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On initial contact with General Steel, I was quoted a price of $38,000.00 dollars. When my husband talked with the representative later that same day, he was quoted $52,000.00 for the same building.
The representative stressed the urgency to act quickly, due to a shortage of steel and probability of the price of steel doubling by the end of the year. After several conversations with the representative, we paid a non refundable deposit of $11,973.00 on 9/22/2010. We felt pressured to act quickly to avoid possibly paying double the price. At some point, he called and said that they had a larger building that was a clearance special for an additional $8,000.00. We felt that we should take advantage of this special price.
We were told that we would be contacted by someone from their planning/design department, who would work with us on design and placement of windows and doors. There was to be no charge for the plans. We were led to believe that the windows and doors were included. We were advised at a later date that the windows were not included, but they could provide windows (at a very hefty price). We contracted the windows thru a local man at less than half of what General Steel quoted.
They were supposed to provide two(2) walk doors and two(2) rollup doors. They provided one (1 ) walk door and two (2) overhead rollup doors. The track for the overhead doors was supposed to be a high rise track. We ended up with three (3) sets of track. The last set of track was a high rise style. We had to pay additional cost to get the correct track. And an additional $550.00 to have the overhead doors and track installed.
We were sent several sets of blue prints, due to things that were not correct. We had to pay for each. I placed several calls to the man in the design department. He was not available and I was told I had to wait for him to call. No one else seemed to be able to help me. After 2 weeks, he returned my call and stated that was his first day back at work. He had been off work, recovering from a ruptured appendix.
I naively thought that erecting the building was included in the cost. We hired a local man to erect the building. Mr Chandler had over 30 years experience in steel buildings and has an impeccable reputation for his knowledge, skill and honesty. Mr. Chandler had to spend several hours on the phone with a General Steel representative to get clarification on the blue prints that were sent. The final set arrived about 10 days after Mr. Chandler had finished erecting the building. Mr. Chandler said he would never agree to work with a General Steel building again.
We were charged a delivery fee of several thousand dollars. Mr. Chandler was on hand to unload the materials. The truck sank up to the axels in our yard and had to be towed out by Mr. Chandler, leaving large, deep ruts at our driveway. We had additional expense repairing the ruts.
Our sales person never indicated that General Steel was a broker. We were led to bellieve that everything was done by General Steel, not by several different companies. He said everything was in the warehouse and they would get it pulled and shipped. The roll up doors actually came from Clopay, a Memphis based company.
On 2/22/2011 we paid an additional $50,114.03 by cashier check. There were some payments made between the initial deposit and the payment on 2.22.2011. The records, at this time are packed in a box. (Best I can recall there was a $5,000.00 payment and maybe one for another $1500.00) Since this was started in 2010, I may not recall some of the details correctly, but I can get the box from storage and research more, if necessary.
The entire process of purchasing from General Steel was a very bad experience. I feel like we were pressured, bullied, deceived and manipulated. My husband was very distressed and said he felt trapped, since General Steel had almost $12,000.00 in the non refundable deposit. I would never reccommend General Steel to anyone.