CABINET PLACE

I spoke with Tony Jackson, president of The Cabinet Place at a home show in St. Pete about June, 2015. He came to my house on Sept. 9,2015. He was on time. He gave me a quote of $3828 to replace 16 cabinet doors with maple wood. I had two other estimates which were more. Without checking online (I was not an Angie's List member yet), I gave him a check for $1,914. He said someone would be out to measure but I called several days last week and have not heard from him since last Tuesday, Sept 15 when he wanted to coordinate with my granite rep. And of course, she never heard from him. I realize I should have checked him out. I've gone with my gut many times before and never had a problem. Angie's List does not have anything on this guy but there is at least one horrible review on www.complaints.com where the person actually had the News check this guy out. And the BBB has several complaints on file for him So I am posting this, hoping it will help others. I know some people may not think a week is a long time to hear back from a contractor but I would be very wary of this guy. I will ask for my money back if he ever calls and check online in the future.

The location described is a condo on St Pete Beach, Florida owned by Maryland residents who visit the condo and also rent the condo when possible. On July 21, 2010 a contract was signed with the provider $7,471 to replace kitchen cabinets, drawers and countertops as well as two bathroom vanities. A 50% deposit was given the provider and work was scheduled to start August 30, 2010. The August 2010 date was not met as scheduled and regular attempts to get a status on the work were ignored by the provider. Even after a second payment was made $2,100 to the provider in September 2010 delays continued and call were again ignored. The installation was not completed until October 2010. The provider designed the cabinet configuration and suggested the use of a cabinet type that would not be subject to any damage from adjacent stove or other appliances such as coffee maker. The assurance was based on the fact that the product suggested by the provider had previous heat related issues that he insisted had been resolved by the manufacturer. In July 2013 cabinet and drawer surfaces began to peel. On July 26, 2013 provider inspected damage and advised that the he would contact supplier who he said would honor warranty still in effect. Provider said he would replace affected cabinet and drawers at no charge. It was not until after repeated calls to the provider during August and early September 2013 that he advised on September 21st the manufacturer would not honor the warranty of the "heat resistant" product he had recommended. The provider suggested that if we agree to split the cost of new doors and drawers he would place an order. On October 14, 2013 the provider faxed us a copy of what he said was the order he had placed for new doors and drawers which who take approximately two weeks to be shipped after which he would install them and fix issues with the kitchen countertop and the vanity backsplashes in the bathrooms. In the fax the provider wrote, "I will tickle this for 10 days and will call you then". On November 14, 2013, after not having calls returned by the provider we contacted the company who the order had supposedly been placed with. A company representative advised that no action had been taken on the order placed by The Cabinet Place because the company was waiting for The Cabinet Place to call back with a valid credit card number to secure the order. Calls to the provider on November 14 and since that time have not been responded to. A complaint # 67260635 Ref #1-44001962-6720635-18-3500 was filed with the Clearwater, Florida office of the Better Business Bureau in September 2013 and remains unresolved.

In my over 40 years experience with contractors, my dealings with this contractor where without a doubt the worst. What was proposed to take about a week took nearly seven months -- replete with missed appointments, not having supplies, you name it. Part of the lengthy time was due to having to redo the cabinet doors -- the initial quality (of the contrasting glazing, essentially pinstriping) was so poor I had to wonder if there was any quality control at all. You can imagine our frustration at making an appointment for installation two weeks in the future, going on a trip, coming back, and having no one show up -- and, upon questioning as to why, being told the cabinets hadn't even been ordered. The eventual quality was only barely acceptable -- and then only after extensive re-work and just

