Express Casket, LLC

Mr*** *** placed an order for a Solid Oak Wood Casket that needed some custom work done or special engraved corners and a gloss finish to be completed and delivered to *** *** warehouse based in Denver ColoradoThe agreement was to have the casket available for at the warehouse by
midnight on 11/10/Unfortunately the factory that we use to have custom work done needed just a few more hours for the paint to dry before packaging to prevent the paint from sticking during transitHowever we did send the casket out on a jet with *** and it did arrive at *** warehouse at 8:a.m on *** *** *** under tracking number # *** with *** Cargo (instead of by midnight the night before) . To try to fix the issue and help our client we would have offered to pay additional expenses with the use of a hot shot courier or cargo van from Denver to the funeral home up to hours out if needed on 11/11/to try to have the casket at a funeral home by noon the day afterWe did not want the customer to have to purchase one elsewhere as we had already went through the work and through the process of shipping the casket outThe family member of Mr *** *** instead refused the casket, leaving it at the *** warehouse for us to return back to the factoryThe factory we used to perform the custom work did not have an explanation on why they didn't time the work appropriately and refused to reimburse us so that we could refund Mr ***Without the reimbursement from the factory and without being able to sell the custom casket we were out of pocket for both the casket and the double charge from *** to return the casket back to it's orgin. Unless custom work is requested 100% of our caskets are already pre-packaged and ready to be shipped out immediately and delivered overnight which prevents this from ever happeningWith much regret and in 6+ years this is our first incident where the casket could not be used after servicing several thousand clients annuallyTypically our rule is to not do custom orders in less then weeks but agreed to make an exception for our customer as we were promised with high confidence by the factory that it would be completed on time for us to arrange this pickup for Mr *** in DenverUnfortunately the drying of the paint was overlooked and a delay of just a few hours was enough to throw a hitch in the entire processIn the future we wont accept orders for custom work under a tight shipping time frames as it can cause duress for the clientWe do feel bad that we put *** in this situation and we would like to offer compensation as promisedIf Mr *** would like he can please call my direct cell phone number at *** so we can come to a resolution. With Kind Regards, Express Casket LLC

Complaint: ***
I am rejecting this response because: I tried to contact *** ***, president and Founder of Express Caskets, for months trying to resolve the issue I never received one responseNo hot shot delivery service was ever talked aboutWe had a family member that lived in Denver was going to pick up casket when it arrivedThe last message I received on the 8th on November said shipping address undetermined, no tracking number or anythingThe only reason Express casket responded now is because BBC said they would drop their accreditation if they didn't I would like to see the paperwork showing the casket was shipped to Denver, with a tracking numberA family member of mine even has a email from *** saying he forgot to refund money for casket, but he would do it as soon as possible.
Regards,
*** ***

We were very honored to have received the contract however it was not made clear by the third party website that we went through to achieve the contract that no payment would be made prior to us delivering which presented a major challenge for us considering the volume that was needed. Additionally...

each casket needed to be palletized which was also not specified in the initial stages of the offered contract. When we went to work these details out with our POC that was on the contract we were unable to get a response after multiple attempts to contact our POC [redacted]. This was our email to her which we did not receive a response before the delivery deadline:I had wanted to forward this to [redacted]: Do these need to be palletized? If so, its going to make things much more challenging for us. If they don't need to be palletized, can we get that in writing for our driver?We tried contacting you but weren't able to today. The driver is going to be making his way from Boston, MA on Friday. His cell [redacted]. We can't afford to have a refusal of this delivery due to the distance he's having to cover. Will he need to contact you once he arrives to ensure everything gets accepted? He is planning to arrive this Friday Oct. 29th. Lastly, this is our first contract and we're trying to set up our wawf account. Can you help me classify the Role properly and identify what I'm supposed to add for Location Code*? When we accepted this contract we were unaware that all needed to be delivered prior to payment. Normally we are prepaid and don't have any previous experience in the private/government sector.We were able to get ahold of [redacted] who attempted to assist us with getting ahold of [redacted] but we had no luck as phone calls went to voicemail and emails from here went unreturned. Mr [redacted] came in to assist months after the deadline and he did resolve the palletization issue but nothing was able to be resolved in accounting to get paid prior to delivery. We now know that in the private sector delivery is wanted first and then then accounting issues reimbursement within 30 days. We did offer our direct point of contact to the factory director of our supplier who could do this for the Army on credit. This was a very rocky transaction from the get go due to our lack of experience working with the private sector but also due to lack of communication from the Army  in the initial stages of this transaction. [redacted] came in to help but it was much later in the transaction around January. I believe this has already been address as we received a letter saying the contract had already been terminated as we weren't able to deliver the requested items without payment prior to delivery. The letter we received also stated no remedies would be sought against us. The letter we received stated a final decision had already been made and that the notice constitutes a final decision of the contracting officer and the contractor has the right to appeal under Disputes clause. If these caskets are still needed we can certainly put them in contact with our factory and supplier who would be more then capable of helping to get these delivered for them ASAP and in one or two business days as we already requested that these be made and they are sitting there ready to go in the factory we use to place our orders.

We did provide the tracking number in the email and [redacted] can be called to verify that it did indeed arrive the following morning at 8:24.  Tracking was also provided by email, Mr [redacted] was not the one who refused the casket , it was his family member and she hung up on us in the middle of coming up with a solution. We did send this out and it can be verified with [redacted].

Spoke with [redacted] recently or less then 2 weeks before this complaint was submitted. Our accounting did send out money, might be some confusion here. Checking with the customer.

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:Thank you for your response, wish you would of responded to my emails earlier. I already have all these emails you sent to my sister.  As she stated in her email 8:24am on the 11th doesn't work for us. That was not what we were told when we ordered it the casket. As you said earlier your factory wasn't able  to produce the casket in time to be shipped on time to make it to us 24 hrs prior to funeral.  The family viewing was the night before funeral on the at 6 pm on the 11th, that is why we said it wasn't going to work. Another reason was the schedule of the funeral home. So I am tired of arguing back and forth with you, it is pretty simple. We asked for a casket to be in Denver on a certain day, we were told it could happen so I paid for the casket.  Then we were told it couldn't so we rejected it and had to settle for one that didn't do my dad justice, and that still bothers me today. I do appreciate your response have been waiting for 6 months to fix this. I just want my refund to credit card. You said you could sell it that is fine. I would just take it for when my time comes but I am young and pray that day is far down the road.
Regards,
[redacted]