I wanted to take a moment to talk about my experience with Southern National Roofing and what I consider their extremely shady sales practices.

I did not get a roof installed so I can't comment on the quality of their installed products, this is only concerning their sales tactics and how they conduct themselves.

Tuesday March 28th, 2023 a guy knocks on my door and asks me to come outside so he can show me some problems with my roof. It's old and needs to be replaced so I go out and he runs through some problem areas.

He tells me that if I'm interested they can send a project manager out to do an inspection and give me a quote for a new roof that will be good for 12 months. Sounds great, I thought. We're not financially ready to spend an insane amount of money right now but it's on the to do list and having a price in hand will be helpful for planning.

I agree, give some info, and talk to a guy named Gary about scheduling a PM for 7 that night.

The first problem, Gary calls me back later from a number that's flagged as potential spam and tells me there's no PM available and can we do tomorrow. I agree, he asks will my wife be around and I say yes.

That's it, btw. He doesn't specify that she'll need to be available for the whole presentation just asks 'will she be there?' and I say yes. Again, one hour start to finish, estimate good for 12 months.

Scheduling issues happen, people get sick, not a big deal so far.

Wednesday, March 29th. A lovely guy named Chris shows up to inspect the roof. We talk about the history of the house, the age etc and he checks everything outside and inside the attic. As expected, lots of problems because the roof is old and needs to be replaced.

The appointment started at 6pm. My wife gets home from work around 630 as we're ready to talk materials and numbers. She's hungry and wants to eat dinner but is ten feet away from where we're sitting.

Chris' demeanor totally changes and he asks me "I thought you said this was a good time?"

I say it's fine, she can hear us talking and I'm the one who will be making the final decision. That's apparently no good and Chris calls Gary and puts him on speaker.

I should have ended the whole process there and then because Gary was incredibly rude and disrespectful to me and my wife. And it's totally his fault for not explaining that "will she be there?" means "will she be there at rapt attention for the whole sales presentation despite not warning us about that?"

She agrees to delay dinner and sits down while Chris tells about the company certifications and how they operate. We review materials and installation options and ask for two prices, the more basic option and the premium one.

Chris goes outside to get measurements and work up the estimate. While he's outside I read all the google reviews listed, roughly 30 of them. Most are either 5 star or 1 star. People seem happy with the installs or very unhappy that the sales guys walked right past no soliciting signs to knock on their doors. So I think to myself at least the work is apparently pretty good, no one is complaining about leaks or anything.

Chris comes back inside and we're well past 730pm at this point. The appt was supposed to be an hour and we're getting crankier that it's dragging on.

The estimates come back at around 25k for the premium install. 18k for the basic install (16ish if i pay cash.) This is for 19 squares of shingles, 218 feet leak barrier, 65 feet ridge cap and 190 feet drip edge.

Now some extra shadiness, despite saying the estimate is good for 12 months the prices quoted involved a discount on the shingles we picked out because they had surplus so we'd pay more if we didn't purchase it immediately.

We told Chris thank you, but the price is higher than we expected and that price point is out of our range. Chris gets serious again and asks if he could knock the price down a bit would that be good. We said maybe, what can you do?

This is when I realized how shady this business is and why I am writing this review. We were offered a "pilot house" discount to basically let them put a yard sign up and for us to write positive reviews. The promotion ended a few days ago but since Gary was rude maybe he'll be amenable to offering the deal to us.

Scam/Scum Alert: Southern National Roofing

The prices drops to 12k. Just like that, magically we get a 25% discount on the cash price. It's still higher than we can pay cash right now so we discuss for a moment and then tell Chris we can't do it and thank him for his time.

After he leaves I start replaying the encounter in my head and I start to think about how icky I feel about it.

I'm 99% sure they have Gary playing bad cop on purpose so that the project manager seems more sympathetic. And now I am positive that you CANNOT trust the 5 star reviews because some of them were certainly gained by offering the discounts. I don't know if that' illegal to trade discounts for a positive review but it's incredibly shady.

I hated the entire experience, which ran nearly double the time they told us. I feel like they are ripping people off if they accept the initial estimate. If you can knock 4k in profit off of an install without blinking then you are overcharging like crazy.

Again, I can't speak to the quality of the actual work but this kind of high pressure sales tactics are disgusting and predatory. I hope everyone who reads this feels like they can make a more informed decision on their roofing company.

TLDR: Southern national roofing is a shady biz who is overcharging and buying positive reviews with discounts.