Joshua A.

After following what CleverPet was doing for almost two years, we learned about their new product FluentPet and decided to make a purchase. Their checkout asked if we had a coupon code, but after searching for a while online, there were no coupon codes to be found, so we placed the order and paid full price. That was on July 17th.

The package arrived yesterday and we hadn't even opened the box, when I received an e-mail asking if I'm "still thinking about making a purchase" and offering me 25% off. Bear in mind we spent $79.99 on this starter kit so that's a $20 discount, which is significant. Thinking the best about this company I tried contacting them through their online chat (they do not provide a phone number to reach them) and a woman (unfortunately I can't name a name but it had 3 letters and started with a P) answered the chat. I was informed that discount codes are for new purchases only, not for orders already placed. I explained that we had just placed this order a week ago and only received it yesterday. I asked if that meant that I would have to return the product and place a new order. Instead of responding and talking to the customer, a few minutes went by and she responded with an RMA and a shipping address, letting me know where to ship it back (at my expense) if that's "what I wanted to do".

I tried to explain that we had been following CleverPet for almost two years, and had decided to make a purchase and trust this company. I explained how disappointing her response was, and that we were looking forward to purchasing more of the products as our dog's training went along. She didn't even bother to respond and just left the chat.

Seems a bit short sighted to lose a customer, and potentially lots more because of this review, over $20. Why not just treat people fairly and do the right thing? I mean, we're trying to enrich dog's lives here. Shouldn't we all be supporting one another and doing everything we can to help?

Apparently their customers mean nothing to them, and they couldn't care less about treating anyone fairly or kindly. I would advise to stay far away from this company and go with one of their competitor's products (preferably someone with a proper return policy and a phone number).

I ordered new glasses for Thanksgiving this year. Before ordering, I spoke at length with a sales associate and specifically asked how they package glasses, since shipping companies are notoriously harsh on handling shipments. He assured me that not only are they packaged really well, but if anything goes wrong they will make it right.

Well, exactly what I feared would happen, happened. The glasses weren't packaged well, and they arrived broken into a million pieces, and upon opening the box, glass started spilling all over my floor (not too good with kids and dogs around). We immediately took photos, called the company, and that's where all the problems with this company began.

I spoke with Destanie, the supervisor of the entire "customer service" department and beyond being incredibly rude to us, told us that we would have to wait for UPS to come and inspect the packages before they would ship replacements. I explained that there was no way I was keeping a box full of broken glass in my home with kids and dogs around and she finally told me to take extensive photos (which I already had) and e-mail them to her. At that point, she instructed us to to dispose of the glasses. She still refused to ship any replacements, stating that she had to "abide by company policy", but would get on filing a claim with the shipper first thing in the morning and once that had been filed, she would issue our refund so we could go elsewhere.

I tried following up with Destanie via phone but she would never answer, and no one at the company could ever find her. I did send her a few e-mails and she finally responded when I threatened to file a chargeback with my credit card company. Unfortunately, her response was a warning to me about how my credit card would be closed if I filed a chargeback (completely untrue). After reading that, I called my card company, filed a dispute, and of course I am still waiting for that to be resolved.

It is now Dec 4th, and I just received an e-mail from someone named Amanda, who told us that UPS had tried "multiple times" to schedule an inspection with us but we did not respond. Let's be very clear. At no time did UPS ever try to schedule an inspection with us, and anytime there was any communication, we responded immediately. UPS did show up out of the blue one day with a call tag to pickup the shipment, but we explained that we were instructed to dispose of the broken glass and had submitted photos to the seller. They said no problem and left. That was our only communication with UPS.

To date, no refund, and only an e-mail stating that "our claim had been closed" due to our lack of response. I am out $172 and have nothing but wasted time and a bunch of broken glass I had to clean up to show for it.

On another note, we just looked up reviews on this company and it turns out we're not the only ones this has happened to. I can't understand how this company is still in business, or who is purchasing from them. RUN FAR AWAY FROM THESE PEOPLE. THEY ARE CROOKS AND LIARS.

UPDATE:

Initially, I gave this company 1 star and titled my review "stay away from this company". Today I received an e-mail from the vice president of BuildDirect who stepped in, had already reviewed the entire situation so that I didn't have to start from scratch, listened, and took the time to really understand everything that had happened. He was so distressed by this situation that he not only offered to make the customer whole by providing a full refund for the door, but also to cover all of the additional costs we incurred.

Beyond that, and after he finishes taking care of everything for his customer, he promised to dive into the sales and management personnel involved in causing the situation to escalate to the point it did and implement immediate changes to ensure this doesn't happen to any other customer.

Though I wish it never went as far as it did, having a VP step in and do what he did, as well as show so much compassion for the customer, truly says that this company deserves a second chance. It's not very often that you find a company willing to go above and beyond for a customer and BuildDirect proved that to me today. Therefore I have changed my 1 star rating to 3 stars.

Based on only today's experience with the VP, BuildDirect would receive 5 stars without question, but I think it's important to understand that as of this moment, it took weeks of back and forth, as well as a lengthy online review posted across multiple websites, to rectify the issues. I truly hope that this never happens to anyone else and I do encourage others to give BuildDirect a try.

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INITIAL REVIEW:

We purchased an iron door from BuildDirect in Aug of 2015. As I wanted to get as many specifics about the door as possible before placing my order with a company I had not worked with previously, I gave them a call and got a really nice guy on the phone who tried his best to answer my questions. I asked if all the necessary hardware to install the door (nuts, bolts, etc.) were included and he said absolutely. I asked if standard door hardware such as the latch and deadbolt could be used and he said "yes, the really great thing about these doors is that they are so easy to install and you can use any standard door hardware you want".

