Complaint Review: Juan Portes at Portes Electric Inc

 The response from Portes Electric is unacceptable and fails to resolve the situation. When a vendor states in writing as he did above that he "does not want to engage in further discussion" while refusing to return money to customer from a job he failed to deliver on and then walked away from after being paid, is there really any question this vendor has acted fraudulently? This follows more than 3 attempts by customer to resolve the situation in forms of email, phone and text which were all ignored by vendor.

These attempts have been demonstrated in writing previously to the BBB. Please publish this complaint in hopes of preventing the type of theft and fraud that happened to me from happening to others. I am reminding the BBB that ****** came to the job site and had the opportunity to see and touch all elements to be installed according to customer wishes. 

Buyer Beware. Do yourselves a favor and find another vendor!

This vendor is lying, manipulating details, and leaving out information in an attempt to cover his own shortcomings and his plan to rip off a customer.

What Portes is failing to share is that he visited the job site 1 week before to quote the job at his request!  At this time, he held the actual product to be installed in his hands with the accompanying details. This was the time any professional would ask any questions, or share any problems that may interfere with installation.  

At the site visit, Portes said nothing, asked no questions, shared no concerns, then on the day of work, showed up with expensive assistant who wasn’t disclosed to customer until day of and came up with all these issues while the clock is ticking for customer. NOT until then with the product about to be installed did Portes ask questions as ‘where is the remote, where are specs’, and began to waiver on whether the product could be installed.

This is where the issue began, customer had no choice at this point.   This was totally misleading and a planned waste of customers time and money.

I produce concerts:  As a comparison, this vendor’s behavior would be equivalent to me conducting an advance site visit to a potential concert venue to determine if the facility was equipped to accommodate a particular show, signing off on the venue, and then showing up day of with full production and staff and stating at that point that the venue is too small, and lacks sufficient power to run the production, and cannot accommodate the show!

I should have suspected something when this electrician showed up with his associate on day of work and asked me to avoid signing in at front desk to “save me money."  What is he hiding?   In 10-year career, how many persons has he asked to avoid checking in at the front desk?  

Do yourselves a favor: Look elsewhere, find another electrician, one that ideally thinks ahead, rather than agreeing to everything until he can charge you and then turning details a layperson wouldn’t know in attempt to shift blame on the customer.

We are truly sorry that this customer feels this way. In our over 10 years in business, we've never had a complaint of any sort. We tried to explain the situation to Mr. Kellas but unfortunately he didn't agree. We have screenshots of all our responses to his claims. It is unpleasant having to share our conversation but since this report discrediting out small business has been filed we have found ourselves in the need to do so. Our response: Mr. Cliff, good day, I just read your message. Please allow me to explain the best I can… The purchase of the pendant light was made by you.

It seems your provider in error sold you one that is not dimmable. We tried to control it with the existing dimmer in your dining room but we were unable to, they are not compatible. Your vendor is the one that should tell us what brand of dimmer should be used to control it, so we don’t waste time testing dimmers. You sent me a link, I opened it from my phone and from yours and it was incomplete… You were also surprised when you opened it. The day I visited you with my helper (I pay him $200 for his day of work) I purchased over $70 in materials and a GFCI for your bathroom that you said had not purchased that cost me $20 I arrived at your house at around 10am and left at 4pm I advised that if you were not comfortable with the money to discuss it, I would have broken it down without a problem I have invested $300 already Only $50 for me I understand your frustration, but please understand mine as well.

Nevertheless, that day we marked the center of the table, we took down the existing track light, we made several tests in reference to the height, performance, etc.. we spent time on that. You agreed not to install it because the brilliance ( glare ) would bother when seated… and if it wasn’t dimmable you would not install it. We put back the track light over the dinning table.. Then we moved to the kitchen… You brought us 3 different types of ceiling lights We installed all 3 so that you can decide. We also installed the pendant light in the living room. At the end you decided to install the ceiling light that had the smallest diameter but would not allow us to center it in the corridor of the kitchen.

You approved this before leaving your house. If the light you purchased for the kitchen wasn't dimmable , it is not my fault, I had clearly stated on my proposal that I would replace the switch that controls the track light if it were necessary, it wasn’t. In reference to the track lights in the living room. We agreed only disconnecting the existing wire. We never spoke about installing a new track light or anything of the like. Before arriving at your house I asked if you needed to reschedule the visit as I thought you were not ready for me.

You asked about the outlet in the closet and I said that wasn’t included. You asked we continued with what was programmed. We hope anyone that reads this message understands a day of work for 2 electricians and purchase or job materials was just about covered with the $350 deposit our customer provided.