Waste Management [WM]
Reviews and Complaints

Waste Management is attempting to charge a fee for cancelling their overpriced service. I received an email today (3/24/2022) with an "invoice" claiming I owe them money.

They are attempting to charge me $101.29 dollars to no longer use their service. The company makes it difficult and time consuming to cancel the service in the first place. Nobody should use this company for residential service.

I only used WM for trash pick up service because they bought out the local company I previously used. I was generally happy with the service, but the price is not at all competitive.

I do not have any contract with WM. I never had one. I paid for a year of service in full. Upon completion of the year, I did not renew. It took multiple calls and hours of my time to cancel.

The cancellation fee is completely arbitrary and random. I could just as easily claim they owe me money. This is abusive, possibly illegal, and definitely unethical activity. this company is literally a garbage company. I assume they'll go the way of Bally's Fitness and other such organizations who made pulling a fast one their business model.

I called WM in mid January to initiate new service at my new home starting 1/21. On this call, I told the agent I'm likely to have more recyclable cardboards than usual due to me moving into this new home. The agent was understanding and told me I can just have the excess cardboards outside of the recycle bin and it would be collected at no charge. That's exactly what I did. I cut and aligned the cardboards neatly to my recycle bin if i cannot fit them into the bin. Now fast forward to today, I received my first WM invoice and was hit with $76.50 for "extra pick-up recycle". That's contrary to what I was told when I initiated the service. I called customer service again and was told anything outside of the bin there's a fee, when I responded saying that's not what I was told, the agent brushed me off and said I should've known better. Another trash comapny serviced my previous home, and they do not charge extra for cardboards that do not fit in the bin. It's not like I did not confirm this with WM. In addition to being overcharged for recycling, I also had no trash bin for over 8 weeks. My trash bin was supposed to arrive on 1/21, however it did not get delivered until 3/11th. During this time, I called Waste Management at least twice asking about my trash bin and also telling the agent about the excess cardboards from the move, they weren't able to help with the trash bin but did tell me to just fold and leave the cardboards outside the bin, I won't be charged. One even suggested I leave a big enough cardboard box next to my recycle bin and put my trash in it to use it as a trash bin. I did exactly that, but the cardboard box was gone along with the trash, it appears WM was charging me extra for that box too. This is my first experience with WM, I'm throughly disappointed at the incoherent responses I got from its customer service reps and the lack of respect/empathy from the latest agent when I called to discuss the overcharges. I'd respectfully ask WM to do the right thing and adjust my bill accordingly.

Removal of empty dumpster after end of contract

Charge $288.49

End of contract 1/1/22

Last pick up 12/22/21

Pick up of dumpster 2/14/22

WM not willing to adjust charges

I will be submitting a bill for storage of their abandoned dumpster, WM agreed to remove dumpster 3-5 days after end of contract

I will submit charges to the North Dakota Attorney General for review of billing practices, he has addressed billing charges with WM before and hopefully he will not allow WM to charge these ridiculous charges

Hello,

I live behind businesses where your dumpsters pick up. We are subjected to your garbage trucks 6 days a week. We have one garbage truck from your company that shows up EVERY morning between 6 and 6:45 am. They pick up in the 13500 and 13600 blocks of Ventura Blvd on the North side of the street. For the longest time, your truck picks up at 13613 Ventura Blvd and empties the dumpsters in that block at the very early morning hour. An hour and a half later around 8 am or so, a second truck of yours comes to the exact same addresses and picks up empty dumpsters. Are you kidding me with this? And yes, we know, because we can see them from our bedroom windows which face the alley. This is inefficient, wasting gas, creating more noise, more pollution and more lack of sleep for the residents of the area. The noise and incessant back up beeps has become a nuisance and the biggest complaint of the neighborhood. We can hear your trucks within a 2 block radius. CANCEL the first truck that comes between 6 and 6:45 am, and let the second truck pick up all the dumpsters. We do not need multiple trucks in our neighborhood picking up the few dumpsters in this area and coming to pick up empty dumpsters that have already been emptied. Let the second truck pick up for both the 13500 and 13600 block of your dumpsters. We would appreciate being able to sleep uninterrupted. Thank you.

We have used WM for many years at my church and this Jan. 1 we cancelled our service because a competing company was 1/2 the price. I was appalled to discover they are charging us $800 to remove 4 trash cans and a dumpster. These are things they own and maintain and I'm sure the cost is included in the many thousands of dollars we have paid them over the years. They claim we agreed to this in the fine print of the service agreement we signed - pretty lame!

