Sometimes you get what you pay for

For a guy who can't spend $20 without searching and researching over and over to find out if I can buy the same thing elsewhere for $19.27, the concept of voluntarily paying a $1000 or more for an agency to do the same thing that another agency can do goes against nearly every fiber of my body. The fibers that it doesn't go against, however, are honesty and integrity. I was always taught that those things were supremely important, and I have come to believe that intensely. One example of this is that we purposely searched for a name for Justin that meant "integrity" when he was born. Shy of naming him some obscure name that would have gotten him beat up regularly, we agreed on "Justin" meaning "truth and righteousness". So, we have decided to retract our application to our original homestudy agency. They simply did not pass the "smell test" as it were. In fact, they simply stunk from the very first phone call. I don't tend to complain about things too much to others who do things for me. Sure, I might complain to Maren (especially about 40 degree temperature drops in less than 16 hours....good grief), but generally I keep most complaints to myself. I am in this business, however. I complete homestudies. I know what their requirements are, and I have a fair understanding of good business practices. Holt International suggested we write a letter of complaint. I did. I probably went overboard. It was nine pages, single-spaced. Hmm. That might be overkill. But, I wanted to be detailed so I included all of our email communications to demostrate the extent that we went in trying to make this work. So, now we are trying to connect with another agency. We will keep you posted.