The Basement Guys

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So far so good

I signed up for a contest they had running several months ago. I recently received a call stating that the drawing had not taken place but they would like to come out and give me an estimate. So I went ahead and scheduled an appointment and they took down some information. On Thursday November 29th they came out right on time as schedule. The man doing the appraisal was Luke. We went to the basement and he looked around and did some measuring. We went back upstairs and he went over some power point slides and drew up an estimate. I have done a lot of research online as well as had several other estimates. Luke was very knowledgable and friendly. I told him that we would give him a call and let him know what we decided. Overall experience was very good. The next week I received another call stating that they would like to send a manager out to get a second opinion on the basement as well as give us a cheaper estimate. I thought sure I am willing to go through another 30 minute appiontment to get a cheaper estimate. So we scheduled an appointment on Tuesday Dec 4 at 7:00 PM. On Tuesday he hadn?t show up but I received a call at 7:20 and was told that he was running late and asked if it was still ok for him to come, he was leaving his last appointment and the GPS said he would be at our house at 7:45. I told her that was fine. 7:45 came and went and I ended up calling the number back at 8:10 and the lady (very friendly by the way) was surprised and apologetic and said she would call him and see where he was. She called back a few minutes later and said that he was leaving his last appointment and the GPS said he would be there at 8:40 and asked if that was ok. I thought it was weird because he was supposed to be leaving the last time they called and they even gave me a GPS time as if he was in route already. I told her that I was fine with him still coming but was also ok if they just wanted to reschedule for the appraisers sake since it was getting so late and I didn?t want him to have to be out working that late. She said he would have no problem with it so I agreed. Randy arrived at our house at 8:45 and introduced himself. We went to the basement he took some measurements and looked around. He made a couple rude comments about how many quotes I got like he just expected me to go into it blind and pick his company. Once we were upstairs he said several other rude things to me and my wife was now present as she didn?t go to the basement with us. He asked what I thought the biggest advantage of their system was over other companies. I replied that for our situation since we don?t have a lot of water coming into our basement, it is really just enough to keep us from being able to finish it, that I didn?t see a huge advantage of one system over another and that it was really a price sensitivity issue. He suggested if that was the case that he price a single system instead of the double system that we previously got quoted. I asked which of the two systems he would suggest if we went with the single and he teetered back and forth for a while and finally very smugly said to me, ?Well if you have so many other quotes and are such the expert why don?t you tell me what you would do in this situation.? I could not believe that anyone trying to win someones business would talk to them that way. I went ahead and replied with which system I would install if it were me and he agreed. He quoted us the single system and it actually came out more expensive than the quote I got the first time for the double system. So I told him that and he said there is no way. The first guy must have made a mistake, this is the rock bottom price and we are hardly making any money off of this price. He seemed very angry about this. He asked what I was going to do and I told him I would talk to my wife and let him know. He replied again very rudely, ?Fine, have a good evening?. He gathered his material from the table and walked straight out the front door without another word. I was pretty furious afterward and my wife even commented that she couldn?t believe how rudely he talked to me. I fumed all night and in the morning decided to call and ask to talk to his manager. On the morning of Wed Dec. 5 I called the same number and a different lady answered. I explained to her that I had an appointment the night before and gave her my information and asked to speak to his manager. She was also extremely friendly and explained that his manager wasn?t in but she would have him give me a call back. I thanked her and we hung up. 13 minutes later I received a call from his manager and explained the situation. He looked up my file and we talked for a little while. He again was very friendly and apologetic and said that we would talk with Randy. He thanked me for letting him know of the situation. I told him that Luke (the first guy that came out) was very friendly as well and he said that he would have Luke give me a call with a more aggressive quote so that we didn?t have to go through another appointment and waste more time. I think he handled the situation very well and was pleased when I got off the phone. It is now Dec 10 (5 days later) and I haven?t heard back from the company so that is the end of my story?.for now. I had a good interaction with several of the people at the company but my rating reflects the overall satisfaction and the good is greatly outweighed by the bad.