This company is making a big mistake with this short sighted scam.

On February 7, 2022, the truck picking up my can utilized a clawlike feature to lift and dump the can. When it was finishing, it slammed the can to the ground resulting in the wheel cracking and falling off the can. I called the customer service line who assured me that the can would be repaired within 10 days.

After two weeks and no action by WM, I called back and asked them what the status was. No one had any idea except to say they were busy. I let them know that being over 70 and having to maneuver a can with only one wheel was very difficult. They did not seem to care. I told them that if they could not get me either a replacement can or repair the can immediately, we would need to part ways. Since they had no idea when the situation would be resolved I requested to have my service terminated as of 2/7/2022 and a prorata return on my prepayment. They agreed to this on the phone and asked me to leave the can out by the curb so they could pick it up.

On Friday, 3/11/2022 I called them again and asked why the can had not been picked up and why no refund. The agent said that apparently noone put in the return order and that she would do that now. She put me on hold to talk to a supervisor. When she came back she stated that there was a $75 return fee that I had never heard of and that they were not refunding any money. I told them that this was entirely unacceptable. Few companies treat their customers so poorly.

I signed up for WM service with two cans for service and they only delivered one can so I went to lowe's and bought a second one only to have them leave it full on the street on my first day of service. The following week they picked it up and then left it full again the week after. I called them and they said I only signed up for single can service and they would add another can but would not use the can I already purchased and dropped it off only to after a couple of weeks skipping my service completely after weather delays and said they would come pick it up after the weekend and then decided to not show up and said they would not be able to come until the next scheduled pickup day. So i called and cancelled my service and now the think that I am going to pay some kind of $75 can removal fee. Please

Received a citation on February 28,2022 saying that our garbage can and recycling cans were too close together for pick up. We have been putting them out in the same spot for over 17 years without having any issues about pickup or location. We have limited space to put the cans out on our driveway so the options that we were given to resolve this issue will not work.

Friday March 4 the my trash was left and so was the whole block and a customer no service rep said they would come back within 48 hours but they never came and it's almost a week later they suck waste management drivers are idiots hey waste management drivers spell it or what is 2+2 u idiots I work for waste pro hands down a much better company than waste management my name is Matt Stilwell 132 capitol ave winder ga 30680 [protected]

Since the pandemic I've lost my job force to retire and now living on a fixed income. I have told comcast (internet service) to cancel my service at the end of the month which means all creditors have been notified im opting out of email bills. WM will add to my stress by adding $8.50 to my 24.00 per month bill. What regulatory commision to I report this too? I will be taking my trash to the incinerator until this is resolve.

in july of 2021, my tenant told me about this

I was with Fds for trash removal waste management purchase the company decided to double the rate that we were paying I called them to see if we can lower the bill because it didn’t make any logical sense they refused to lower the bill it said it was a corporate standard but would refund my $140 and pick up the dumpster and The file would be closed and there would be no additional charges whatsoever this was on a recording with their accounts manager. A week went by no one picked up the dumpster I called again they said it was in the system not to worry about it I will receive a refund and that’s it. After they picked up the dumpster two weeks later I received a bill for $180 for the removal of the dumpster. I called to complain told him that there are not living up to their agreement they didn’t care and said it’s a corporate decision when anybody leaves waste management to charge $250 fee to pick up the dumpster and he refused to fully give me my money back from the 140 some dollars they promised. I told them that FDS was my company I never agreed to be with waste management and if they didn’t increase the price significantly we wouldn’t be having this conversation they understood but refused to illuminate their fees that I never agreed to. They indicated it was in the SDS agreement but they’re omitting a part of the agreement that I signed which specifically said that FDS could not increase their bills more than 5% per year yet they violated that part of the agreement with a significantly increased direct violation of their own agreement. I have called repeatedly times and no one is willing to talk to me at all I get is a runaround about the lousy $25 and my refund. The supervisors refuse to call me or talk to me or address the issues is saying it’s a corporate decision and nothing more. I indicated to them is not fair for them to take a vantage of small businesses but their policy said we enjoy taking vantage of small businesses which I thought was apprehensible and inappropriate. . So obviously we would like to resolve the issue by eliminating their pick up fee which we should not have to pay in any fees associated with it considering we were never with waste management and they violated their own agreement by increasing the rate more than 5% per year after they took over. I can’t believe this isn’t against the law what they’re doing

