Armstrong Steel Buildings. I don’t even know where to start.
In April 2015, I was looking to build a shop in my area (Greenwood Village, Colorado). I’d heard a lot about Armstrong Steel’s pre-engineered metal buildings before, so I wanted to work with them. I visited their website and read about all of the unique services that they provided, and I was hooked.
Looking at their website (armstrongsteel.com/), everything looks extremely simple. All you need to do is fill in the specifications of your building, and they will get immediately get in touch with you to talk about the pricing and will start building as soon as they can. It seems too simple to be true, which is right, because it isn’t true. I filled in all the details about the building I needed, following the instructions on their website, and then waited for someone to contact me. It took them five days to call me (a far cry from ‘immediately) and when they did, it was to ask me about the specifications of my building again.
I was pretty irritated. I reminded them that I’d filled it all in through their website, but the man on the phone told me very rudely that he didn’t have the time and to just tell him what he asked for. I was in the middle of work, and didn’t have any of the details with me, but before I could tell him that he finished the conversation on his own. He abruptly snapped that he was in the middle of a big sale and was very busy and slammed the phone down. Actually slammed it.
I have no idea what he was trying to do. Did he think he’d convince me that they were a busy company and that I should therefore be honored that they were willing to work with me? Because he didn’t. All he convinced me of was that he was a huge jerk.
I tried calling him back that evening, but he didn’t pick up. The next day he called me in the middle of a meeting. I told him I was busy and tried to make it quick, but he insisted on drawing it out as long as he could, when HE ALREADY HAD THE FREAKING INFORMATION. He made me wait as he shuffled through papers and drawled his questions, and I finally told him that I’d have to speak to him later, to which he slammed the phone down again without replying. Re-establishing his jerk status.
He actually did pick up that evening when I called him back, and managed to explain the specifications of my building once more. He was rude and impatient, but I finally got it over with. He told me he’d contact me again when they’d be able to start.
I was contacted a week later. I went over to the office and met up with a salesperson. He talked to me about my project (not telling me anything that I didn’t already know) and asked me to pay 4000 dollars in advance. I asked him how much the total project would cost. He wouldn’t give me an answer. Not even a rough estimate. He just kept repeating that they couldn’t tell so early on, and to just pay him the initial amount for now. I said that there was no way I could sign for such a project without knowing what the final cost would be, but he still wouldn’t tell me. On top of this he was unbearably rude about the entire ordeal, and treated me like a disgusting bug of sorts.
Finally I managed to get him to roughly calculate the price of my project. Then we got around to talking about the time it would take to get it done. I was told that it would take about four to five weeks, which was fine with me. I signed the contract with them and waited for the work to start.
Four weeks later, they had barely started.
Every week when I called them up they said that the materials were being shipped. They’d even go as far as to give me a date when they’d arrive. And on the specified day there would still be nothing, and they weren’t even able to come up with a fancy excuse for it.
In the end I cancelled the project altogether. I lost my initial payment, and quite a bit more, but I was better off cancelling it.