A & J Landscape Maintenance, Inc

Tell us why here..First off, I have attached the invoice from our supplier to show the restock fee. They charged us $to restock the arborvitae and we only charged you $plus pi& delivery. Here are Al's responses to your e-mail that you sent Friday afternoon:
Does not matter if your job was to be scheduled in November, we can hold the plantings at our shop for monthsIn order to get a scheduled date, we have to buy all supplies in advance so the crew has everything they need for a job and leave the shop at 7:30am. How could we schedule your work if we don't have the supplies in our possession??? It was never stated that we were supposed to pick up the materials the day of the job, that is not good planning and would make us look unpreparedThe 8'-10' arborvitae were to your advantage! You were getting bigger plantings for the same price as the smaller ones! We asked you if you wanted the larger arborvitae and if you did then there might be an extra labor charge. This was your choice, if you didn't want the larger ones then we would of gotten the smaller ones for you and wouldn't of charged you the extra trip. But with you cancelling the job completely, it didn't matterYou put a "go" on the work on September 21, @ 12:39pm per your phone conversation with ***. Which gives us the permission to order the supplies we need to get your jobs done. Al has been doing business for almost years and has never deemed it necessary to do contracts with customers. This is the first complaint I have received in my nine years working here, which goes to show Al is a fair business man and treats his customers right. 5. No, they aren't the WRONG plantings...they were bigger ones with an extra 1-years of growth on them for the same price!It is fair ***, you put a "go" on the work and then cancelled when we were ready to perform the work. How is it fair to us that we had to waste trips to the nursery, costing me gas, an employee driving, and a restocking fee that I'm not even charging you full price of! I'm sorry to hear of your house renovation mishaps but that has nothing to do with A&J Landscape.Bottom line, you put a "go" on the work, we purchased the supplies, and you canceled on us. The full invoice to you should be $217.50, but I'm not going to change the invoice that was sent over initially for $132.00. Teresa K***Office Manager

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because: With all due respect,  1. I was NEVER informed that you would A) purchase the plants AND pick them up AND store them in your shop BEFORE even calling me to schedule a date, which by all acounts was supposed to be 4-6wks in the future. That's a failure of proper communication on your part as to what the customer should expect. 2. Furthermore, regardless of what you think as to the bigger plants being "better than the original and to my advantage", I AM the customer and I alone should decide what size plants I want. In addition, it makes absolutely NO professional sense for you to supposedly purchase and pickup the wrong sized plants BEFORE even asking your customer if that would be ok. You stated that there "might have been an extra labor charge for the bigger plants" but I was told firmly that there absolutely was going to be an upcharge of some $250-400 for those bigger plants. 5. I said "go"in Sept, [redacted] said it could be even "late nov" for your project and that she would be in touch to schedule it. The next communication is on Oct 10 or 11 when [redacted] calls to say: "The nursery ordered the WRONG trees. They're much bigger, and bc of that, our labor charges will go up. I told her those trees wouldn't work and even if they did I could only use a few bc of their size - to hold on and NOT buy them bc I don't have the budget for the extra labor AND i've run to a major drainage disaster in my yard which flooded my entire garage. She said "sure,just let us know how to proceed." I called her in 48hrs and cancelled. What is baffling about this situation is WHY would A&J supposedly purchase those trees that by all accounts the nursery ordered by MISTAKE, take these huge trees to their shop, and THEN call me to ask if those would work and mandate extra labor for them? When I spoke to [redacted], she was actually asking me IF I wanted to go with those trees, to which I said NO. So which is it? Did you purchase the wrong trees w/o my OK, or did you call me to ask me if that would be ok? I clearly said NO to [redacted], so please explain how they ended up in your possession and now I'm being charged pickup/delivery and restocking fee.I'm sorry but failing to communicate as to the order of events and what I should expect, purchasing WRONG plants that would end up costing me hundreds more, without giving me a choice, and all that almost an entire month and half BEFORE I expected to be scheduled, is unprofessional if not unethical.
Sincerely,
[redacted]