We live in an area where we used to have a different trash company, and a couple years back we were bought out by waste management. So we continue to pay our bill to them. Prices continued to go up though, and the other local competitor was much cheaper, so we called to cancel with WM and the woman lowered our bill. We paid our invoice for January 2022. Some other factors were at play in our decision too, so we ended up calling back to cancel service completely after all. We cancelled and scheduled for our last pickup to be the last Monday in January 2022. Now they are trying to bill us for more money AND saying we have a $75 “removal fee”?! But guess what? The can belonged to our OLD trash company. It’s not like it’s even their can (yes, I understand it becomes their property upon buying them out, but different than them incurring a cost for bringing us a can in the first place) I said “so we have a charge for ending our service, you illegally rolled us into a contract, without our consent? We weren’t made aware of any fee at the time of cancelling”. He said “oh it’s on your bill and it’s not a “contract” it’s for removing the cart”. Um. What? This is absolutely wrong. We didn’t have a fee for ending service with our old company and never “agreed to terms” or signed anything! They can’t just put people under a contract or “terms” or make us subject to paying fees we wouldn’t have had before. That is called a contract and we would have had to sign and agree to that. In beginning to make forward process on this and next steps, I have come across many many many complaints against WM and them doing this to other customers as well. I will be taking this to the BBB if it isn’t resolved. Very disappointing to see more big businesses with such a lack of honesty/being forthcoming and poor customer service.

I am filing this as my 3rd complaint. I have called three time for the past 4 weeks. for the past 5 weeks (including this week as our trash pickup schedule is set on Mondays) no one has picked up my trash. Everyone on our street have had their trash picked up except for my trash. I have attached two photos which shows my trash has not been picked up this week as well.

On Feb 22, I called and spoke with Ms. Courtney (employee ID#; 262-869). She told me that she has seen the previous complaints and will file another complaint which she gave the complaint #; 9394594.

Ms. Courtney also told me that the Driver's manager was told that my trash was picked up. I told Ms. Courtney that he Driver has lied. She then told me that she will make sure the Driver will come by on Feb 23 to pick up my trash. I left my trash outside until Tuesday night (Feb 23) and no once picked up my trash. I do not understand why my trash has not been picked up for 5 weeks.

I told Ms. Courtney, that our association will hand a hefty fine if the residence do not remove their bins from the curb after the scheduled trash pickup.

I am a 75 year old woman with severe chronic health issues that has been getting worse as this subject (picking up my trash) keeps causing me stress.

Why is the Driver not picking up my trash?

Why has two managers I have spoken with over the past 4 weeks have not solve this very SIMPLE problem...picking up my trash.

I look forward to resolving this matter quickly before Friday and to avoid going to court. Since the previous mangers were unable to resolve this matter, I want to have the highest supervisor at W. M. to contact me and guarantee that this matter will officially be resolved this week.

My number : [protected] call 10am--8pm.

I found new body damage to my car after the my yard waste was picked up on my street. (although other Waste Managements trucks do go down my street that are not picking up my waste). My garbage had not yet been picked up. I found the new damage at about 10 AM on 2/28/22. It is a tight street and the trucks sometimes have to turn onto it and often have to back up to make the turn. I often find my driver's side mirror fold down (which is fine) to help the trucks get by.

Garbage pick up was conducted on 2/25/2022. The garbage truck has left very large (approximately 6 feet wide) oil stains in front of every home in the neighborhood.

We have been Waste Management Customers for many years. We have noticed competitors to Waste Management trucks on our street. We called a competitor for a quote and they returned a call and quoted $54.24 per quarter. We checked our current invoice from Waste Management and it was for $285.00 for 3 months service. I subsequently called Waste Management to confirm that we were being billed the correct rate. The representative took our address and confirmed that the $285.00 is correct. She then looked at our account and related that we had been customers since 2003. She also related that we had never received a roll-back. The rep told us the they could cut the charge to a fourth ($71.25) per quarter. We feel we have been taken advantage off for many years because we were not aware that we periodically needed to request a roll-back. I estimate we have paid thousands of dollars more than what we could have paid. She made this offer because I told her to cancel our service. We decided that we no longer want to do business with Waste Management because we feel their practices are predatory. We subsequently place an order for service with the competitor. Having a new provider we called Waste Management to cancel our service. We called the number and received a message that the "wait time" would be over 30 minutes. At the time of this post we have been on hold for 1 hour 11 minutes.

My town went to a single service provider starting 1/1/22 so I called to cancel my service with Waste Management. The customer service rep said they’d charge me $15 plus tax to pick up the container (that I had for well over a decade and had routinely tried to get replaced) which I thought was dumb but agreed to.

