- Report: #1376654
Complaint Review: Tropical Building Systems - Gianyar
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Author Confirmed
Why?
Tropical Building Systems
Jalan Ida Bagus Mantra No.101 Gianyar, Indonesia
Phone:
(0361) 283881
Web:
www.tropicalbuildings.com
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Tropical Building Systems, Mark Keatinge a liar and tricky person Gianyar Indonesia
I met with Mark Keatinge of Tropical Building Stsyems decided to order a number of Bali gazebos and wooden house from him as his quality and services seemed much better than that of his competitors. After having placed a deposit on the wooden house and gazebo project I did fly to Bali to view the structures once they were complete at his workshop.The quality looked reasonable so I paid in full and had the project dismantled and exported in containers.
After arrival at the project site we had all the wooden components taken out of the containers and placed on the existing foundation ready for reconstruction. Immediately I noticed a lot of cracking in the wood.So we unwrapped all the project part components and on closer inspection noticed cracking on over 50% of the timber beams. I was shocked and called Mark Keatinge and asked what was going on.He said that it is natural for the wooden components to crack during shipping as they are constantly exposed to damp and heat in the container. So we proceeded with construction.
Our situation got even worse. timber beams had warped,bent and twisted so that we could not even construct the project.The wood appeared to have been previously infested with termites and Tropical Building Systems must have filled up these holes with wood-filler concealing these cracks during the house viewing prior to export. It was impossible to construct the house and gazebos due to the very poor quality of the timber that they had used. I was paying 10 carpenters 80 dollars each for 12 days trying to get this structure up + the rent of a crane and forklift + operators to assist.
I gave up after 12 days as was just wasting salaries on a structure that could clearly not be assembled due to the terrible timber quality. So I called Mark and asked for another container of timber replacement parts to be sent out (Ones that were of a high quality and had not been previously infested with termites). He declined to do so on the lines that I had approved already on the buildings at Tropical Building Systems yard. I called Mark again and insisted that he replace these inferior parts as I needed to get the project up asap as I had a contract with the project owner who was already very unhappy with the situation.
Mark denied that the wood was inferior and refused to replace any parts.I was not sure what to do as was 1000's of kilometres and had the project owner putting a lot of pressure on me to complete the project. I contacted a number of Indonesian Lawyers and let them know my situation and they said that if I wanted my payment back I would have to take Mark Keatinge and Tropical Building Systems to court and that this process could be costly and very time consuming.For these reasons + the fact that Indonesia is renowned for its corrupt practices I did not proceed legally.
I had to purchase and replace all the damaged parts from local based companies to ensure that the project was completed on time or I was likely to get sued by the project owners for unreasonable delay and loss of earnings.This business endeavour had made me a LOSS of over 150,000 USD. To everyone out there please,please,please do NOT make my mistake- make sure that the quality is 100% as expected! I expected so much more from Mark Keatinge and Tropical Building Systems who had ripped-me off by selling an inferior timber quality Bali prefab house to me and then refusing to replace it!!!!! Think twice before doing business with this company.
