Bug Zero Review

Weights add to 100% without the factors marked N/A. How the adjustments work

How we review companies Handshake Score v1.5.0 (rules v1.0.7, confidence v1.2.1)

“In score” marks the profiles counted in the customer-satisfaction factor.

In reviewers’ words

Quoted verbatim, up to 300 characters, as recorded by our researchers with the reviewer’s first name and last initial at most. Low and high ratings are shown alternately.

• Other, Springfield area

  “Female Employee at 415pm seen talking on cell phone while driving through cross intersection of West Bypass onto W Sunshine. Doesn’t seem like a safe practice and probably why it’s typically a road hazard/ticketable offense.”

  Robert E.Read on Other

• Other, Springfield area

  “I would like to thank Jeremiah for taking great care of my home. He tolerates difficult conditions and answers all my questions. He risked his safety in dealing with a big wasp nest. Thank you, Jeremiah!”

  Judy M.Read on Other

• Other, Springfield area

  “Bug Zero provides great service! From the office to the tech that visits your home, each interaction is professional, helpful, and dependable . We really appreciate the communication at each step of the service.”

  Katie R.Read on Other

• Other, Cape Girardeau area

  “Trevor always lets me know when he is arriving and checks.to see if there is any problems with pest since the last monthly check. He is prompt and courteous. I highly reccomend Bugzero!”

  Sherry M.Read on Other

• Other, Cape Girardeau area

  “They do a great job!”

  James S.Read on Other

The file still carries the old address 311 N Waverly Ave, Springfield Missouri 65802-3140, where the 2003 SBJ profile says the company had been since 1999; the company website and the Missouri Department of Agriculture business record show 2145 W Sunset St, and no source shows Waverly Ave as a current office. Before this restructure the top-level fields described the Cape file. Both files are Missouri-only; BBB lists the Missouri Department of Agriculture as the licensing resource.

Scored: Complaint record

BBB profiles

• Main profile · NRView

• Springfield, Missouri · NR · not accredited · 0 complaints in 3 yearsView

• Cape Girardeau, Missouri · A+ · accredited · 0 complaints in 3 yearsView

  Cape Girardeau file of Pest Zero, L.L.C. (separately owned operator); accredited 3/16/2026, A+, 0 complaints, 0 reviews, file opened 5/28/2025, ‘Years in Business: 17’, ‘Business Started: 7/15/2009’, ‘Business Incorporated: 4/10/2025’. Recorded but not scored.

Door-to-door sales: N/A

N/A: the research didn’t establish door-to-door selling. It isn’t proof that the company never knocks.

No door-to-door evidence found. Inbound model: the website offers quote forms and call/text numbers (“Request a Quote”), and the Springfield technician job posts (bugzero.isolvedhire.com, ZipRecruiter) are scheduled-service roles; no Cape Girardeau job post was located (the careers page tells Cape applicants to email a resume) (Monday-Friday, “NO WEEKENDS!”, company truck). A commercial sales role (Commercial Sales Representative, base salary plus commission, Monday-Friday) appears only in a search snippet (talent.com) and is B2B, not residential door knocking. No summer-sales recruiting page, solicitor-permit action, or first-hand report of reps at the door was found. One Yelp search snippet on the Bug Zero Springfield page contains the phrase “door-to-door and that gave us confidence. Unfortunately, the service didn...” with no visible author, context or entity attribution (it could describe another company); Yelp was not opened (terms restrict automated access), so it is not evidence and is not counted.

Contract terms and pricing

• Company-stated residential program: InsectaShield, 6 exterior treatments a year (every other month), 1 interior service a year; “Most homes less than $120/service”.¹³

  “Service is completed bi-monthly or 6 times per year. Invoicing can be billed bi-monthly or per service.”

• Billing: “After each visit, payment is automatically billed.” This is a payment method statement, not a statement that the agreement renews.¹³

  “After each visit, payment is automatically billed.”

• Company-stated warranty: InsectaShield “includes a continuous warranty between treatments”; the once-a-year interior treatment is “renewed annually at no additional cost” (this describes the service visit, not a contract renewal clause).¹³

  “It also includes a continuous warranty between treatments, so you can rest easy knowing you’re covered.”

• Mosquito service SkeetoShield is a separate seasonal service (April through October) at “$75/service”; the older “Plus Mosquito & Tick” add-on is being retired and existing customers can be grandfathered.¹³

  “SkeetoShield™ is now structured as its own seasonal service, with updated chemistry, improved application equipment, and a defined monthly schedule designed to deliver stronger, more consistent season-long suppression from April through October.”

Status and expiry dates are shown exactly as the issuing agency’s record showed them on the date retrieved.

