Is zero stars possible?
My wife ran our school carnival this year and booked items for list with incredible events. The dates/times were confirmed multiple times, and the proprietor (William/Bill) even admits his "driver got the time wrong" and failed to deliver our two largest items for the school carnival. This was a VERY large event, with tons of buildup, we do it every year and it raises TONS of money for the school. We had advertised the two attractions the group was supposed to deliver and we got nothing. Day of we called the guy an hour before the event (30 minutes after he was supposed to show up) and he was asleep.
Now, what you have to understand is that this guy doesn't own anything he rents. So you're counting on not just this joke of a vendor getting the details right, but also on him communicating it right to the owner/driver on the other end AND that guy getting it right. If something goes wrong, he says "the driver got it wrong, I'm really sorry" and you're left holding the bag (in our case) with over 1000 people at an event with the feature attractions a no-show.
That's bad enough, right? So, if I were running this business I'd do everything I could to make it right. Yeah, not so much. We got an earful about how we "don't understand how his business works" as if this is required in order to be a customer. Yeah, I understand. I understand that we paid our deposit and scheduled our time and you didn't get it done, as promised. Now, had we failed on our end, we're out the deposit and maybe the rental cost. On your end, you just lose a sale. What if you just found someone willing to rent for a higher price? Could you just leave us hanging? I don't know because I have to trust this guy to tell me. How ridiculous.
Here's the lesson: If you're planning an event, I'd suggest ONLY renting from businesses that OWN their own stuff. If it's no big deal if the no-show, then don't sweat it. If it matters, you can't rely on a business like this guy.
Second lesson: The dude that runs this joint wants YOU to understand how to run his business but doesn't understand how to run his own. He tells us "If a plane crashes, do you blame the travel agent?". What a silly analogy. Try this one, Bill. If the subcontractor doesn't show up, I DO BLAME THE GENERAL CONTRACTOR. That's what he is - a GC that blames the sub and pays zero penalty. RUN AWAY RUN AWAY. I hope this review takes away at least a little business from this group, serving as appropriate punishment for his failure to run his business and failure to fix it when he screwed up.
If you need the name of some other vendors, ping us on yelp. I'm planning to give high marks to the other two we used. One of them even came through for us with some backup stuff in a pinch. read more