Lack of integrity in Arcy Duran's & his staff's communication & business practices. Arcy increased costs from verbal estimate to written estimate, redirected to what they wanted to do & away from what we requested, & was not reliable or accountable for clear communication, follow-through, & satisfaction. We did not end up using or recommending him or his business.
We were looking to get a durable sliding screen door made that would fit into our existing patio door frame & latch properly. On May 28th, we phoned & spoke with Michael who said they could give an estimate over the phone with our rough measurements (verified later as accurate). We provided those in the call, & after Michael said he consulted with Arcy, Michael quoted $85 for the door with fiberglass screening & $110 for the door with pet screen. We said we would go with pet screen & that the latch would be a key focus for the screen to work with our frame.
Michael said we could pay $85 for them to come to our residence located outside of Santa Fe or we could take photos & full measurements & send the information via email. We sent the email on June 1st with ownership of the delay & added that one of us would drop by the shop on in the afternoon to take a look at the door materials the shop would use prior to going ahead with an order & build. We dropped by that afternoon & were shown the materials, but no one had opened the email or taken a look for it yet. Owing to constraints, no one could do so then. Michael agreed to get with Arcy to get the email information; & we agreed to talk the next day.
No chat happened the next day, & with ownership from us for the day's delay, we phoned the shop on June 3rd to discuss details & get the order in place. Instead, Michael again said that no one got to the email, & Michael agreed to our request to call us after they read the email.
The next call was a voice mail late on June 5th from Michael with a request for us to call first thing Monday to schedule one of their workers, who was doing a job at 10:30 am in our area, to come by our residence that day for measurements.
Although were not clear what did not work about the stats given or even if they looked at what we emailed, we thought seeing the frame in person could matter in a door that fully worked, & we called first thing the 8th. In the call with Michael Romero, he said they could get to our residence prior to their 10:30 service & scheduled for 9:30A. One of us missed work for an extra 3 hours waiting for the shop worker owing to 2 more phone calls from the shop after 9:30A with revision to 10:20A and then to prior to 1P. The worker showed up at 12:45P.
The worker took measurements & confirmed the door they would make would fully work; & Michael left us with a promise to send full estimate via email. By June 12th no estimate arrived.
We called the shop on the 12th in the afternoon & specifically asked to speak with Arcy thinking that he as the owner would step up & get things clear & on track since two weeks were now passed. Arcy said that Michael was out sick & had been calling a number that we did not provide for contact. Without giving them another phone number to contact, they apparently took the phone number off the caller ID from scheduling on the 8th; Mr. Duran said they had been calling & leaving messages at that number. On the promise to send estimate via email, he said he'd do so promptly & he did.
The formal estimate both confirmed the measurements we initially provided were correct for the 1st estimate by phone on May 28th & also surprised us as the amount went from $110 for the door with pet screen to $180. A service fee also showed up at 1.5 times the verbal estimate (with that part being optional if we wanted to pick up the screen from the shop instead of them making delivery & installation).
We phoned Mr. Duran back to inquire why the change in cost. Mr. Duran said it was for the pet screen with the base price now at $110; he did not recall any call on the 28th; he cannot be accountable for verbal estimates; & he would reluctantly honor the $110. When we mentioned that all the breakdowns in over two weeks & the impact of cost increase & losing 3 hrs of work affected confidence in his shop, he defended that they had done nothing improper. We suggested a commitment to these issues not happening again with a possibility of moving forward, & he hung up.
Not recommended. read more