Only resolved government actions count toward the score. Pending lawsuits, allegations and private matters are listed here but marked “N/A” (not counted in the score). Summaries are our researchers’ wording of the source; allegations are allegations, not findings.

• October 28, 2026 · BBB Serving Greater Missouri & Southern Illinois (Springfield file) · Complaint summaryScored: Complaint record

  BBB profile “Bug Zero” (311 N Waverly Ave, Springfield; Bug Zero, Inc.): not accredited, “Not Rated” (BBB does not have sufficient information to issue a rating), 0 complaints, 0 customer reviews. File opened 8/7/1995.¹⁹

• October 28, 2026 · BBB Serving Greater Missouri & Southern Illinois (Cape Girardeau file) · Complaint summaryN/A

  BBB profile “Bug Zero Southeast Missouri” (849 S Kingshighway, Cape Girardeau; Pest Zero, L.L.C.): BBB Accredited since 3/16/2026, rated A+, 0 complaints, 0 customer reviews. File opened 5/28/2025. Separately owned operator; recorded, not scored.²⁰

• October 28, 2026 · Missouri Attorney General · Complaint summaryN/A

  Search of ago.mo.gov for “Bug Zero” returned no results. The AG publishes no per-company complaint data (statewide totals only), so this is not proof of no complaints.²³

• October 28, 2026 · CourtListener (federal and state opinions) · LawsuitN/A

  CourtListener case-law search for “Bug Zero” pest returned no results. The RECAP docket search was not available and Missouri Case.net results did not load (see gaps), so the court check is inconclusive.²⁴

Workplace score: N/A. It carries 10% of the Handshake Score when at least 20 employee reviews are on file (otherwise excluded and remaining weights renormalized).

Awards and certifications

• BBB Accredited Business (Bug Zero Southeast Missouri, A+), BBB Serving Greater Missouri & Southern Illinois, 2026⁹

  Source shown; issuer check not recorded

  Held by the Cape Girardeau operator (Pest Zero, L.L.C.), not by Bug Zero, Inc.

• BBB Torch Award for Ethics 2026 (Cape Girardeau region), Better Business Bureau, 2026³⁰

  Source shown; issuer check not recorded

  Source is the company’s own YouTube video; the BBB award list for 2026 was not found.

• bedbugFREE approved network member, Bed Bug Central / bedbugFREE, 2010²⁷

  Source shown; issuer check not recorded

What the company says about itself

These are the company’s own claims, quoted from its materials. We haven’t verified them.

• Locally owned; in business since 1990; “2 offices and 35 employees”.⁵

• Service area includes southern Missouri, northern Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma and eastern Kansas.⁷

• Company says it consistently receives “4.9 out of 5 Google reviews with thousands of customers” and was a “2023 Finalist for Small Business of the Year”.³

• Company Instagram says Bug Zero was voted #1 Pest Control in the People’s Choice Awards of Cape County for the fourth year in a row.⁴³

• Technician pay and conditions: $18-$22 per hour, Monday-Friday, take-home company vehicle, benefits and Simple IRA (job posts).³

Mentions

Reddit hasn’t been searched for this company yet.

3 locations on file in Missouri (3).

Overall confidence in this score: Medium, 5 of 11 points. N/A (not scored): sales and contract fairness. The reason is under “How we scored it.”

What keeps it from rating higher:

• 1,088 western US Google reviews behind customer satisfaction (3,000 or more earns a point; 10,000 or more earns full points).
• 4 of 5 factors scored (not scored: sales and contract fairness).
• Too few independent non-Google reviews to blend in (Google only).
• Verifier rated the legal and regulatory record medium (high earns a point).
• Verifier corrected or removed 13% of the items checked (10% or fewer earns a point).

