch with them by phone or email.
After a couple weeks I gave up, and went with a competitor. My experience with the competitor turned out to be significantly better, as the competitor took the time to provide creative suggestions/​solutions at the time of the estimate and had great communication by both phone and email throughout the rest of the process.

Waste of my time!!! At first I really thought this was a great company.
Jeff came out to give me an estimate ~ NEVER heard from them again ~ EVER
They lost out on a $ 20,000 easy fence job!
So happy I went with a family owned business instead of BEAR

I interact with vendors all the time so I need to keep a communication log to keep them all organized. This should speak for itself. I feel bad for anyone that works with these guys.
Bear Fencing communication log:
10÷1÷14 2:30 PM LM for Chris Finlay the estimator for our area
10÷5÷14 Sunday, lm on general mailbox
10÷6÷14 still no call so called Chris again and he answe4rd. Set appointment for 2 days.
10÷8÷14 met with Chris Finlay 7:30 am (showed 15 minutes late), President of Bear and he said would have a quote by Monday.
10÷14÷14 No bid yesterday as promised so called and LM for Chris 10 am
10÷21÷14 called and spoke to Chris, said he has been doing installs and is behind. Will have bid by Thursday ¹⁰⁄₂₃.
10÷27÷14 Still not bid LM for owner and Mona n 301, need help, explained delays
10÷29÷14 called and spoke to Mona again. Advised I left message in her and Mr. Bear’s voice mail box 2 days ago and still no call? Asked if they are too busy for my work and she said she would have to get me to the estimator Chris Finlay, the person who does not return calls or provide bids when promised. I asked who the owner is and she said Chris Finlay was so I told her never mind I’ll take my business elsewhere.
Bottom line Bear Fencing is not responsive and don’t seem to want the business. At this point even if they gave me a great price I could never trust them to get the job done right or in a timely fashion. They just lost out on over 100 feet of fencing including glass on my personal home. I also own rental property that requires occasional fencing. And as a Realtor here in San Diego I have clients always asking me for referral to contractors. Bear will NEVER be called upon again.
I am sad to waste more of my time posting this review because I really try to support local business. However if this saves some busy people from wasting their time, almost month for me, just to obtain a bid then this is time well spent.

My husband and I just moved to San Diego from Manhattan and the first thing we wanted to do was to get a fence put up around the front of our new house. I called Bear to schedule an estimate two weeks ago and still have not heard back. Maybe they have enough business and do not need more. If they decide to call, I will not be conducting business with them.

Bear Fence just pulled out after a long day doing an excellent install of 81′ of fencing for our home. They arrived on time, were extremely polite and cranked out a perfect install. Juan trimmed out a couple of areas I hadn’t thought of. He had some novel ideas alleviating the botched install of 25 yrs ago. The estimators write loads of bids and give you 30 days to respond. That’s pretty generous with the volatile nature of lumber prices out there. The guys cleaned up and even groomed the area adjacent to the fence.
I would recommend them to friends and anybody looking for a quality install at a competitive price.
Dave

Bear Fence, a company I would recommend in a heartbeat. Their customer service is excellent. The Santa Ana dryness caused the boards to dry too fast, shrink and warp. All they had to do was look at the fence and they turned around and said, «we got to fix it.» THAT IS CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!

I left 2 messages for Jeremy with no returned phone call for a few days. On the 4^th day the receptionist returned my call and said he was very busy and she wanted to set an apt. for him. My husband didn’t get a good feeling about he customer service. He asked me to call another company to give us a quote as well. We called Alpine Fence and not only talk to someone right away but he came out the next day (Saturday morning) and gave us a quote. Customer service is so important these days. I was not impressed with Bear one bit. Would not recommend them.

