The Consumer Complaints Blog

We found this company through homestars.com and after meeting with the president Tony Hellman, decided that based on what we had seen we would use him to replace the flooring in our condo. In July 2008 we signed a contract for 1100sqft of Jatoba milled in Quebec for
approximately $7.25/sqft. A day or two before our floor was supposed to be installed Tony Hellman informed us that the wood we put a $7,350 deposit on in July (it was now the end of September) was sold to another customer, but not to worry he secured a much better product
for us. Hesitantly we agreed to this new wood.

Tony Hellman installed Continental Designs Cumaru, which according to many other flooring experts (and Tony’s installer) is a Chinese product. He purchased this wood from his “supplier” Brampton Hardwood, for less than half of what he charged us and has confirmed that he provided us with 25 boxes (there are 32.7sqft per box – you do the math – we paid for 1,100 sqft of wood). We have recently had our condo remeasured and confirmed that with waste there should have been about 864sqft (so slightly more that what Tony delivered but we have
also decided to add hardwood to our powder room).

Neither Tony Hellman nor his supplier, Brampton Hardwood will provide information on the milling location of this wood. The wood is milky and has cracked in over 25% of the areas. Recently Tony arranged for an “independent flooring inspector” to inspect the wood. Rick the inspector from St. Lawrence did humidity tests and found our humidity to be perfect. He informed my husband during the visit that the floor should not be cracking and that the finish should not be milky as it is. We have never received a formal copy of the inspection but Joe Reis from Brampton Hardwood informed me over the phone that the inspection reported nothing out of the ordinary.

We have started a blog to document our troubles with HDB Interiors and Brampton Hardwood and the issues of using homestars.com to find a reliable contractor.

Disclaimer
This article was submitted by one of our readers. Penciltrick cannot make any claims as to its authenticity but the article was accepted on a good faith belief that it is an accurate and truthful account of the events listed.

Here’s an update from the person who sent a complaint about Enbridge a while back. The original post is here.

We continue to experience difficulty with billing from Enbrige.

Since moving to our new home in October we have not received a bill from Enbridge. We notified the company of our change of address, called Enbridge and spoke to Aly (from Direct Energy) and and Ms. Eileen Campbell (ombudsman from Enbrige) about this matter. When my husband spoke to an Enbridge rep, and to Aly we were told that Enbridge was experiencing difficulties with their billing process and that we shouldn’t worry about this. It has now been 3 months since we moved in and still we have not received a bill. We were given what we believe is our new billing number and I have sent 2 cheques to Enbridge. One of the cheques has been cashed by Enbridge the other has not. Of course I have no idea if my account was credited.

• Although we were told ‘not to worry’ it is very disconcerting and we would like this matter dealt with as soon as possible. We do not want to receive a huge bill in the mail that we will be unable to pay.
• Also, although we were assured by Aly from direct Energy and Eileen Campbell from Enbridge that the previous account from our former address had been cleared and that we now have a “0” balance we have yet to receive a copy of that bill.
• Is this normal?

Disclaimer
This article was submitted by one of our readers. Penciltrick cannot make any claims as to its authenticity but the article was accepted on a good faith belief that it is an accurate and truthful account of the events listed.

I bought a TV. I paid for a warranty. It has been four months and I still do not have a warranty. They say it’s in the mail. The company doing the warranty, Bankers Trust Group of Florida says they have not been paid. Global Closeouts also seems to be doing business has Close Out City, Enable Holding and/or Ubid. In the store Bob and Jason say they can do nothing. A long distance call on my dime to Jim Potts has had no effect. These people do not seem to care about the customer once the customer is out the door. I fear they will move/close before I get my warranty.

Disclaimer
This article was submitted by one of our readers. Penciltrick cannot make any claims as to its authenticity but the article was accepted on a good faith belief that it is an accurate and truthful account of the events listed.

I remember a while back Steven Harper stating the price of food will not go up due to the recession. Well I am guessing about a year or so ago, manufacturers changed their packaging of most all food products. I wondered why they were doing that. The reason for it was they have cut the quantity of food per package to a little more than half the size it used to be, and charge the same price or a little more for it. So sure the price of food didn’t go up much, but the amount you get for the same price was cut in half. They did it a sneaky way, little by little, in hope that people would not notice. Do they think we are all idiots or what? This really makes me furious!! It’s not only in grocery stores either, it’s in restaurants. Tim Horton’s for example. The price of a measly little tim bit has gone up 6 cents in about a year, and the size of them has been cut in half. Have you noticed that fitting 40 tim bits in one of those boxes is not nearly as hard as it used to be? When you got them before you couldn’t close the box it was so full, now there is room to spare.

Disclaimer
This article was submitted by one of our readers. Penciltrick cannot make any claims as to its authenticity but the article was accepted on a good faith belief that it is an accurate and truthful account of the events listed.

As so many others on your site, we too have received terrible customer service from Sears.

We purchased a fridge from their outlet store in 2006. In the first few days of November 2009, we noticed that the fridge wasn’t working properly & then it just died. We contacted Sears and were told that certain parts were under 10 year warranty & a technician would be sent out to determine whether our problem fell under that warranty.
He did show up a few days later & determined that the parts of the fridge that weren’t working were under warranty & that he needed to order them.

Well, guess what. One of these parts was on back-order. They needed to order it from the factory.

“We’ll call you when the part comes in to schedule a time for me to come back.”, he tells me.
We waited for weeks for this call & never got it.

I had to call Sears, my husband also called from work and each time we were asked the same questions & then tranferred to someone else that asked us those exact same questions, which in the end they were never able to help us or we were put on hold for a disgustingly long time (after which, of course we hung up.)

We were finally given a tentative date of December 16th for the technician to show up, but the day before I had to phone to find out if anyone was actually going to show up and I was told that the part still had not arrived and that our new tentative date was for January 27, 2010.

We have been on the phone with many different people in Sears at various levels asking what they are going to do for us, that we have been without a fridge for so long & that if we wait until January, it will be 3 months with no fridge. Perhaps they could lend us a fridge to use as the Christmas holidays are approaching? “Sorry, I can’t make that decision” was the response a couple of times.We finally found someone who kind of felt bad as she listened to my story, but the best they can do is send me a gift certificate for $50.00 (which we have yet to see).
Another lady promised to send an emergency email to the service department asking for a loaner fridge and promised to phone us the next day, but we are still waiting for her call. She also told us that they would start looking for the part locally and I asked her why they hadn’t thought of that sooner. No response.

I then suggested that I would go out and buy a new fridge somewhere else and send Sears the bill, but she told me that Sears probably wouldn’t pay that bill.

I thought that if you bought something from Sears you would avoid the hassles that you would expect from smaller stores, but I have since realised that Sears doesn’t care about customer service anymore.

Signed,
Still waiting

Disclaimer
This article was submitted by one of our readers. Penciltrick cannot make any claims as to its authenticity but the article was accepted on a good faith belief that it is an accurate and truthful account of the events listed.