The Consumer Complaints Blog

They do not have experienced estimators or skilled trades people as their website claims.

An estimator came and gave a quote after declining to fully view the basement area where there was an existing tub. She was told that the house was being renovated for sale in the near future and was asked if the “lifetime” warranty would be transferable. She indicated that it would be. She was also asked if the installer would be a certified plumber to which she responded, yes.

The day before the install, a call was made again to ensure that they knew the tub was in a finished basement with the appointment clerk insisting that they installed in finished basements before without a problem. I still asked to speak to the installer. The installer called, was told the bathtub was in a finished basement and he still assured us that there would be no problem.

The installer arrived the next morning, cut out the old surround bathtub and realized that the basement floor was completely finished in concrete. He had a fit, cursed the inexperienced estimators, and left to rent a jack hammer even though he never bothered to view the work area before starting. He ranted about not taking the job if he knew the floor was finished and that it would now be a two day job

He jack hammered a hole, 20”wide x 16”long x 7”deep, right down to the dirt. While doing this, he said that the hole could be filled if I wanted but he was not going to do it. He suggested using “foam crete”. He attached the drain, installed the bathtub, cleaned up the debris, and left a survey questionnaire.

I called the estimator immediately about the hole and the warranty not being transferable. She denied saying that the warranty would be transferable and that the hole was an unforeseen situation. Like the installer (who had the opportunity to view the work site prior to starting) said, if she had taken the time to look she should have known that there would be jack hammering required. She said there was nothing she could do but have the owner call.

I never found foam crete and wanted to speak to the owner immediately. The owner phoned the next day and left a message saying that everything would be resolved. I returned his call and left a message that I had spoken to two journeymen plumbers who both indicated that there was no reason that my floor could not be filled as there was no such plumbing or building code and that I wanted my floor restored to the way it was found.

I forwarded the email I had sent to his estimator about my concerns to which the owner responded by agreeing to offer the warranty to the next buyer and that the hole would be repaired with no mention of additional cost. I told him that jack hammering was not the problem (I had paid them extra for this) but that the hole left was the problem. He told me that his installer felt the hole did not need to be filled to which I responded that it would not be acceptable as my floor was completely finished and I expected it to be left in that condition. He wanted to research this and was going to call several sources including NAIT and the Canadian Builders Association.

After waiting one week he had no answers but said he would like to call the City of Edmonton Building codes branch. He emailed later that day indicating that he was told that there was no code and that it was a civil matter. He offered to fill a small part of the floor but would require $375 to fill the complete floor and that Bath Solutions would no longer warranty the drain.

NO WARRANTY because his installer decided to leave a huge hole. I responded that I no longer wished to have amateurs in my house and having him second guess what I told him was the building and plumbing code. I told him that if he paid me $375 I would have someone else fill the hole. He responded by saying that I was wasting his time and that he would not talk to me any more but would only monitor my emails, to call a lawyer and take him to court.

HOW”S THAT FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE AND A LIFETIME 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.

We gave our 60 days notice to our landlord (our 1 year lease having expired. Since then he has provided a constant source of harassment. Here’s what an ad for the apartment SHOULD look like:

$850.00 plus hydro.

Features include:
• T24 hour 501 streetcar TC stops right outside the front door with as much noise at possible so you always know it’s there – morning noon and night.
• Scarboro Beach and the boardwalk just steps away provides you with endless hours of entertainment along with free-spirited drunken teenagers and trashy domestic quarrels screaming things across the street at all hours on the weekends)
• No nosy landlords – these ones are in Thornhill and like to pretend you don’t exist. PLUS – they’ll take off to Florida for the entire winter without a forwarding address or phone number should anything go wrong.
• Walls painted poorly in bizarre colors with cheap paint that you can see through (don’t worry – they won’t repaint for you when you move in). These are studded with a colorful and varied history of tenants past. A fun game for children could be “guess what hung here in what year that still hasn’t been patched, sanded and painted over”
• You’ll save on hydro in the summer since there is no air conditioning and also in winter since the ineffective baseboard heating with the burning smell is more costly than you could ever imagine.
• “New” carpeting in the hallways (installed in 1985)
• “Fresh” painting in the hallways (done just before the carpets)
• Front door that often doesn’t close so you don’t always need your keys
• Door frames so rickety a good push will get you in – locked or unlocked.
• Intercom system that makes it impossible to tell if anyone is actually at the front door or if it’s just wind – who knows who you may be letting in?
• Plenty of storage provided you don’t own many clothes or anything else that needs to be put away.
• Sporadic (if any) snow removal makes navigating the icy sidewalks and stairs a winter treat. Your pets will love the nuggets of sharp, cutting salt that is set down once a month.
• Fascinating varied types of mold behind the crumbling bathroom tiles – with entire colonies of insects appearing in the bathtub every morning. Like Bits and Bites – you never know what you’ll get!
• Classy rust stains seeping from water damage on the bathroom ceiling (held up by masking tape in places)
• Vintage wiring featuring a breaker panel that flips off at will a couple times a week plunging you in the delight of darkness
• A great view of a dark and dirty red brick wall and your neighbors looking directly into all 4 rooms just a few feet outside your window – it’s so easy to make friends
• Bare wires hanging from the ceiling where there should be a lighting fixture – just like Berlin in 1945!
• Electrical outlets that may or may not work (it’s always a gamble – what fun!)
• Indoor/outdoor stone gray cleaning-resistant carpeting spotted with stains, cigarette burns, iron burns, and fraying sections near the doorways.
• Cracked, broken ceramic tiles in the hall lend a seedy, decadent air
• Cheap stuck-on vinyl tiling in the kitchen for that faux-diner look with original vintage rust-colored linoleum flooring still viewable between the badly set cracks and blackened glue
• Economical use of garbage disposal at the back of building – keeping the available bins to a minimum encourages lively nightly visitors and a thriving insect culture attracted by the fragrant, bountiful contents of the bins spilling everywhere.
• Lingering mold smell from sewage back up last year that flooded the lower floor.
• Plentiful rust stains in tub and sinks from the wonderfully antique plumbing

You will need last month’s rent as a deposit as well as 12 postdated cheques. For more fun, the Landlord will gladly call you at work to harass you and threaten to sue you and garnishee your wages for not giving him the cheques that your bank account are showing as clearly already cashed – and don’t think he’s going to repay you the interest on the deposit cheque either – he’ll insist that law doesn’t exist.