As a life long resident of San Diego I always thought when and if the time came I would be able to utilize Bear for any fencing needs that may arise… WRONG!
I always like to get at least 2 – 3 bids on any home remodeling project… Last night I emailed Alpine Fence and first this morning I got a call back… Bear’s website had no such option so I called them myself this morning after scheduling my appointment with Alpine… I really wanted Bear to do the job… NOT anymore…
I am astounded as to how rude the woman who answered the phone was… I am also still wondering how they get ANY business operating in the fashion that they do… I advised the woman that I was interested in scheduling an appointment for an estimate and after asking me several questions she reveals that she is personally UNABLE to schedule any appointments… Like what is the point of your position there then?!
She went on to explain that the men who do the installs schedule the appointments themselves however none of them were available as they were all «out in the field»…She asked if she could transfer me to one of their voice mails… I forget the name she mentioned… but I mean how does that even work out… Do they take turns on calls… Does she throw all the calls to her favorite guy… It sounded so shady… She sounded so shady and after coming home and reading all of these reviews there seems to be an ongoing theme here…
I am BEYOND thankful I relied on my intuition and declined to be transferred to a «voice mail»…Who knows when or even if I would have gotten a call back let alone an install… I am definitely looking forward to working with Alpine Fence… BIG loss for Bear… I’m actually working on 2 properties at the moment… Moral of the story is… You snooze you loose… You never get a second chance to make a first impression… It’s time to hire a new receptionist Bear and perhaps grant her the ability to do some scheduling… Then maybe you guys would actually be able to get back to people with proper estimates… I feel like I dodged a HUGE bullet…

Terrible customer service. If you want to be ignored for weeks, a changing price, a price based on an earlier quote except 50% more, go with Bear Fence. Maybe they are too busy to get back to customers but at least they should be consistent with their promises. They never got back to me when they said they would or send me the quote by the time they promised.

I have used Bear fence for the past 10 years. The latest high end job they did for me was at a house in the presidio area. Jeremy went overboard to help out, provide samples, revise the quote 3 to 4 times, Then they worked with our messed up schedule when they were delayed by our neighbors for a month, they never complained or treated us disrespectfully, incredibly patient and not demanding. I have used other companies, yet I continue to work with Jeremy and Chris at Bear because i know the job will be done right, and quick for a competitive price. Thanks Guys!

We love our Fence! Chis F. was our hero. We asked him to build us a picture frame tongue and grove redwood fence and gates with lots of trim on all 3 gates. Chris’ crew built everything onsite. I wish I could attach a picture. It is exactly what we wanted.
Our estimate was very reasonable and was never altered or changed. Most of all I have neighbors driving by and asking me about our fence and complementing us on it.
Chris is very professional and was always available to answer my questions. I highly recommend Chris and Bear Fence. This is the 4^th time I have used them and am super happy with all of the results.

I have mixed feelings about this company. The owner came out to my property as promised and gave me an estimate. As I checked around, the price was good. We scheduled a date/​time and the workers showed up as promised. The workers themselves were courtesy and did a professional job. I had my fence in 3 days as promised. When it came time to collect payment, the owner had no problems contacting me right away.
My problem is the follow-​up. I had this company install a wooden fence, and ²⁄₃ of the quality of the wood was fine. The last batch of wood that covered ¹⁄₃ of the property was not the best quality. Within 2 weeks my fence was warped so badly some of the boards looked like a banana. I called my contact and he came out to take a look, and agreed some of the boards had to change. It took him 2 days to schedule someone, who came out and showed me other boards that were cracking and in need of change, espeically since they were part of the gate that is needed to keep the fence locked. This worker did not arrive with enough boards, and in the process of changing the warped boards, he actually damaged others and had to replace those as well. Then he instructed me to call Bear Fence again and let him know that more boards need to be replaced because he did not bring enough. I called several times and was promised someone would come back, but no one showed up. I guess once you pay them and the check clears, you become a liability and not an asset to their bottom line. I got tired of calling. I will go to Home Depot myself and replace some of the boards that need to be replaced.
At least ²⁄₃ of the fence looks good. But I expect 100% satisfaction when I pay you 100% of the payment.