If I could give minus stars on this review, I would. The owner of this company is very dishonest. There were many incidents from trying to charge us money on what was supposed to be a FREE estimate to lying to us multiple times about the owner's credentials (we believe he doesn't even have a contractor license to completely upgrade the commercial fire suppression system as advertised on his website) and changed their estimated price after they did half of the work. This is a type of scam. Justin B. tried to make us pay extra money (3,000 dollars total) in order to complete the work they started. He originally told us that he could complete ALL of the work for 1,000 dollars. He took advantage of the fact that we are not fire system mechanics. He lied to us over and over. We believed him because we saw his Yelp reviews which we now know were written by his wife and fake accounts. That's why we decided to write this review to warn others not to spend THOUSANDS of DOLLARS on a SCAM created by Justin B, the owner of A Plus Fire and Safety.
After Justin B. (Owner) promised us in writing via text messages that he could fix what needed to be done to be compliant with the request of the local fire department, we agreed and paid a little over 1,000 dollars to him. Half an hour after he walked out of our business and told us he completed all the work, he called and texted us asking for 2,000 dollars more or else we would have problems with the local fire department. We plan to make a formal complaint to Better Business Bureau.
We are still in shocked of the amount of dishonesty that we experienced from working with Justin B, the owner of A Plus Company himself.
Here is more details on what happened:
1) They advertised on their website that their prospective customers can call for a free estimate. When I called this company, Justin B., the owner answered the phone and told me over the phone that it will be 150 dollars for an estimate. After I agreed to it and set an appointment, no one showed up at the appointment time the next day. Called Justin, he gave a weird excuse, blamed it on his employee and promised to come out the day after. (I should have known when he didn't show up on an appointment that this was a RED FLAG that he is not an honest and reliable person.)
2) On their website, they advertised that they offer Kitchen Fire Suppression System installation, UL 300 upgrade and etc.
After an estimate, Justin gave us a VAGUE estimate. He promised us verbally that he could finish the job of new system installation and upgrades for a little over a thousand dollars. When I asked for a detailed, written estimate, he told us via text messages (as posted below) that he would explain everything in details once the job is completed. Turned out this was a scam. We found out that he didn't have the license to fully upgrade the system as advertised on his website after we paid the estimated price (over 1,000 dollars) and he called us back half an hour after he told us he completed the job, asking to pay 2,000 dollars more to his friend. He finally told us that he didn't have the contractor license to finish the job of upgrading the fire suppression system. We were shocked. He even threatened us over the phone that if we didn't pay extra 2,000 dollars to his "friend," we would be in trouble with the local fire departments. -- We were lucky that we found an honest company who helped us finish the work for half of what Justin was asking for. ---
We decide to write this review to help warn others about the scam. We did not know what was going on at the time since we are not mechanics. We BELIEVED Justin because 5 stars on Yelp which we found out today that most of his reviews are fake, by his friends or wife. We found Justin B., the owner gave himself his own good reviews a couple of times.--
Truth is it seems that Justin didn't have Washington State Contractor license. May be he just had technician certification- that was all. We do not know for sure at this point. He lied and changed his stories many times.
We called Fire of Department of Seattle to ask about this company and Justin. Turned out that this company was not even registered in the system with the Fire Department of Seattle.
*** Updated- after we wrote an honest review about this business, Justin B and his wife Miriam C wrote FAKE reviews on our business trying to hurt us. - This is the low integrity that this business has. Be careful of doing any agreement with this business.
The pictures below showed text messages from Justin (with this company's phone number) of the lies and scams. He told us he could fix everything for a certain price then scammed us. Justin Butler, the owner of this business may only have a license as a service technician but advertised himself on the website as a contractor that can perform complete upgrade of the fire suppression system. Be careful! read more