First, let me state that Hour Glass Company takes great pride and satisfaction in treating ALL customers fairly and honestly, as well as in doing high quality work at very reasonable prices! I can't say that I didn't treat [member name removed] differently than other customers, I did, not because he is Vietnamese, but because of the fact that he cannot communicate effectively in the English language. Typically, when someone throws out the race card, they don't have a solid argument to back up their position. Unfortunately, that is the case here. (By the way, [member name removed], don't think we didn't hear you and your assistant calling us "Stupid white guys" behind our backs - but I'm not going to call YOU a racist!) I took his calls in the early morning, late at night, and on the weekend, I went to the jobsite and met with other contractors to do our best to make sure the job went as smoothly as possible, due to his uncertain and constantly changing plan, or lack of one, to renovate the building. I have been in the glass business for over 25 years, and have never had to "babysit" a job as much as this one! I even went with him, at his request, to the South Portland Planning Board to act as a facilitator and translator, to try to help explain his project to them. (By the way, you should ask the SPPB about how much they love the storefront work we did for them!) [member name removed] liked our work , and our service attitude, enough on his last project that he called and asked us to do this one. He told me that (surprisingly enough) that he had had a falling out with his last partner, and took a loss on that project. Yes, we did fully refund his deposit, "ate" our materials and a couple thousand dollars in labor, and removed our materials from the building. I made an agreement with him, and set up the removal of our products on a Monday, for the Friday at the end of that week. [member name removed] called me on Wednesday of the same week, asking me if I could move up the removal. I told him that I could not, and it would be done on Friday, per our agreement. We removed our doors and windows, after giving him his cash deposit back. ([member name removed] insisted on doing business with us in cash, so I could "hide" the transaction, avoid paying taxes on it, and give him a better deal. ALL of our transactions go through our books, cash or otherwise.) My experience on this job shows me the need for a "reverse" Angie's List, where contractors can review and warn others about certain customers. We were not the only tradespeople to suffer on this project. The plumbers, electricians, and sheetrockers also shared our frustrations. Some of them also bailed on this job. Unfortunately for the next window and door company, they failed to contact me for some background as to why we pulled up stakes! [member name removed] was in WAY over his head, given his limited ability to communicate with contractors, and his total lack of experience as a general contractor. I'm sure he must know someone that can do a decent job on nails. He had a vague concept of what he wanted to have the building look like afterwards, and a couple rough sketches, which changed several times. Fortunately, they were done in pencil.. [member name removed] could not make up his mind exactly what he wanted to do. He had me order some of the windows, called in a panic and had me cancel them, then called the next day to have me reorder them, only to call again and have me re-cancel them. He asked me to try to keep the costs down on the job, as he was in a short financial situation, due to his last failed business venture. I told him that I could do that, and made an agreement to install some economically priced, but energy efficient, windows, then complained about the quality of them after they were in. After he finally made up his mind about the area I had to cancel and re-cancel the products for, he asked me to price some nice doors for that area. I priced some "very nice" doors for him and he said "No, too much money". So I priced some "good" doors for him. I also showed him pictures of what we were going to do, so he fully understood what they were. He said OK, so I ordered and installed them. As soon as they were installed, he said "I don't like these doors, they are cheap looking! They are not "nice"! They look like Home Depot doors" (They weren't - they were Therma Tru Smooth Star custom sized outswinging double doors with high performance full glass inserts.) About this time I truly and fully realized that I would never see the back half of my payment on the job. That's when I decided to cut my losses and leave as gracefully as possible. There was no several hours of fighting, as stated in the "customer" review. This review could not have been written by the [member name removed] without a LOT of help, so the check box stating that the "review" was " my actual first hand experience" should not have been checked. We did other work in this building, but left it in, unpaid for, and were not going to charge for it, just to try to make this as clean a break as possible. Please remember, I was all set to walk away with my pride, knowing that I did the right thing! I must say that I am disappointed with Angie's list for allowing someone to assert that our business is "racist", without some sort of substantiation! On the positive side, this review prompted me to register Hour Glass Company on Angie's List. I had been putting it on the back burner. We look forward to having you share your experiences with us with Angie's List. We guarantee that you will be happy that you made Hour Glass Company YOUR glass company!