I was seeking a company to remodel my kitchen and stopped by The Cabinet Place on Ulmerton Road. I met the owner who said he could come out the next day and give me a free estimate. On June 15th, the owner, Tony Jackson, came out to my house and convinced me to sign a contract for a remodeling job on my kitchen before getting other estimates and I paid him a $3400 deposit. He assured me that the job would be started August 5th, be completed in two weeks. He said his guy who makes the cabinets was out of town, but that he would contact me to come out and measure and see specifically what I wanted. No one called, so I called several times and left messages. A lady called trying to reschedule the start time, stating that the cabinet maker had a death in the family and jobs were running behind. I told her that the agreement was that the work would start August 5th. I then went by the business and spoke with Tony who assured me the start date had not changed and that he would set the date and time for the cabinet maker and contractor to come out. Again, no phone call. It was two weeks before the job was to start, and nothing had been done. I called again and he had the contractor he deals with call me to say he would come out the next week, and he did. While at my home, the contractor voiced concerns about the way the contract had been written, and that his part was not separate, so he had no idea how much he had to work with, and didn't want to start any work without knowing he was going to get paid from Tony. I again went by and spoke with Tony, who tried to postpone the start date stating that the contractor said changes I had made would take longer. I told him that the contractor told me there was no way the job would be done in a two week period as there was a process of the cabinet maker measuring the cabinets (which had not been done), making the boxes, ordering the doors, then sending out the granite people to measure, order the granite, order the hardware, and that it was usually a 6 to 8 week job minimum. He had NOT said it would postpone the start date! I also told him that he was concerned about getting paid, and said he was meeting with him (Tony) to work out the details. Tony said he would take care of it, that there was no problem. I began researching this company to find several similar reviews and problems with this company. Tony was supposed to send out the cabinet maker with the contractor later that week, but I emailed him first to tell him that I had to have proof of license, insurance, and bond as he had told me in the beginning all workers were. I called to check on the license number and found out that the license had been suspended due to failure to provide liability insurance.I called him and told him we had a problem. He said he could show me the copy. He called back and said he had spoken to the insurance company, and they had sent it in March, but would resend it that day. He became very upset with me, and said no other customer in ten years had demanded a waiver of lien and proof of everything the way I had. I told him that is the way I do business, and if he didn't like it, I had rather just get my deposit back. He said he would give it back. I asked if I could come by and get it. He said he would have it ready on Friday, two days later. It has been two weeks and I have been given one excuse after another as to why I have not received it. He did send me a cancellation request stating he would send a certified check to be received on or before August 25th. He stated that he would give it back even though I didn't cancel within the legal 3 days after signing the contract. I called the licensing board back 5 days after the conversation about the insurance took place, and they stated no such action had occurred. He was still not currently licensed. I replied to his email that he was not licensed as stated on the contract, and he had never sent anyone out to even measure to order materials, and that he had had use of my $3400 deposit for two months. I also discovered that he is not Better Business Accredited as it says on his business flyer. I am still awaiting my deposit return at this time, and hope to have it by the promised date! I don't have a lot of money and I can't even look for other kitchen companies without my money back. I am writing this only to warn others of this company and its owner. As another review stated, he over-promises and under-delivers.

The cabinet people, I have a very negative rating about them. I hate to give somebody a negative rating. They removed all of the existing cabinets. Well in the first the representative, the owner of the company came out and made measurements, then they removed the existing cabinets and put in all new cabinets. The end product, we are happy with, but to get there, was in our experience, not a good experience at all. Let me start from the beginning, we gave them about a four months notice as to when we wanted it done, so they had plenty of time to come in to the site, my wife said we gave them a six months notice. So, we made sure that they could get all their ducks in a row as far as coming out and taking the measurements and giving the right colors and everything that we wanted. So, when it came time to actually do it, to contact them, to arrange for the technicians to come out and do the removal and the additions, it was like pulling teeth. Every time we would call we would get a recording from the company, either the people that actually work at the shop or the company president, he gave us his cell phone number, which was published in their brochure that they hand out but everything kept getting delayed. They would tell us that they were coming at a particular date and we would remain at home waiting for them to arrive and when we would give them a call later around in the day when they haven't arrived on the day they say they would arrive, they would say, "Oh, I am sorry, we have some other problems, a machine broke down or we had other customers that we had to deal with. And during the job they constantly would say will be here tomorrow and they didn't show up. Then when they did show up, we were not happy with the professionalism at all of some of their installers, not all of the installers but some of their installers. They were extremely childish in some of their behavior. When they brought some of the cabinets, they weren't the right size they tried to convince us to accept it, but we said no, that's not what we ordered. Then when they would get things up, it would be time to put the handles on the cabinet and they didn't have them, they thought we were going to order them and that was not the case. Again, all these arrangements were made many months in advance, the handles were special orders from Lowe's and the owner of the place seemed to be so concerned, he seemed to be overwhelmed with the number of jobs that he had to do that he kept going from one job to another, to another, to another and ours never got completed in a nice timely manner. It took at least double the time that we were told to put those cabinets in. When they got in, we found the handle were crooked, so we had to have them comeback and redo all of the handles. When they brought some of the cabinets out, they were cracked, so we had to have them bring it back which they did. Shelf's were also missing that they had to fabricate for us. When all this got done the final product looks good, we are happy with that but it was hard getting there. It was a headache because my wife and I were here day after day, after day waiting they would come, they would stay for a couple of hours and sometimes they would stay the whole day and then they would say well we will definitely be back tomorrow and that just wasn't the case. They give you a good price but they sure make you work for it. They dealt with us again it was like pulling your teeth to get the resolution that we wanted but everything was resolved and overall we are happy with it. I was just the situation that I don't want to go through that again. The lack of responsiveness has to be the key issue here.