Energy Transfer Solutions ETS Breach of contract, horrible customer service and support and customer bullying for payment when their systems are not complete or functional West Chester PA
We used ETS as a supplier and sales engineering of more than 3.0MM in commercial HVAC equipment and a control system that was sold to us as an HVA,C lighting, and irrigation control system for our indoor agriculture facility but doesnt do even 25% of the stated and contracturally promised functions due to ETS lack of adequare programming and design.
Throughout the construction project, ETS was repeatedly absent from most design and project meetings which set the tone for their lack of delivery and quality across each and every system component they delivered. Their planning and dilligence did not exist at all, and they fell way behind on their roughing of wiring, sensors to the point that they could not rough in anything and had to limit their scope of room sensors since they did not make their deadlines for roughing prior to the construction of the walls in all of our cultivation rooms.
As the building was completed by the contractors and turned over to us, all ETS work was weeks behind the deadlines and as a result, most of the equipment was not properly started up, tested and burned in. This led to major business impacts for us since it was done while we were in production and depended on their systems and their coding / configuration of their control system.
The project was supposed to be completed 4 months ago, but we are still limping along after paying ETS for more than 85% of total bill, while not receving working equipment across the board. Half of the HVAC systems do not dehumidify at the levels provided in the specs and submittals and ETS simply walked away on that item and has done nothing in 3 months to address the issues (which are effecting our plants)
They installed 6 dehumidifiers which we were way overcharged for to begin with and never started any of them up (3 months past the due date) yet they are shaking us down and sending demand letters to be paid for work that was not performed.
Their control system may be the worst part of all. They invoiced hundreds of thousands of dollars for a system that only controls the HVAC units - which dont get to the set points anyway (making the system useless).
We also paid in advance for service / preventative maintenance contracts, yet they have never come back to change the filters as contracted to do, and now we have units shutting down due to reduced air flow due to lack of maintenance (and these were paid for in full).
We were also bullied into providing close to a 200K deposit for systems that would have been needed for our second phase, which was delayed a couple of months, and while they told us our order would not be cancelled, they went and cancelled it without our approval and will not refund the deposit money. Furthermore, when we asked them to get the order reinstated, they held us hostage and demanded a progress payment that was nearly twice our contracted amount (1.3MM) to be paid in 7 days from notice or they would cancel the order again.
Buyer beware... These is one company to stay away from as they do not support their equipment or make good on their mistakes (which they admitted to with their control system - yet they are still acting like a collections firm and are attempting to bully us into making the final payments which we are retaining until they get their systems functional and aligned with their contract.
We had this company order and install 5 different kinds of systems, and not a single one of them functions to the original spec. They have no ownership of the project and have breeched their contract for work committed and paid for and refuse to make good on their work
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Jon
West Chester,Pennsylvania,
United States
Response to Why Pay them - Our contract only allowed for a 10% hold-back (our mistake)
#3Author of original report
Fri, February 14, 2020
The whole point is that we retained 10% of their payment which still did leave us upside down, but since they were people we knew before we engaged them as a contractor, we were comfortable with only a 10% holdback.
It was this holdback that they have bullied us for and have not completed the work for far more of their contract even though we trusted them to do so. That is why I indicated buyer beware. They also literally stole money from us for a phase 2 deposit we placed with them since they are the only rep of the one type of equipment that was working that we needed for our second phase. For this sale, we were also bullied into committing with the promise they would address all their current issues.
As soon as we paid the deposit, they renigged and stopped providing service (seemingly just to get their profit back from phase 1 that they didnt complete). These were extortionary, irreprehensible tactics.
You are correct though in that we should not have trusted them to keep to their word and that was our mistake. We dont do business that way, and dont expect our vendors to either. That is definitely our mistake and we have learned for future deals.
Flint
Rolla,Afghanistan
Why did you pay them?
#3Consumer Suggestion
Sun, February 02, 2020
Protip: next time, make sure
a) the contract includes penalties for delays and
b) they don't get paid for a project phase until that phase is completed and accepted by you.
Once a contractor has received 85% of the payout, they have zero incentive to come back and do anything else. Oh, and you are using the word "bullying", which is quite interesting. You are the one with the upper hand here -- you can just fire them, not pay them, and hire someone else. Just because you receive an invoice doesn't mean you need to actually pay it, especially if the work that was invoiced was not done to specification.