Dan Cavanaugh of Dynamic Inspections and Construction Services in Corona California deceives public

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 03/19/2018 09:12 PM EDT

It was recently brought to our attention that a part-time user (edited) home inspector in Southern California by the name of Dan Cavanaugh, who performs inspections starting at $175 approximately 10 times per month (based on submissions- edited), and does business under the names Dynamic Inspections and Construction Services LLC as well as Dynamic Home Professionals, posted a number of comments regarding Residential Warranty Services and the Inspector Services Group in a Facebook group he administers known as "Home Inspector Network Uncensored".

In one of his posts he suggested that "Very few customers filed claims, and the few that did were typically denied" and that it "[costs] too much money", among other things (see screenshots below).

By advice of counsel, currently writing up a lawsuit for a Federal Court here in the State of Indiana, I am posting a public response to Mr. Cavanaugh's claims and some notes for the public that are currently being deceived by claims he has made on his website as well as other locations on the internet.

To Mr. Cavanaugh's false statement regarding claims:

Mr. Cavanaugh does submit (edited) very few inspections, roughly 10 per month. His claim ratios were not out of line at 3%, but it should be known that for the short 90 Day period he actually utilized our services his total submissions counted for only 36 inspections. Out of those inspections, there has been one claim, and it is covered. It was an oven issue. The statement that Mr. Cavanaugh made that the "few that did [make claims] were typically denied" is absolutely false on every level. While Mr. Cavanaugh's claims are laughable and his position in reality non-credible, his online persona has done irreparable harm to both RWS as well as Inspectors throughout the U.S. and Canada that offer our services with pride and deliver incredible value to their clients, out of whom we have over a 99.9% satisfaction rate with, and is the basis for financial damages we are seeking. We will post a link to the case here when it posts online after Mr. Cavanaugh is served.

To Mr. Cavanaugh's false statement regarding costs:

In February, Mr. Cavanaugh was billed $104.00 in total for all of our services including a package that included around $15,000 worth of coverage on every single inspection. Prior to that he was on a free trial for much of his time with us and would have likely seen even smaller or non-existent bills. His statement that "too much money [was] going out each month" is absolutely false, unless of course $104.00 is "too much money", in which case utilizing the services of Dan Cavanaugh at Dynamic Inspections in Corona California becomes an incredibly risky thing to do as he has indicated in such a post that he has no financial ability to stand behind his "guarantee" (edited). While this claim was either false or absurd, it is untrue, and likewise to the other false claims Mr. Cavanaugh makes to inspectors and the public really serves no one other than Mr. Cavanaugh.

To Mr. Cavanaugh's claims that he is offering "the same warranties" now, without "customers info being farmed":

Mr. Cavanaugh is knowingly offering a simple guarantee that he did not miss anything within the Standards of Practice while falsely claiming to the public that he offers a "100 Day Limited Warranty". This is deceptive and is designed to create confusion between Mr. Cavanaugh's "Guarantee" (that is backed by no one and contradicts what the latest version we have of his inspection agreement states) and a bona fide legitimate warranty from a nationwide, licensed provider with the financial means to back actual warranty policies that cover actual failures, and have been marketed successfully for more than a decade to the real estate community and home buyers alike. As to the "customers info being farmed", and other similar statements he has made online, this of course is not something that happens with our client database (nor has it ever been so), and such statements being so malicious and defamatory with the intent of harming our business and the business of our client inspectors unfortunately demand action and seeking of damages.

While we support home inspection businesses, work with thousands of them, and respect inspectors generally, false and malicious information being spread on the internet about not only our company but also the inspectors we work with is something no one has a right to do and we have an obligation to pursue the matter.

More to come on this, including hopefully a civil resolution. Again, we are in the business of helping (not hurting) inspectors, but when someone else attacks our clients we are left with no choice but to respond and viciously so.

Screen Shot 2018-03-19 at 7.10.49 PM.png

UPDATE:

In response to an email I have received from Mr. Cavanaugh, who still maintains his position that $104 is a "lot of money", I have made a couple of edits above - marked (edit) or (edited). As it turns out, in addition to making knowingly false statements about RWS and its clients, during the short period of time that Mr. Cavanaugh was offering Warranties like those he is deceptively marketing to the public now, he states that he only selectively submitted clients and that the approximate 10 clients per month submitted were only a portion of his business. The above post has been edited to reflect such, though this means that in addition to the countless records we have of false and malicious posts being made we now have a violation of our terms and conditions as well. This of course would be meaningful if he were a client, as we do not permit inspectors to advertise that inspections come with warranty coverage and then not provide such coverage and it would be false advertising.

Further, Mr. Cavanaugh has posted again false and misleading information, stating that a lawsuit against him is "retaliatory" for offering "warranties", which is not the case. As I've stated to him directly: He is offering a guarantee he doesn't miss anything. It's legal, he has every right to do it - what he cannot do is deceive the public into thinking there is warranty coverage where there is not and make false statements about my business and my users. Pretty simple.

He has also stated that he is promoting our numerous services, which may be so, but that is not an excuse for the false statements made. Now knowing that he did not actually submit clients for warranty coverage despite advertising such, I can only assume these "denied" claims were ones where we had no record of the client to begin with if in fact these additional clients exist.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 03/20/2018 08:35 AM EDT

Update #2:

After offering to correct any inaccuracies above, as I want to ensure nothing here is out of line, I have received several confused messages from Mr. Cavanaugh who is deciding on a couple of potential edits:

1. That the $104 May just be “Too much to spend on clients” and not “a lot of money”. He may want to work on the wording there, but he’s also thrown out a “it could end up being too much to spend on clients”. Fair enough. He has also indicated his guarantee is backed by a “reserve account” with an unspecified amount of money.

