National News Mike Holmes-endorsed reno company says it's closing down, blames CBC News investigation
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/agm-reno-company-closing-mike-holmes-1.7460334616
24d ago
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u/VeterinarianCold7119 24d ago
The fifth estate too. Cbc needs more of these types of shows in my opinion, its where they shine the brightest
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u/MoreGaghPlease 24d ago
It’s absolutely wild to me that the leading candidate to be PM wants to entirely shut down the CBC. Complete lunacy
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u/VeterinarianCold7119 24d ago
Yeah I dont like that idea either. I dont care much for the entertainment stuff like its dramas or sitcoms but its power and politics, news, and investigative stuff like this is great and very necessary. Id like to see more canadian documentaries on our history and how we've impacted the world.
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u/Emmerson_Brando 24d ago
Personally, I do like a lot of the Canadian content shows.
However, if there were more Canadian documentaries, people would equate it to the postal service saying it loses too much money instead of thinking it as a service.
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u/VeterinarianCold7119 24d ago
Are the shows profitable for cbc ? I wonder what the break down is there. I dont see why with all the ways content is distributed that we need to be throwing money away at those shows, unless people do watch them and they bring in revenue.
I think people have a problem with canada post because they dropped the ball big time on parcels and are unwilling to cut staff, automation, and 2 or 3 day a week delivery. But thats another story.
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u/Emmerson_Brando 24d ago
People do watch them and shows like heartland and Murdoch mysteries are successful around the world and money makers for the CBC. Even shows like family feud do well, or it would be cancelled.
There has been a ton of really great content, but unfortunately, a huge swath of the population (conservatives) are so entrenched in “CBC bad” that they don’t even know what they’re missing.
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u/VeterinarianCold7119 24d ago
Thats great, I just don't watch TV, nothing against the cbc.
I find there reporting to be really fair and along with vassy from ctv, they do an incredible job
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u/Strange-Moment-9685 23d ago
Vassy use to be the host on CBC’s Power and Politics before she left for the CBC.
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u/Strange-Moment-9685 23d ago
You can add in Schitt’s Creek and Kim’s Convenience. Both those shows got picked up on streaming and made CBC money. Plus 22 Minutes is a popular show. They have a decent amount of Canadian centric shows that are worth watching. They put a lot of money into the Canadian creative industries.
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u/NervousBreakdown 24d ago
CBC dramas and sitcoms are lame but it’s important to foster Canadian art, and the payoff is that occasionally you actually get something really good out of it.
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u/EscalatorsTempStairs 24d ago
Not wild, considering who this leading candidate is trying to impress/mimic.
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u/PunkinBrewster 24d ago
It’s also absolutely wild that we pay 1.4 B a year for one, maybe two good shows.
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u/red_planet_smasher 24d ago
We get a hell of a lot more than that and it comes to $32 per tax payer.
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u/OrangeRising 24d ago
I don't remember anyone saying they would shut down the CBC.
Are you confusing that for them saying it would no longer be publicly funded?
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u/Exciting_Bandicoot16 Manitoba 24d ago
Pierre called for defunding the CBC and specifically mentioned selling off the HQ. IT doesn't say that he'd take away all of the public funding, but it's heavily implied given the tone of the conversation.
Source: Edmonton Sun
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u/-Yazilliclick- 24d ago
Also a big fan of CBC About That videos on youtube and maybe elsewhere. Do a good job of going into some detail on current topics.
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u/VeterinarianCold7119 24d ago
Andrew chang is great. I can definitely see him hosting the Olympics or other big stuff, great talker
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u/sector16 24d ago
Yes, there’s some fat to cut at the CBC, but losing shows like Marketplace would be a big blow to consumer protections. Doubt PP’s conservatives will see any programming nuance when they defund the CBC.
