I contracted Dufferin Iron & Railings to supply and install galvanized wrought iron railings at a client of ours. They had a great website showing a large database of pictures of railings. I thought that they must be reputable with such a nice website. I guess I was wrong. I don't know why I didn't check out their reviews on Homestars, as I had promised myself that I would only ever hire a company with good reviews on Homestars. Well, somehow, I must have forgotten.
The short story is that Oliver's customer service is poor and does not leave someone ever wanting to deal with them or recommend them to anyone else again.
The details are as follows: The job they did was for a client of mine. We had just completed new masonry retaining walls, a new masonry front porch, and a new flagstone front walkway for our client. The finishing touch for safety and aesthetics was this wrought iron railing. They called me later the same day that they had installed it to let me know the job was done. I let them know that I would inspect the job and get back to them whether I was satisfied.
The next day, one of my foreman went by to look at the job and noticed that 3 flagstone copings were cracked. I notified Oliver about it, and he reminded me that he had stated on his original quotation that he is not responsible if any flagstone or concrete is damaged when they are installing the railings.
The morning Oliver's crew was going to the job to remove the portions of railings over the now cracked copings, my crew foreman discussed with him that he would have his crew just remove the screws and plates, but not cut out sections of railings, so that we could replace the flagstone copings. When my crew arrived to replace the stones, they noticed that instead of doing what was agreed, they instead cut out portions of the railings.
We also noticed that two flagstones were now cracked on the front walkway that were not cracked previously. I called Oliver to bring his attention to this and after checking with his crew, he called and left me a message that his crew said that they did not break these new stones.
The following week, I received an email from Oliver saying that he would like to come a few days later to reinstall the railing now that we had replaced the originally broken copings. He also now wanted a cheque to be on site for when his crew arrived to do this work. For some reason, I am guessing he was concerned that I may not pay for his work, or deduct an amount off the original contract price, even though this was never said by me.
I emailed back that I would like to get something in writing showing his warranties on the work as nothing was stated in his original invoicing. I also let him know that I could not use his services in the future due to the way he has handled our project.
Oliver's reply to this email was that he would now like a certified cheque to be on site when his crew comes back in. I gather the more I expressed not being happy about his level of customer service, the more nervous he was getting that he would not get paid the remaining amount. I also did not yet receive any paperwork or mention of pending paperwork that will state in writing his warranties.
At this writing, I am going to send him an email to remind him.