Complaint Review: Turtle Tuff Shelters LLC

Expensive product misrepresented as "emergency shelter".

Made with inadequate materials + shipping problems would never allow it to be emergency ready
The product is represented to be emergency or survival, grab and go ready. There were so many problems that made this very much the opposite. It is a shelter, represented to be semi permanent and ready to go... It does not even come adequate to keep the water out as a cheap wal mart tent would. It's mad out of a plastic cover which is closed up with zippers, the zippers stick on with adhesive, which does not work. I followed the direction implicitly and even tried to tape them on... It includes a sewing awl but between heat and rain there's no point at which I could sew them on there, then I also still believed the adhesive to be necessary to be water tight. The directions say 4 hours to set it up. I have 12 into it so far, sometimes with 2 and 3 people, and it's still not together. I have problems with the frame, had the bolts been 1/2 inch longer they would have been easy, but they weren't. and they would not be able to be put together with out a decent selection of tools and at least 3 people, once again not happening in an emergency. For $2,800 I think they could afford to have just a little longer bolts and spend some of that money on the zippers... or best yet not use adhesive zippers on a $2,800 dollar semi permanent shelter. This is where I found the most misrepresentation. Shipping was a nightmare, I emailed them already telling them about the things they forgot as I found out over time - no shipping manifest was included (in an emergency situation it's nice to have all of the parts, yes?) First the frame arrived (150 lbs) all in one bundle, wrapped with a single ziptie which had broken along the voyage as the package was too heavy for a person to move, so they'd been dragging shoving and dropping it, as my female delivery driver did attempting not to kill herself with the package( why not separate into 2?) After waiting several weeks after all the various parts to arrive, I had no shipping manifest... I was missing all the hardware and instructions it seemed to me. So I emailed them and they apologized and sent the important box finally... The window screen was missing I had to email to get them to send that. The flu jack for the stove was missing, which I only recently found out while attempting to set up, so I emailed about that several weeks ago, still don't have it. I have copies of all emails to prove. I have found reviews recently proving the point on the zippers as well as other things. -- "The biggest issue the the zippered doors and ventilation window. The zippers work good, but the adhesive doesn't." - from http://www.utahpreppers.com/2010/10/turtle-tuff-shelter-demonstration/

The site says this - "The Turtle Tuff is not a tent, but a very strong home away from home. It can be used in an emergency (earthquake, hurricane, etc.) to relocate to a safe area and with a few hours set up, have a safe dwelling for the family in any weather."

There is no possible way to set up in a few hours. I'm a mechanic, metal worker, welder and blacksmith - I'm very well tooled and very good with them and mechanical projects, if someone could get it done in the minimum time, I could. Like I said I have about 12 hours and it's close to completion.