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because: Again, with ALL due respect,I reject your arbiturary fee of $135 for products and services that were never rendered. I believe this is ethically wrong and abusive to the customer, no matter how much Al has "discounted it", or how much you put a spin on what professional expectations we should have of you.  The bottom line is that I TOLD Al I had a dozen projects that were scheduled to be done on the house, that it was already a nightmare, and to please let me know when I should expect you so I could coordinate. The fact is when you told me it could be mid-late Nov, it was actually a relief bc I had so much hell going on. Please do NOT compare my situation with your  that [redacted] shocked me with other customers and decide for me when is best or what products are best. That's RIDICULOUS. The fact is that when the next communication from you folks is [redacted] in first week of Oct (ONE month & a HALF earlier, not days or a couple of weeks) calling me to tell me that the Nursery got the order WRONG, and now I have bigger trees, that were not going to work in my small space, AND that you'd charge me EXTRA labor, I told her instantly that would NOT do, that I had already run into drainage issues that flooded my entire garage which I had to discard the entire content of, and that I had an appt with someone about the drainage that Sat and I would tell her first thing on Mon. But regardless of my drainage issues, I told her right there that I did not want those sized trees and couldn't pay extra. Please PLEASE let's be honest about how earnestly I've pleaded and cried and demonstrated my terrible unforseen situation with [redacted] AND Al.  Again, I had every intention of hiring you folks and paying fair wages for honest and ethical work. But this is NOT right. You folks MUST admit your own negligence and mistakes too.  I am under Ch 7 Bankruptcy. I have been unemployed for more that 3yrs. My husband has heart issues and in and out of hospital and it's taken us 8yrs to save enough to do some necessary upkeeps in this house. I am sorry but I do NOT have a PENNY extra for services/products that were never delivered and are being charged bc of businesses ordering wrong, upcharging, not communicating clearly with the customer as of the timeline of events, taking the customer by surprise almost a month & half early, and mandating $$.  If you folks are so in need of this $135, with 2 office assistants, and a 70+workforce, and feel good about charging me this, then by all means, do what you must to pursue this, but I do not have the $$. Lastly, [redacted] told me verbatim that "I'll talk to Al - he's the boss and he can decide whether to charge you or not." He obviously doesn't like me personally, where as he "could have made an exception", he refuses.  Best to you and yours in this holiday season.God bless and have mercy on us all 
Sincerely,
[redacted]

Why would we not pick up the supplies in advance to get you scheduled?  We have never had to inform a customer who wants plantings that we were ordering the plants on a certain day.  When a customer calls to put a "go" on a job, we in turn gather all supplies/materials that the crew needs to perform that job.  When all supplies/materials are in our possession, we call the customer to let them know when the crew will be out for the work as we are ready to schedule the work.  We did call you a little under 4 weeks when you put the initial "go" on the work on September 21st, 2017 by a couple days but never have a heard a customer complain that we were able to schedule them a couple days earlier than we expected.  If you wanted to be scheduled 6 weeks later, you could of spoke to [redacted] about that and to put a hold on the job.  But you cancelling is what created the invoice that was sent to you.When [redacted] talked to you about how the bigger Arborvitae may change the labor costs, you said you would call back the next day and let us know if you wanted to just cancel the entire job.  It took you a couple days to respond with an answer and you decided to cancel both jobs you put a "go" on.  Your reasoning was because of the other house renovations that had taken longer than expected, nothing to do with the Arborvitae.It was your choice to have the larger Arborvitae or not, but we needed to let you know there may be an additional charge.  If you didn't want those larger plantings and wanted the smaller ones then on our dime we would of gotten the trees you wanted!!  But you decided to cancel all the work due to your unforeseen house renovations which has nothing to do with A&J Landscape.  It was your choice on the [redacted], but with you pulling the plug on both estimates you put a "go" on caused us to lose money.  We still lost money because Al isn't even charging you the full amount of the restock fee. Teresa K[redacted]Office Manager