Okay so yes there is obviously a distinct difference in your point of view, but to a lot of us going door to door to offer a “free estimate” or “hand business cards” is the only way to market ourselves more easily. It’s the only way I have been able to market myself especially because I don’t have the resources to put an ad in a newspaper or make an commercial. The big con in the tree industry is it is not safety enforced and highly regulated like other trades and any moron can pick up a chainsaw and start cutting. That is not how I was trained at all during my 5 years as a professional tree climber. Many people do not ask enough questions or look around, which to me is absolutely absurd. Some guys undersell and some guys oversell. I personally tell everyone that if they don’t feel that the price I’m risking my life for is worth it that they can always give a call to another local Arborist so that I can give an honest and compared rate. I don’t agree with many of the obscene prices that some horrible people charge at all, but at the same time why didn’t anyone question the trimmer or call another tree company? I apologize if this is coming off as aggressive but the title and context of your statement triggers me just because of a bad experience with scammers, but I am sorry that you had to deal with that.

As someone who does tree work for a living this is kind of an unfair generalization considering some of us actually try to do the right thing. Tree work in general is incredibly dangerous and while yes there are a lot of sketchy people who charge sketchy prices, that’s not fair to assume that all of us do. That’s on the consumer to know what the tree value is worth if they don’t know they should shop around and compare.