How confidence is set

Gaps in the record

• No Google review excerpts were read.
• Entity structure: Springfield is Bug Zero, Inc. (Ivan and Terri Eftink); Cape Girardeau is Pest Zero, L.L.C. (Chris Horrell), separately incorporated, separately BBB-filed, with its own owner/general manager, phone and hiring route, using the Bug Zero name and website. The company history page says the Cape office was opened in 2010 and is owned and managed by Horrell. The commercial arrangement (license, franchise-like, affiliate or equity) is not published and Missouri SOS detail pages (officers/members) are behind a Cloudflare check, so Bug Zero, Inc.’s interest in Pest Zero, L.L.C., if any, is unknown. The Joplin office/listing belongs to the Springfield service area; the operating entity is not published.
• Missouri licenses individuals only. MDA “Pesticide Business” records found: 0000PN (Bug Zero, Inc., Springfield, Active) and 0000PM (Bug Zero, Cape Girardeau, Active). No Pesticide Business record exists for the Joplin address (407 S Pennsylvania Ave): a business-name search for “Bug Zero*” returned only the two above; a “Bugzero*” search was attempted but timed out. Offices without their own record are a gap, not a deduction. The lookup shows no expiry, insurance or bond; RSMo 281.065 requires a $50,000 bond or liability policy. Only the owners’ individual applicator records (Ivan and Terri Eftink, Chris Horrell) were searched; the other technicians were not.
• Missouri Secretary of State detail pages are behind a Cloudflare check; only search-result rows were read. The registrants of the two fictitious names (X001840547 active 2025; X01023275 and X00219052 expired) are not shown.
• MDA publishes no enforcement list; closed investigation reports need a written/open-records request (outside this pass). No MDA violation or penalty for Bug Zero was found by search.
• Courts: CourtListener case-law search for “Bug Zero” pest returned no results; the RECAP docket search required an authenticated API and was not used. Missouri Case.net litigant search was not run for this company because its results table stays on “Loading...” for sessions, so the court check is inconclusive. Federal OSHA establishment search shows a human-verification page (not worked around): no workplace-safety record was read. No FTC action found.
• Missouri Attorney General: ago.mo.gov search for “Bug Zero” returned no results; the AG publishes no per-company complaint data.
• Contract terms: no service agreement, terms of service, FAQ answer or page stating minimum term, renewal, cancellation method or fee, or arbitration was found on bugzero.com (the FAQ page covers pest questions only). The site says “After each visit, payment is automatically billed” and “Invoicing can be billed bi-monthly or per service”. Renewal, cancellation channel, cancellation fee and dispute terms are unknown. No customer report of a fee or term was found (BBB: 0 complaints and 0 reviews).
• Yelp (Springfield and Cape Girardeau listings), Facebook (company pages and groups), Instagram, Indeed, Glassdoor and Reddit were not opened (terms restrict automated access or a verification page appears); they are recorded from search snippets only, with no scored rating. The Yelp rating and review counts were not seen (a related-business snippet on another company’s Yelp page shows “Bug Zero. 4.2” without a count; not used). Experience.com (934 “verified reviews”) timed out when fetched and is a review-collection platform; Birdeye (Cape 140, Springfield 0) and Top Rated Local are excluded aggregator/solicited feeds.
• No Angi, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack, Trustpilot, Nextdoor or Porch page for Bug Zero (Missouri) surfaced in searches (queries 3-angi, 3-ha, 3-tp); a Nextdoor page “Pest Zero LLC - Marble Hill, MO” appeared only as a snippet and was not opened. Name-alike listings in California (BugZero Pest Control, bugzeropestcontrol.pro and dividojo.com) and bug-bounty sites (bugzero.io) are unrelated and were left out.
• Employee reviews: Indeed company pages for “Bug Zero Inc” (4.0) and “Bug Zero” (5.0) exist but only snippets were seen, with no review counts. Glassdoor shows only a job-listing page with no rating. RepVue not found. Workplace is not scored.
• The BBB Torch Award for Ethics 2026 rests on the company’s own YouTube video and an Instagram snippet; BBB’s 2026 winners page was not found. The Springfield BBB file still lists the former address (311 N Waverly Ave); the Yelp and Birdeye listings show the same old address. The company site and MDA show 2145 W Sunset St. No evidence was found that Waverly Ave is still an operating office, nor that it closed.
• Locations in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas are claimed only as a service area (about page; a 2010 PCT item says the company then served Arkansas and Kansas). No Bug Zero listing exists in the other 21 covered states in the brand data.
• Door-to-door: no evidence found (see the sales notes). The Yelp snippet mentioning “door-to-door” has no attribution and was not counted.
• Not re-opened because the sites restrict automated access or a verification page appears, or the page was blocked: Indeed, Instagram, Yelp, Facebook, Reddit, LinkedIn, Birdeye, Experience.com, talent.com and the Joplin chamber listing (HTTP 403).
• MDA Pesticide Business city search for Joplin returned 36 records, none Bug Zero and none at 407 S Pennsylvania Ave; ‘Pest Zero*’ returned 0 records. Missouri SOS re-run live: Bug Zero, Inc. 00435217 Good Standing; Pest Zero, L.L.C. LC0982159 Active; 4 ‘Bug Zero’ rows as before (one active fictitious name created 4/10/2025, registrant not shown).

Open questions

• Does Bug Zero, Inc. hold any ownership interest in Pest Zero, L.L.C.? SOS detail pages (members/officers) are behind a Cloudflare check.
• Is 407 S Pennsylvania Ave, Joplin a staffed office or a service address? No MDA business record exists for Joplin.
• Indeed company pages (Bug Zero Inc 4.0, Bug Zero 5.0) exist but their review counts were not seen.