Of course, they never picked it up when they originally said they would so I called again and they said they’d have someone eventually come out, just leave it in the front yard. So it sat for another week or 2 before it was finally gone.

Then, all of a sudden I start getting robo calls that my bill was past due, which made no sense considering I paid my final statement for the pickup and was no longer a customer.

So, I sent an email telling them to stop calling me and to void whatever charges they were issuing since I was no longer with them.

Then I get this gem as a response:

Thank you for contacting WM regarding our communications to you. I understand your frustration with the communications. However, it is to make you aware of the balance due. I appreciate the opportunity to clarify the charge.

We are contacting your regarding the Cart Removal charge. This is a one-time charge, per cart, that is applied to the customers last invoice after a customer cancels. Cart Removal charge covers administrative and operational costs to process and perform the request, including: Accurately coordinating, processing and routing the request.

o Potential repair or refurbishing of the container such as, lids, decals, and wheels after removal

o Operation of a special vehicle and drive time to/from the customer’s location

The following message is on each invoice –

This invoice constitutes an offer by WM to provide service to you for a specified period. By paying this, you agree to continue service during the specified service period and to the terms of service at www.wm.com/OMR, with no refund (whole or partial) for early cancellation, unless such refund is required by law, regulation or contract. If you cancel services, you will be assessed a Cart Removal charge of up to $75 plus applicable taxes and charges including fuel surcharge, environmental charge and regulatory cost recovery charge.

If you have any additional questions, please feel free to respond to this email or use our WM live chat at www.wm.com.

Thanks again for contacting WM. We really do appreciate your business.

Of course, I never saw this fine print or thought to look, considering it’s their trash can, why would I have to pay to have it picked up? I also never actually agreed to it (their little ploy that I agreed to it by paying my bill is nonsense) I responded and immediately said that I had spoken with a rep and paid the fee they mentioned.

I’m still waiting to hear back but this is a garbage policy, no pun intended, and will be fighting this.

To Whom It May Concern,

This is in regards to an order placed on January 18, 2022, for a residential dumpster at 30597 N. 77th Place, Scottsdale, AZ 85266. I am an interior designer and was assisting my client to get her home ready for the new owner to take possession of her home.

It was ordered online and the charge of $504 was immediately debited from my account the same day, January 18th.

I specifically requested the dumpster to be delivered on Thursday, January 20th and the pick-up date agreed upon was Thursday, January 27th. This was confirmed in writing by your company.

On Thursday a driver with a much too big dumpster showed up at my client's gate and since it was way too large to make it up the hill, and not what I had originally ordered, he was not able to deliver.

We were then told another smaller dumpster would be delivered the next day. However, it was not delivered until Saturday, January 22nd. To make this happen, we had to make several calls, sent emails, and then finally I got in touch with one of your managers, Eddie, Friday, Jan. 21st in the afternoon, who promised to have it delivered Saturday morning, which was 2 days too late and at 6 am in the morning waking up the whole neighborhood while trying to get up the hill to my client's residence.

Then the dumpster was not picked up until February 2nd; 6 days too late. Since my client was getting ready to sell her house and the new owner was to take possession, the time frame was crucial.

Overall, the service that your company provided was very unprofessional and, unresponsive (I was ignored by your manager several times after reaching out to him via text), not to mention the aggravation, inconvenience, and wasted time that it caused both me and my client. I cannot believe that a big company like yours operates in this fashion. Then, to make it worse, I sent an email via your website trying to work this out. I received a confirmation on Feb. 2nd stating that someone would get back to me in 1-2 business days. This also never happened. To really top it off, another $60.68 was debited from my account on February 18th

Since I returned to Germany, I have also tried to call numerous times, but can never get through to anyone. I ended up having a friend in Phoenix call your customer service explaining the situation and she was told that someone would get in touch with me via email, but no one ever got back to me. After a second phone call yesterday, I finally got an email address. I sent a long email explaining the situation, but also never received any response.

This is not so much about the money but much more about the bad service, the principle of the matter, and the stress it caused my client. I also usually never take this much time to complain about something but this transaction warrants it. Unless I receive credit for the 2 days we did not have the dumpster, plus the $60.68 that was charged for additional days we did not need or want the dumpster, I will go on every website that I can think of and write a review about my first experience with Waste Management, which was very unsatisfactory.

I am attaching receipts for your review.

Best Regards,

Christine M. Mettler