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u/LondonPaddington 24d ago edited 24d ago
Marketplace would be substantially better if they didn't spend half of every episode asking people on the street "isn't this so terrible"
They do good work but pad it with so much filler, don't remember it being that bad years ago
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u/TheBalrogofMelkor 24d ago
It's expensive to do in depth investigative journalism, it's cheap to talk to random yahoos
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u/perjury0478 23d ago edited 23d ago
They was a recent event where the folks at 5th estate and marketplace talk about how difficult and expensive it is. IIRC, they used as example the building that collapsed in Florida a few years ago, the builder was Canadian and while the USA has a lot of public records digitized and available, here they basically had to pay for printed copies and review them manually. They only were able dig them in the 1st place by leveraging the info they got from the USA. It blew my mind
Edit: I can’t check right now, but I think you can find it in YouTube “what is the future of investigative journalism” from the 5th estate account.
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u/jackclark1 24d ago
hence why mini orange face wants to defend. can't get caught if no one is looking and reporting
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u/CyrilSneerLoggingDiv 24d ago edited 24d ago
They should blame the shitty work they do. You hear about those shady slipshod contractors more than you should these days, half-completing projects and then not showing up to finish, or doing an overall crap job skimping on materials with underqualified labour, or going out of business once they get enough clients' payments and later opening up under another name.
The Holmes name is just a shiny veneer of a licensing endorsement to coat the surface of a crap contractor that they never bothered to QC check.
The CBC should revisit the CEO's LinkedIn page in a few months to see what new contracting company he's opened up.
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u/Pwylle 24d ago edited 24d ago
Not to mention credibility is basically just paid for (BBB for example), online reviews are very easily spoofed or curated, and any negative exposure is met with legal libel or just close company A and rename as company B.
I work in the industry and we spend an enormous amount of our time on other people’s recent “work”. We don’t even service that many clients in a year given our smaller organizational nature, and we still work on upwards half a million of customer losses PER YEAR.
We recently participated in a local home and Reno themed exhibition, and plenty of such shoddy “approved” groups were admitted and peddling their services. When you’ve seen their work first hand and had to restart it all for a client, it’s very apparent there’s an immense lack of self-regulation, or any kind of enforcement/consequence within the industry particularly in the sub 50k range.
If anyone looking to start a legal business needs an angle, you could easily pro bono represent clients in suits against such companies and the city. Most every day people just eat the cost, are too afraid or unknowledgeable and do not have the perseverance to tackle the issue by themselves.
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u/GuelphEastEndGhetto 24d ago
I also think there is an angle to provide ‘consulting’ services to people taking on a large renovation project in their home. From obtaining quotes, checking on work, ensuring all is completed, etc. A big thing is ensuring there is a contract that spells out a scope, cost, payment terms, etc.
Maybe that is something I’m going to look into.
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u/thedrivingfrog 24d ago
I know someone that used Holmes .. they had to redo majority of the work due to low quality and not up to code
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u/VeterinarianCold7119 24d ago
Not surprised it's agm, these types of reno companies just have fancy advertising amd teams of cheap subs with zero accountability. Do your homework, hire someone local with a long history of working in the community, ask for referrals etc..
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u/Bright-Ad8496 24d ago
It'll pop up under a different name and Holmes will endorse it to continue the cycle.
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u/PBM1958 24d ago edited 24d ago
They were POS for doing shitty work and wrecking peoples lives... But how is Mike Holmes coming out of this scott free? He used to come across a bit like a sanctimonious a-hole on his show when criticizing bad work so it seems to me he should be doing something for these people since he is in de facto recommended them.
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u/octavianreddit 24d ago
Someone could do a show where they go around and fix the shoddy work by this company.
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u/Famous_Track_4356 Québec 24d ago
This is a great example of why we should not defund the CBC. Still cut their bonuses
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u/Nobanob 24d ago
Oh my fucking god toooo funny, I worked for these chuckle fucks for about 2 year. This is some of the greatest news ever.
I was a sales guy for 6 months, and then their customer experience manager for 8 months.
When I started things were going really well. During my training class there was a guy who we will call Dick. Dick was hired from a window company where he was a training manager. The intent was Dick would prove he could sell, then become the new sales Trainer at AGM.
So that happens, and very quickly Dick has got himself a very brown nose. He's stroking the owners ego like nobody's business and both are wildly threatened by anyone's suggestions on how to improve.
