We’ve tried to give Atomic Container homes the benefit of the doubt time and time again, but at the end of the day, they conduct some VERY shady business. So many of the things they have told us have been straight up lies, and they’ve contradicted themselves repeatedly.
First and foremost, the work they claim to have done on their website is the work of other architectural companies. They sold me on their product by lying to me and telling me personally, that those are all builds that they did—which is just not true. In fact, one of the owners (Ethan Day) showed me pictures of his personal home that looked amazing and told me it was a container home. That’s when I made up my mind to do business with Atomic. Come to find out (after paying my $5600 service & design fee) he lied to me about that. That house was NOT an Atomic container build, and it was not made out of shipping containers.
Their site is full of lies and inconsistencies. They claim to have two properties for sale in El Paso. They even have a photo of the properties with a “Built by Atomic Container home” sign in front of it. I called the realtors and they told me they admitted they were “faux” listings and that the houses weren’t even built. To me, it’s clear Atomic just has this one their site to appear like a real and credible company—a very unethical and misleading practice.
Atomic also has several eBay listings in which they lead consumers to believe that the photo shown in the listing is the propriety work of Atomic Container Homes. Well, it’s not. It’s a plagiarized photo that they stole from Google.
This is just some of the many issues I’ve faced with Atomic. From the very beginning Ethan has promised to help me through the process of buying land. Every time we were ready to move forward, he would make some excuse as to why his realtor couldn’t help and said the realtor was sick. For many weeks.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was when it was brought to my attention that Ethan Day had been in an $8M lawsuit in the real estate industry, over unethical securities practices. I then decided I could not continue doing business with Atomic.
I called Ethan and attempted to tell him why I wanted a refund (from the false advertising to the lies to his past lawsuit) and Ethan got ultra defensive and started yelling at me over the ear. I told him his business practices were unethical and if I didn’t receive a refund for 50% (Not even the full amount), then I would have to report him to my credit card agency for false advertising of the product. He then threatened to sue me.
After about two days, Les Burke, the other owner of Atomic, called me to try and work things out. Admittedly, it went decently well. I asked him to provide me photos and proof of his work and he said he would email me some. He emailed me pictures of one small 100 sq ft unit. That is ALL. I tried to contact him 4 more times. He never responded again.
I tried so many times to work this out with Atomic and they’ve ignored me. They’ve lied to me from the beginning, taken my money, and won’t even try to resolve things peacefully with me.
My wife and I are deeply saddened to have lost $5600.
5 Updates & Rebuttals
Customer Alert
El Paso,Texas,
USA
Atomic Container Homes Consumer Update
#6Consumer Comment
Tue, June 06, 2017
We're compiling a list of victims.
For assistance visit:
www.atomiccontainerhome.com
Disappointed Customer
El Paso,Texas,
USA
Documents Attatched
#6Consumer Comment
Mon, May 08, 2017
It appeares that the documents did not attatch. Please see below:
Disappointed Customer
El Paso,Texas,
USA
Ethan Day and Leslie Burk SEC VIOLATION ALERT! FELONY FRAUD ALERT!
#6Consumer Comment
Sat, April 15, 2017
Were you also scammed by the Ethan Sturgis Day, Leslie Burk, and Ray Collins trio?
I originally met Ethan Day and his drinking buddy, Ray Collins, in Malibu. I was sold the idea of a sea container home built for a fraction of what a traditional home would cost. They have consistently over promised and under delivered, only to then blame the consumer for things not getting done.
All public record documents are attached below or you can use the following:
Ethan Day 8-Million-dollar restitution order: azcc.gov/Divisions/Securities/news_releases/2011/apr12-11.pdf
Case docket file: images.edocket.azcc.gov/docketpdf/0000124587.pdf
To find more information on Leslie Robert Burk’s felony fraud, use this link:
epcounty.com/publicrecords/officialpublicrecords/aOfficialPublicRecordSearch.aspx
Search by instrument number 20150029730 or search Burk Leslie. You can also call the El Paso county clerk and recorder’s office at 915-546-2071. For the entire felony fraud charge, see criminal docket case #3:14-cr-00240-DCG-1 by calling the U.S. Western District of Texas (El Paso) 915-534-6725
Other El Paso County legal document numbers against Leslie Robert Burk 20110044429 20120031895 20130007491.
Online indicators suggest Ethan Day along with his fraudulent business partner Les Burk are back at it again scamming more people and raising funds for ventures that will land them back in court and inevitably back in jail.
Les Burk/President Atomic Container Homes, Inc.
El Paso,Texas,
USA
Atomic Container Homes, Inc. Additional Information
#6REBUTTAL Owner of company
Sun, March 19, 2017
We appreciate the opportunity to provide a rebuttal. As can see we have already worked this out with the dissatisfied customer. I wish (he) would have put his name and contact information so more people could contact him directly to hear more about how we worked it out.
We have gone through a very large growing curve over the last 10 years working with containers and the design, production and mfg. We have had hundreds of customers and not everyone is competant to build a custom home. The process can be time consuming and everyone needs more patience in most cases. Atomic Container Homes, Inc. (containerhome.center) has just opened up a section where we are selling stock to qualified buyers. This is to allow us to grow even more.
Many people see a house being built and think it took 8 months. They do not realize it was a year of planning, permitting and then engineering and so forth. This really is not for everyone. It is hard, it is frustrating, it is time consuming but if you want something bad enough you focus, communicate and work hard to make it a reality. As you can see we have one complaint by a person that did not have enough funds to complete their project and we never even got to the building stage with them. We were still in design... They moved from a market where 35K would buy you a lot in Texas to a market where $350K would get you a lot in the worst section of town outside of LA.
We are very sorry that this deal did not work out, we are signing up with this website so we can be a better communicator with future customers and business owners. We too have learned that not all deals that come to the table are worth persuing either and we are doing a better job of qualifying our customers. We do appreciate the retraction that was made but there were conditions that happened that we still do not agree with. The best thing I can say is please contact us and do not believe everything you read. We are available to work with you to learn more about your projects, time, budgets and to help you make good decissions about what can and can not be done based on time, budgets, and locations.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and definitely stop by our website for more information about our products, distributors and opportunities. FYI we are now being distributed by Grainger Industrial. And that should say something very positive about our history and real business practices.
Sincerely,
Les Burk/President Atomic Container Homes, Inc.
Original Poster - We have since worked things out!
#6Author of original report
Sat, January 14, 2017
Hello to all!
I wrote this post during a heated moment, and probably should have just given it a couple more weeks.
What it came down to was a bit of miscommunication, and I'm happy to say we've resolved things peacefully.
Atomic Container Homes has since reached out to me in a gesture of good faith to talk things out and even offered a refund, and a visit to their plant in El Paso.
I do believe these guys are doing big things in the container home world and will watch from the sidelines as they do.
Consider this my official public retraction of my original post and thank you to Atomic Container Homes!
P.S. I would have just removed this post myself, however Ripoff Report won't allow me to.