When the door showed up via freight we were very impressed with how it was packaged and protected. Everything looked great. Even though my wife and I own a company that renovates homes, we hired a company that specialized in iron door installations to install this new door and remove our existing front door. Once the install company took a look at the door when they were going to install it that's when the issues came to bear.

The door was one complete piece with the threshold welded onto the frame so there was no way to adjust the threshold to make it level with the ground. The mortising that was supposed to fit any standard hardware wasn't manufactured correctly so neither the latch nor the deadbolt pieces were able to sit flush. This caused the door to not be able to close (i. E. they were too shallow and the door hardware stuck out the sides). The strike side of the both the latch and deadbolt were in the wrong place causing the door not to close and seal properly. The deadbolt strike plate mortise had a piece of iron overlapping causing no strike plate to be able to be installed. The door also slightly touched the frame when closing and the top of the door, on the hinge side, had small piece of iron that wasn't even with the rest of the door, causing it to scrape the top of the frame every time it was opened and closed. Oh, and no hardware to install the door (nuts, bolts, washers, etc.), nor even an instruction manual or paperwork was provided with the door. Just the door itself in a big wooden pallet had arrived.

Unfortunately all of these issues only reared their heads after the door was removed from the pallet and/or installed (i. E. bolts drilled through our door frame, our drywall cut out to use the welded on mounting brackets, etc.). Luckily our install guys had bolts that fit but we had to make multiple Home Depot runs to get the rest of the hardware necessary to install the door.

I immediately called my sales rep at BuildDirect and since it was Saturday, he was not in the office. I did speak with another sales rep that said he couldn't answer anything because he wasn't familiar with the door. I explained that this was a pretty serious situation and requested he find someone else at the company who was familiar. After leaving me on hold for a while he came back and told me there was maybe one person who could try and help but he was on the phone and would have to call me back. I am still waiting for that phone call.

On Monday, after e-mailing my sales rep, I received a call back from my guy who couldn't understand why no one reached out to him over the weekend so he could step in. He said he spoke with his "category manager" and asked me to take as many photos of the issues as possible. I took 11 detailed photos and notated each one with a detailed description. That wasn't good enough and they asked me to take additional photos, suggesting the door wasn't level. I proved that both the frame and the door were perfectly level and installed correctly and that wasn't good enough. They asked for even more photos and I once again complied, this time taking a 6ft level and proving without a doubt that everything was perfectly installed.

It was obvious that neither the sales rep nor the category manager had any idea what this door looked like or how it was manufactured because I kept getting e-mail questions asking if I had removed the mounting brackets (impossible as they are welded onto the frame) or if I had drilled through the door (why on earth would I drill through the door when you use the mounting brackets to install it?).

Back and forth we went as they tried to somehow blame me for the problems. Finally they said they had found someone to come out and take a look. I received a call from a general handyman who admitted he had little to no experience with iron doors, nor could resolve any of the issues, but explained that he was asked to take pictures, assess the situation, and give them a price to repair it. I called BuildDirect and said that while I'm thrilled to have someone come out and take care of everything, the guy they chose couldn't possibly give them an accurate assessment as he was a general handyman, not a door specialist. I provided a few different names/numbers of people that worked for iron door companies here in town and my BD sales rep said he agreed that the handyman was probably not the right person. He said he would get with his category manager and call on a more qualified professional.

On Sept 9th and I received a call from the handyman asking if he can come by and take a look at the door. I told him I was under the impression that BuildDirect had cancelled with him in order to find an iron door specialist. In a huff he says "I was only doing this as a favor to them" and hung up. Again, I called my sales rep at BD and asked what was going on since I hadn't heard anything from them since last week when we spoke about them finding a more qualified specialist. I was told that they weren't going to look for anyone else, they never contacted any of the people I suggested to them, and never cancelled with the handyman. I said that it would have been nice to let me know so that I could have been ready for an appointment that, as far as I knew, was cancelled.

The handyman ended up rescheduling for the following day (Sept 10) and arrived 30 minutes earlier than his scheduled appointment with us. No problem, we were ready. We showed him the door and pointed out the various issues. He saw every one of them and informed us that BuildDirect is "very concerned about their online reputation". He also made sure to tell us before he left that "If it were me, I would expect them to provide a brand new door and pay for not only the installation but all of the finishing work required to make everything perfect". He even went as far as to point out that we would probably need a whole new door frame since the bolts to install this door had to be drilled into the frame.

On Sept 14th, after not hearing anything from BD, I contacted my sales rep again via e-mail and received a response saying "I e-mailed my category manger this morning. As soon as I hear something I'll let you know". Bear in mind that the handyman immediately reported back to BD from his truck outside my home, so they have been ignoring this situation since Sept 10th. It's now Sept 16th and I still have yet to hear from BD. It appears they are still ignoring the situation in the hopes it will go away. It will not.

Everything I explain to BD is twisted into somehow making the customer wrong and the bad guy, they don't listen to anything the customer is actually saying to them, and they make one excuse after another.

Having a nice new front door was supposed to be a wonderful change to our home. Instead we have had nothing but bad experiences with BuildDirect, are still working on all the finishing like the molding, etc. Luckily we were able to hire a welder was able to resolve some of the more serious issues so we can finally use the iron door we purchased. Additionally, we have had to order special door hardware in order to make everything fit properly, and spent yesterday creating a cement threshold extension so the massive trip hazard (i. E. the bottom of the door) is corrected.

The amount of time and stress involved in this process far outweighs any money we may have saved by ordering from BuildDirect. Most of what BuildDirect tells you isn't true because they aren't familiar with the products they sell, and if something arrives with bad manufacturing, they'll try to put the blame on you. Their prices might be amazing, but as we all eventually learn, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Stay far away from BuildDirect.