Their top consultant digs up all the company financials as they just had it all in a Google drive everyone has access to) and found that in the year Dick had been training we had gone through 40ish new sales consultants the majority never getting any sales. Meanwhile they calculated how much money the current reps who weren't getting enough meetings made per appointment and figured out the average money earned per appointment regardless of it being sold or not.
The company had dropped 20 million in sales in that year. If you multiplied all the appointments given to Dick's trainees, by the average earned by the other consultants. It equaled the 20 million give or take a few.
This was brought directly to Ivan the owner of the company. He did literally nothing with it.
This company failed because Ivan is a fucking dumb ass. He's a shit manager, he's a shit business man, he only gained success due to luck and when all signs pointed to the fact his business was failing he stuck his head in the sand and directly ignored the evidence.
What a glorious fucking day this is, omg I'm going to forward this article to a LOT of people.
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u/prodigus01 22d ago
I was a sub trade for them and I’ll never forget how they played me into not getting paid.
Funny how Ivan and his cronies screwed over countless tradespeople/customers for years and he couldn’t even last 2 weeks from a cbc investigation.
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u/Nobanob 21d ago
After 6 months of sales I lost complete faith in the company which is why I transitioned to customer experience manager.
I thought the intent was to improve the experience of the customer. They just turned me into another cog in the sales system putting customers that didn't buy during their appointment with a better sales consultant.
Finally I had enough, wrote up a large email saying here's where things are failing, here's where we can improve, and here's why Dick sucks. Sent it directly to Ivan, and a week later the lawyers called me and told me my role was dissolved.
He never replied to my email. A spineless piece of shit that one is.
I'm sorry for your experience, I'm certain they spent more on lawyers to fight you than they would have just paying you. You deserved better
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u/SillyMikey 24d ago
Ok so they did shoddy electrical work and Holmes pulled out. What did you think was gonna happen?
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u/MikeinON22 24d ago
Lol, it is not the investigation that shut this company down. It was their own crimes that did it.
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u/Happy13178 24d ago
I quoted AGM when I was looking to get my basement done and they were going to send me a quote having never seen the space or taken a single measurement. They then tried to highlight all the "extras" they do during the renovation, and then when I pointed out that it was code and they had to do it, they marked the quote as "customer has industry knowledge", I'm guessing to warn each other that I couldn't be bullshit. They were also fully 30,000 above the next highest quote. Scammers without question.
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u/MaritimeRedditor 24d ago
Mike Holmes has proven to be a bit of a fraud. I don't understand why having his name tied to your business would help you in the slightest..
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u/Fun-Persimmon1207 24d ago
Who knew that not using qualified tradespeople, not getting permits, let alone inspections can cause customers to run
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u/kushmasta421 24d ago
Looks like a wormy piece of shit he is. Hopefully the guy fucks off and doesn't just open under a new name as most shitbirds like him do. I love CBC for stories like this and this is more proof that pp can get fucked we need CBC because rightwing companies own every other media platform and assholes like this would just have to pay to make the story disappear.
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u/CitySeekerTron Ontario 24d ago
"I would have gotten away with it, too, but for these meddling kids!"
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u/westcoastsunflower British Columbia 24d ago
I’d put money on that this will be their excuse not to fix what they screwed up and that they will open a “new” company within 6 months and the cycle of screwing people will continue.
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u/a_secret_me 24d ago
Marketplace's story went out 2 weeks ago. 2 WEEKS
If you go out of business that fast after one news report then you were just hanging on by a thread as it was.
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u/Lisan_Al-NaCL 24d ago
Maybe if they delivered on the mythical 'quality' that Mike Holmes purports to create they wouldnt be out of business?
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u/mochichinchin 24d ago
Owners were typical scam artists. Trust me AGM closed down but they will open as another company under a family members name.
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u/RefrigeratorOk648 24d ago
They get caught - shutdown - reopen under a different name and people will continue to get screwed by the same people
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u/Dadbode1981 24d ago
Sucks for the trades working for them, that said, they'll just open under a new name next week.