2. Mr. Cavanaugh has made conflicting statements as to whether he is offering an unauthorized warranty or a misnamed guarantee. Upon asking for a copy of the policies, there was no response.

3. Dan takes issue with the $175 inspection fee, which we too admit was wrong. Per his website and several other sites, his inspections start at only $174.99. Simply stating the fee, which is rather low and enticing to a first time home buyer one might think, Dan insists paints him as an inspector that does “cheap inspections” and says that he does not honor the pricing in the header photo of his website (see below).

As soon as we have an update to the above, it will be changed and edited!

FINAL UPDATE:

After several attempts to get Dan Cavanaugh to stop posting false, misleading, and defamatory comments to no avail, we were forced to file suit. I will post a copy of such here as soon as it hits the public record.

It should be known to all that this decision was no one that was made lightly and in no way is anyone being sued for their opinions and candidly I'm not sure we would even be awarded damages or if the defendant would even have the resources to pay them if we were to be so we're sure not in it for the money. This is a very simple issue: Provably false statements being posted online that stand to damage not only me and my company but also our valued clients.

It is unfortunate that there are participants in this industry that lack the professionalism and wherewithal to handle themselves in a manner commensurate with the sophistication level our clients deserve.

Well, we thought it was a final update! Finally got a service address for Mr. Cavanaugh. Since the last post, his business has closed (failed), he has evacuated the State of California for Tennessee, and he continues to post defamatory information online about not only us, but other inspectors as well. Here is the Ethics complaint to InterNACHI complete with attachments showing Mr. Cavanaugh using fake accounts to give negative reviews to small businesses including his direct competition:

Nick, Chris, Et Al:

(Copied the office for The Mathews Inspection Group, members of InterNACHI in good standing)

According to The InterNACHI Code of Ethics, section III subpart 3;

“The InterNACHI® member shall not engage in any act or practice that could be deemed damaging, seditious or destructive to InterNACHI®, fellow InterNACHI® members, InterNACHI® employees, leadership or directors. Accusations of a member acting or deemed in violation of such rules shall trigger a review by the Ethics Committee for possible sanctions and/or expulsion from InterNACHI®.”

I deliver to you today not just accusations as referenced in the code nor anything that could be subjective in any way, but rather an absolute and proven seditious act by Mr. Dan Cavanaugh and his now defunct “Dynamic Inspections and Construction Services”. (See attached file where Google reports “Permanently Closed”. Further, a process server did not find Mr. Cavanaugh at his listed address and none of the phone numbers are answered.)

Please find attached “cavanaughrating.png”. We constantly monitor and rectify any legitimate complaint from our more than 100,000 new clients monthly and the team in charge of such tried to reach out to this ominous one star review. While we’re not unfamiliar with the anonymous and illegitimate online review, we do follow through with them as far as possible. Independent of myself and with no knowledge of Mr. Cavanaugh and his continuous transgressions, this team did some digging and came to find this same “Dan Scott” had rated and given a story regarding The Mathews Inspection Group – InterNACHI members and friends of mine for nearly a decade- and it didn’t seem to be kosher.

That rating, the direct violation of the InterNACHI Code of Ethics, is attached here as “Rated a fellow IN member.jpg”.

While this fake name and the connection between a random one star review for my company didn’t really connect the dots for anyone, as it turns out Dan was unsurprisingly a little sloppy with his use of fake profiles to disparage companies like mine and InterNACHI members like Don Mathews. See attached file named “Both of his screennames and his girlfriend harassing a small business.png”. Here you will find a small business owner in the business of repairing small electronics local to Mr. Cavanaugh’s former residence where “Dan Scott”, “Daniel Cavanaugh”, and “Josi Davison” (A Speedway gas station employee believed to be cohabitating with Mr. Cavanaugh) are spam negative reviewing (all on the same day) the business and over and over the business owner is asking why and responding suggesting he cannot find them as clients. Whatever the story there it isn’t really relevant to the InterNACHI Code of Ethics outside of indisputably connecting Mr. Cavanaugh and his fake Google accounts that were later utilized to violate Section III of the Code of Ethics.

If you need help finding Mr. Cavanaugh for the above referenced review by the Ethics Committee, we have obtained his current address where he will be served this week with a Federal Lawsuit for online defamation for a number of unethical, false, and malicious posts he has stated as fact that went well over the line of actionable. While his failure in the business is vindicating in some ways and shows the kind of people that don’t meet the standards of an inspector also will not succeed, his ongoing membership in your organization affects unjustly your credibility negatively and equally if not moreso unjustly his credibility positively. I would warn you that given every possible opportunity to be reasonable he has abstained and continued to be problematic which has put my legal counsel in the position of having no choice but to pursue monetary damages and a court order to cease and desist his ongoing libelous activities. I would suspect his response to you may be similar given his history.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Update: Court Orders Dan Cavanaugh to pay legal fees, cease trademark violations, and cease all defamation and encouragement of defamation.

All fictitious Google reviews from Dan Cavanaugh targeting home inspectors' businesses are being removed now, by Google, as a part of the court order. The site registrar for the site(s) he was squatting on are being revoked under the court order as well.

Next week, our injunction hearing will pave the way for discovery including full records of posts, edits, messages, etc. involving Dan and those he encouraged from social media platforms like Facebook and we will file for further attorney's fees for these further steps we have had to take. To date, Dan has failed to file an appearance and has only responded directly to emails from the Court/Officers of the Court with indignant protest. We hope that Dan's targeting of both us and thousands of inspectors ceases so this can all come to an abrupt end.