Complaint Review: Steelmaster Building Systems LLC - Virginia Beach Virginia

A Warning to All thinking of purchasing a Steelmaster Buildings (Steelmaster.com) Read this Carefully before you buy anything from them.

In June of 2022 my daughter and I sold our small home and started looking of building our dream life away from the city. We found a piece of land where we could farm and live a sustainable life and purchased the property. On a limited budget and having no place to live we had to move quickly or it would be disastrous for us financially.

We found Steelmaster and started talking to them and quickly decided because of the features and delivery times that it could work for us and were super excited to work toward that end. On July 13th of 2022 I signed a contract with Steelmaster and expected (as per our contract) a delivery date of August 2022.

We had an issue with our land that at first made us believe we would not be able to keep the land and I called them to tell them if that takes place, we’d like to get our $5,000 deposit back. They said they would not do that under any circumstances and then told me "not to worry about selling the structure I ordered from them because they call so many calls daily, they would sell it no problem." They even asked if I could “still take delivery” and keep it on my property till it sells. There is such a huge demand for them I could sell it easily myself. In fact, at one point in time they tried to sell me a building that had been shipped to Mississippi and the customer didn’t accept the order. They called me and said they would sell it to me at a discount, I’m sure they called others as well. I’m sure this wasn’t the first time something like this as happened.

I told them I’m not in the Quonset Hut Home sales business and I don’t have the time or resources to do something like that. That didn’t matter to them, they had my money and they were totally committed to keeping that no matter what happens to me and my family. 

I really wanted a Quonset home badly and we resolved the issue with our property and unfortunately decided to go ahead with the original plan not knowing the worst was yet to come.

August came and went and no steelmaster delivery. I had setup a time to help me with the construction of the building and he set aside time in his schedule (moved clients back to a later date) so we could do this as quickly as possible. After 6 or so unanswered messages I left them I finally got a call back and got a new shipping date of “September” – I could not pin them to an exact date (because they don’t know themselves) and made it very clear on the phone they had to deliver that month (September) at the very latest, I could not wait till October.

I can understand being late due to things outside of your control even though they would never answer any questions about how their shipping schedules or shipping dates. At this point I still felt we were ok and in good hands so I ordered insulation for the Quonset hut (an additional $4700 deposit)

They assured me (Collin) we would have it in September. Around the middle of September, I had no delivery notice, call etc so I reached out again to them to find out where we were. Again, I was told they couldn’t give me a specific delivery date but “no later than the last part of the month of September.”

By this time the contractor I hired to help me thought I was jerking him around and quit our arrangement. Now even though it’s claimed you and 2 others can set it up. Keep in mind that I’m 65 living in a new area of the country and know no one that can help so I have to look for another contractor.

 At this point I’m very concerned and I started reading all the negative reports on BBB and Youtube. On top of the anxiety I now have lost all confidence in them keeping their word about anything.

End of September and again no delivery. Now in panic mode I asked a few questions about delivery the delivery day and they said they were loading the building on the truck at the end of that day which later turned out to be yet another false statement. I waited as long as I could and hired an attorney to mail them a rejection letter the last week in September. I could no longer wait, it was costing me too much money and how, after all the failures to keep their word, could I rely or trust them to do anything they say. What happens if they didn’t ship me all the correct parts, what if the order is wrong or incomplete or they leave something out. What then? Wait another 3 months for those items as well? Almost as if to prove this point for me two weeks after they had sent the main order, more parts arrived late! It was just as I had feared. They cannot keep their word on anything and will actually without any thought, lie and misinform you.

They shipped the order two weeks in to October and I refused the order. They made threats on the phone about “massive shipping” charges if I didn’t accept it. I'll call it what it was blackmail...

Something else you need to be aware of. When you look at their contract it says “this order is scheduled to leave in (whatever month they tell you)” and any delays on YOUR part will cost you more money. It also says “this is not a delivery contract” So they feel this wording eliminates them having to keep the contracts scheduled delivery month you just signed on to. They are deliberately misleading you with a date they feel they can break no matter the disastrous outcome to you the buyer might be and blame it on their shipping company or the like. Be warned …. They obviously do not care about the customer needs and have a fruadlent business model.

And after all that, they still are trying to collect money after all their total failures to keep their personal and written word. There’s more to come on this and I will be adding to this post. They do not care about anything other than funneling as many orders as possible and shipping them out in a loosely worded contract that is deceiving you into thinking you have a solid and plannable delivery date. This is their business model. Think about that for a minute…

A few extra things you might want to know. Their business, though located on the east coast, ships all their steel from a place in Ontario Canada and it’s most likely the reason they can never give you an exact date. They use a outside the U.S. trucking company that goes by the name “Campbell Transportation Services.” They also are located in Ontario Canada. I don’t know if they are the only ones but this is the company that showed up to my property. I asked the driver if he ever has to return them and he smiled and said yes, he does. There were 8 other Quonset huts loaded on that truck for delivery. I’m guessing that they wait for shipping till they get enough in your area to make it “worthwhile” before they actually ship to you no matter what the contract month says and they do that willingly. 

My recommendation is to look at the contract I have mentioned and decide if working with a company that has a marketing funnel and business practices that are that deceptive are worth losing your money over?

Make sure you have them send you a blank contract and verify what I’m telling you about the deliberately misleading delivery promises contained within the contract before you ever send them a dime or the chances you lose your money are high.

My complaint and assertion is that Steelmaster is a sales funnel that relies on getting as many people in to their sales funnel as possible and locking your money up in loosely worded contract that they feel allows them to use predatory sales tactics and implied threats as in my case, and all while knowing they can’t really keep the shipping dates in the contract and a percentage of them will fall through. It's a numbers game to them.