STAIRCO OF TEXAS

Description of Work: Stairco came out in August 13th of 2007, gave us an unbelievably great price, took a deposit of $2130, and said they'd call when they were going to come out and start the work. The deposit check was cashed immediately. They were going to give us a wrought-iron balusters and put in hardwood stairs. On approximately September 13th, one month later, I hadn't heard from them, even though our check had cleared, so I called the office. I was told Dennis (the owner) would have to call me back to tell me when I was scheduled for work to begin. Someone came out in early October to do a stain match, where they brought a small piece of lumber to figure out which stain to use on the hardwood. I asked then when the actual work would start. The worker told me she didn't know, I'd have to talk to Dennis. Once again, in October of 2007, I called about the schedule and never received a call back. In November (now three months after the estimate and deposit check was cashed), I called and spoke to Dennis and told him either come out and do the work this month, or I was canceling. I was assured he would complete the job in the month of November. On November 30th, I received an email from Dennis's wife explaining that the wrought iron pieces were "held up in customs" and therefore the work could not be started or completed until they were cleared. I started to call other staircase companies and a few of them laughed when I told them this explanation "held up in customs". They said they had never heard of something like that before. In December, I called Dennis and explained that it had now been four months since he had cashed our $2130 check and I wanted a refund because no work had been performed, at all. He was very ugly, said I couldn't cancel my contract, told me to read the contract where it tells me that if I cancel he gets to keep my deposit, etc. I contacted an attorney who advised me to go through the Better Business Bureau first. I did that, filed a claim with them, and he did not respond to the BBB within the two week time frame set out by the BBB. Finally, my husband told Dennis that we were getting ready to ask our attorney to file court papers, when Dennis admitted to my husband that he was having "cash flow problems" and would pay us our deposit back, but had to do so in installments. Dennis paid us half of our deposit back in mid-January 2008, and the remainder was paid back on January 30th, 2008, five months after he cashed our deposit check. After he paid us back, StairCo then responded to the BBB complaint I filed, stating that I was the problem, I was impatient, and had I just waited like his other customers, I'd be very happy. Basically, he blamed the problem on me.