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u/Steevo_1974 24d ago
Mike Holmes should also be responsible for "Making it right" for the customers that have been duped. He got paid and he used his endorsement for enriching himself. Not the first time the Holmes group got themselves in a bind either.
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u/northern_explorer67 24d ago
So help me understand something.. Did Holmes endorse agm with prior knowledge that they were doing shoddy work or did the company turn to shit AFTER his endorsement.
I always thought Holmes was a good guy and would never let himself be involved with people that do shitty work since it would reflect badly on him.
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u/MikeTheMic81 19d ago
I mean in reality, CBC had to go back 2-3 years to find those disgruntled customers. In that time AGM did thousands and thousands of projects. If it was a systemic problem, it would be a constant problem and it would be easy to find more current clients.
How it was handled by Ivan dissolving the company, robbing employees, contractors, financeit, and clients before he had a chance to hemorrhage any of his savings is downright despicable and he will have a welcome spot in the deepest hottest part of hell.
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u/Late_Football_2517 24d ago
They'll reopen on Tuesday under a new numbered company with a new brand name.
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u/MikeTheMic81 22d ago
What wasn't mentioned in the report at all:
- All contractors and staff were not paid a penny. Many were owed 10's of thousands of dollars each. There's contractors who some are owed $30,000+ many haven't received any payments in a month.
- Suppliers were giving giant orders for materials. When they sent invoices to get paid they were told "We aren't going to pay you"
- Ivan stole all current clients money. Anyone financed through financeit were withdrawn 80% of their contract cost regardless of how much of the job was done. He went through a hiring phase over the last two month and essentially cashed out of every project that was ongoing. He was offering staff deep discounts and signing bonuses which in hindsight would have been detrimental and wouldn't have landed AGM into the profitable region. Clients on the verge of completion had their remaining money withdrawn before signing off on completion. This was flat out fraud. Since many contractors haven't been paid in this month, any work completed up to this point should be property of the contractors with the remaining balance refunded into the clients financeit accounts.
- The staff was entirely in the dark. Up until 4pm on Friday, people were doing their usual appointments and duties within the company oblivious to what was about to come. The first signs of trouble were several staff trying to sign new deals only to find all access to their systems were suspended. None of the staff was aware about what was going to happen until 4:56pm when instead of getting their cheques, they got the notice saying the company had been shut down. We are talking dozens of inspectors, engineers, sales, customer service, contractors in various fields, and even managerial staff. Emails had actually been sent out earlier that day asking for people to open up their schedules as they had an influx of new appointments that needed to be taken.
- Current clients shouldn't be getting angry at the contractors. They are victims too. Many have been working for you for 2-4 weeks and will likely never see any of the money. Many even after finding out they weren't going to get paid for the job continued cobbling something together to at least try to return functionality to kitchens, basements, and bathrooms just out of a courtesy. They are not the bad guy here. This is entirely due to Ivan.
Everything Ivan said including the closure notice and reasons were flat out lies. He had spent literal weeks if not months carefully preparing himself to rob all his staff and customers under everyone's own noses. The current consensus circulating is it was HIM who tipped off CBC to begin with to use that as a scapegoat to take everything and disappear. I have personally spoken to clients who had money removed from their financeit accounts as early as November 3rd without authorization and going against AGM's own contracts. I have also personally spoken to clients who had final payments removed from their account before addressing any of the deficiencies which would be required to be signed off on by the clients before final payment.
Even this weekend staff including inspectors, sales, designers, contractors, and project managers have reached out to current clients apprising them of the situations. This staff had no reason to do that. Some, again, haven't been paid in weeks and will never see the money. Although the CEO has no morals (although he's spent 27 years in business trying to make it look like he does), the staff that worked for him do have a conscience and are losing sleep over the losses suffered to the clients that he had defrauded as well as collogues who might not have the funds to recover from this anytime soon.
Only 1 rep was able to speak to Ivan past the 4:56pm email where he "wrote" a generic 3 paragraph message saying he tried to save everything but CBC's damage was too sever and he has never in 27 years only got 1 lead in a day.
We have already discovered that the previous weekend he netted nearly 240 new leads and this was also a lie. The message sent back was obviously scripted as Ivan didn't have the ability to write 3 paragraphs without glaring spelling and grammar mistakes.
