The Closet Doctor

Review: I signed a contract to purchase garage cabinets from a company called, "The Closet Doctor". The price of the down payment of $1000.00 and payment upon completion of $1795.00 were clearly stated in the contract. The down payment was made and the cabinets were built for me. When the cabinets were ready for installation, I received a call and scheduling took place. The day prior to the scheduled day, I called to attempt to reschedule since I was not able to be home to help the installers get into the house. I later received a call from [redacted], the store owner, to inform me that I would be charged $150.00 extra due to the change of appointment. I felt that this was not appropriate since my contract did not say anything about an appointment change fee. While reading the contract, I also read that that there will be no oral agreements that can be made unless it is done by written contract. From the customer point of view, it would be important to know ahead of time that a change of appointment would lead to the company attempting to charge an extra $150.00 for the cabinets. I feel that the company has an obligation to be sure this is stated in writing ahead of time if this is a practice they follow. On the day the cabinets were installed, the installers gave a bill to my wife that included the remaining balance of the contract, but $150.00 was grouped together with the total to account for their appointment change fee. My wife assumed that the bill was for the proper amount owed according to the original contract and gave the credit card number to the installers. Two phone calls were made to the main office to talk about my issue about the extra charges to the credit card, and I was told that [redacted] would have to call me back about the issue. When I did not get a phone call back, my wife went to the store location to try to talk about the issue and show that the original contract wording did not support the attempt to profit the extra $150.00. [redacted]'s wife made herself available to discuss the issue during that visit, but she was only able to tell us that they gave me the wrong contract to sign which excluded the wording about the $150.00 appointment change fee. She continued to explain that other customers receive their new contract that includes the wording about the $150.00 appointment change fee. Despite the mistake on their part, her decision was that the company would maintain their position that they are deserving of the $150.00. The only fees that I would like to be credited back is the $150.00 that was charged unfairly from my perspective. However, the company feels strongly that the fees are fair to charge without a proper contracted agreement.Desired Settlement: $150.00 credit back for unfair charges is all I am seeking.

Business

Response:

The customer is correct that it is not on his contract. It was however reviewed with him at the time of signing the contract when our installation process was explained in detail to him. He agreed to it and asked us to get the work done as soon as possible. We scheduled and confirmed the date for install. Late in the afternoon the day prior to the installation, when the job was loaded and ready to leave first thing in the morning, we received a phone call from the customer stating that "tomorrow doesn't work for me" I offered to be flexible on arrival time or even come a day later. I then informed the customer of our policy that we had reviewed with him at the time of signing the contract. I asked when we would be able to install the job and he said "I'll let you know". We made several attempts to contact the customer with no answer, several weeks went by and they finally said they would be ready over 30 days from the originally scheduled installation date. The additional fee was explained on the phone and agreed to over the phone and the charge was added to our completion sign off sheet and was clearly visible. The job was delivered and installed as agreed upon, the customer was given a walk through and inspection of the job and the completion sign off sheet was reviewed, signed and paid for. The customer sent his spouse in to speak with me about this issue and it was explained to her again and she said that her husband would want to talk to me about it. The only contact info that was given to us was for the spouse and the customer has made no attempt to contact me since the installation.

With all of that said, I will refund the $150 to the customer. The customer (not his spouse) will need to pick up the check and sign for it at our showroom during normal business hours.