Viewings available weekends or evenings by appointment, though really who are we kidding? Anytime is fine! The landlord feels free to send anyone into the apartment he chooses at any hour whether the current tenants are home or not and with or without their permission.

As he will tell you – most residents are very pleased with the premises and have been here for years so it is rare that a unit comes available (never mind the tacky plastic For Rent sign stuck to the front door at the end of nearly every month, that’s just there for ambiance). He’ll also tell you he doesn’t rent to people with pets and if you tell him you have one he’ll claim you never mentioned it later. Of course it’s also illegal to refuse renting to someone if they have a dog or cat, but don’t worry – when you move in it will become very clear that he was only fooling and nearly every unit has a dog or cat.

The Landlord has been sued several times by past tenants already with several documented breaches on record. Here goes one more.

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 a travel & food writer, I’ve depended on my Platinum American Express card for 20 years — during which time I paid either on time or early. So you can imagine my surprise when I tried to check out of a hotel in Madrid on Monday to find that my card was declined. I assumed it was an error only to find that AmEx imposed a credit limit (I never had one) so low that I couldn’t pay for the hotel. Once I returned, I googled to find a litany of similar complains: long-time Platinum Card holders who spent ten of thousands of dollars a month (and paid on time) to find that they now had a credit limit that dwindled with each month.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/credit_cards/amex_plat.html

Something is very fishy here, especially given that American Express recently received $3.39 billion from the Treasury to now become a bank holding company.

I know the NY Times did a story in January regarding how AmEx started penalizing customers who frequented certain merchants.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/your-money/credit-and-debit-cards/31money.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=american%20express%20credit%20limit&st=cse

It seems this problem is very pervasive. I am at a restaurant now where the francise owner told me AmEx lowered her credit line from $30,000 to $5,000 for no reason.

I hope this situation can be investigated.

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 recently purchased a $10 international calling card on ozprepaidcards.com.au so I could ring to South Africa. After registering for the service it took 2 weeks to get my activation code in the post. After activating this and finally figuring out how to find where the access numbers on are on the site I attempted to make a call. The initial call connected through to a wrong number, when I tired again the service just rang out. When I dialed in again I discovered my credit was all used.

So basically I spent $10 for less than 10 seconds of calling to a wrong number.

I felt obligated to report this so I could prevent this happening to anyone else.

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 live in suburban Chicago; where unfortunately we have a Best Buy (WORST BUY) store in almost every suburb around, which makes it difficult to ignore them. So when few weeks ago I got the Best Buy Sunday advert marketing a Compaq Presario Laptop for $399.00, I thought that would make a great Christmas gift for my 10 year old, that way he has his own and will leave mine alone. He can practice speed typing, do his homework, e-mail his grand parents, and with the right parental control settings, he can search the Web for school assignments, even download games and cheats for his WII, PSP games.

Well they didn’t have that item in stock that Sunday or any another day since! Even when the price increased to $449.00 they continued to advertise the same item, but none in stock to be had in their stores or on thier site

Then this week they had another good deal, or so I thought, this time it was for an HP G60 for $499.00, a good deal for what the Laptop offered, except this time they sent me on a wild goose chase, I drove from the Woodridge store to the Lombard store on to the Orland Park store and finally ended up at the Joliet store, and every time I’m told the item is out of stock although I made sure the previous store called ahead and talked live to someone in the Computer Dept. to make sure the Laptop is in stock and to hold one under my name.

Well let me just say that “BEST BUY PERSONEL INCLUDING STORE MANAGERS ARE A BUNCH OF MENDACIOUS AND BUNGLING FOOLS” from the folks in the Woodridge computer department to the idiots at Lombard and Orland Park stores (Brian was helpful but clueless), to Ian (Manger) and Stephanie (Computer Dept.) at the Juliet store whose Customer Service skills are severally lacking. All were oblivious to the features and specification of the goods they are selling, (which by the way is printed on the side of the manufacturer’s packaging), they had no idea what they have in stock, and as far as I’m concerned the Best Buy Computerized Inventory System can’t keep track of the fingers on one hand, which makes me speculate on how many millions is Best Buy losing in misplaced inventory?

At the end of the day I drove over 100 miles, after which I decided “I’m the bigger fool” for giving them another shot at my business, LESSON LEARNED.

The sad thing is, in this economy where fewer retailers in the field, will only encourage a sub par vendor such as Best Buy (WORST BUY) to further mistreat and take advantage of the consumer.

SO BEST BUY … EITHER CRAFT A DISCLAIMER SUCH AS “THE COMSUMER WILL BE DEALING WITH YOU AT THEIR OWN RISK, TIME AND MONEY ” OR BETTER STILL DO US, THE COMSUMER, A FAVOR AND GET OUT OF THE RETAIL BUSINESS ALL TOGETHER FOR GOOD?

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.