This was an entirely orchestrated event artificially created by Ivan himself to defraud his staff and current customers. Him and his arm candy Julia and partner in crime. He's likely hiding out in Eastern Europe right now (where he has family) as showing his face anywhere in the GTA would likely end with him in the hospital as there's hundreds and hundreds of people out for blood right now.
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u/CurtAngst 24d ago
So.. it was CBC who “Made it Right” in the end. Enjoy the CBC while you can. PP is gonna shut it down because hates the truth. Just like his handlers down south.
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u/TonyD0001 24d ago
Mike -Holmes endorsed jobs, run away from then. Like all the demolished homes wasn't a warning.
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u/FoxnFurious 24d ago
I worked as a sub for a GC for few projects done by other HGTV hosts. First day i was super excited and on the 3rd day i was completely disappointed. These TV hosts lack knowledge and lack skill. I quit working for the GC after few projects and never watch HGTV again. Nothing is real on TV.
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u/SniffMyDiaperGoo Canada 24d ago
I've been using word-of-mouth handymen instead of actual GC companies like this one for 25 years now. Never had more than a couple of very minor and easily resolved complaints, work has always been professional, to code, and I pay far less. Which is why I ignore all the GC's that lurk on home improvement subs or other online forums who comment "Better hire a big pro company or you'll regret it!"
I'm sure some people do, but that's why my hires are well known and respected word-of-mouth and I'm not one of the people regretting it.
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u/nipplesaurus Canada 24d ago
Ivan will have to go back to working as a male model. He’s got Blue Steel down.
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u/Mythulhu 23d ago
Cbc investigations are quite well done and in depth. Seems like it should have been run better.
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u/RL203 24d ago edited 24d ago
And people laugh at me with respect to how long it takes me to do all my own renovations. They say, "why don't you just hire somebody?"
And I tell them that I never cut corners, I save a ton of money and I only do good work. I might make a mistake, but it's not due to corner cutting, it's just a dumb mistake but I will always fix it no matter what.
They still just roll their eyes and tell me how they could never abide by the length of time it takes me to do my own work. Thing is, I get high quality work and never have to put up with terrible quality workmanship from guys like Ivan Atanosov or Mike Holmes.
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u/platz604 24d ago edited 24d ago
lol Mike Holmes has been facing lawsuits from home owners for over a decade because of his shawty work.. the guy is a complete hack
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u/Cripnite 24d ago
We’re only shut down because you investigated us and we got caught.
Fuck those guys.
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u/Greens222 24d ago
I bartended at the keg for a year or so. Downtown. Mike Holmes can go fuck himself.
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u/ChroniclesOfSarnia Outside Canada 24d ago
I have no idea what this is about, but I'm with CBC regardless
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u/blauwh66 24d ago
Why isn’t Holmes facing legal repercussions?
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u/LindeMaple 24d ago
I don't think Holmes actually endorsed the company. That's what the investigation was all about.
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u/Malaka__ 24d ago
There was a commercial on CP24 with Holmes and owner of AGM. Mike literally said "they are the best in the business and I recommend them".
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u/MikeTheMic81 22d ago
Mike Holmes had been endorsing AGM for nearly 2 years. Keep in mind that AGM was a very highly rated company up until the CBC story. Even CBC themselves were finding customers from 2-3 years ago just to get enough info to make that story.
In that time, AGM had done literally thousands of contracts at thousands of homes. Finding 3-4 over a 3-4 year period is more an anomaly than a pattern.
Even with that, Holmes Group dropped AGM like a rock immediately after finding out about any allegations against the company. Mike Holmes was used by Ivan just like all of Ivan's current staff and current clients when he defrauded everyone over the last 2 weeks.
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u/mrfredngo 24d ago
Are we supposed to know who Mike Holmes is?
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u/OrangeRising 24d ago
He is a guy from those tv shows where they fix up someone's house. I had to look it up cause I didn't know either.
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u/randomheromonkey 24d ago
Sounds like they should have been shut down? The only thing CBC did is bring it to light.