Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Oct 29, 2010 6:03 am Morning.
We are almost finished building at the moment and I am sooo frustrated! We have had a number of issues with the company and I have complained. I feel like my complaints are falling on deaf ears. I am pregnant and hormonal so would like opinions on whether or not Im overreacting. Hi R,, I am incredibly frustrated with the communication that we have had with your company and would like to register a complaint about the treatment we have recieved. We first built a home in 2007, we were very keen to build with your company at this time and made appointments on 4 separate occasions to sign up with your company but each time we attended the Point Cook office there was a delay.with the paperwork, leaving us unable to start the building process.. after wasting our time travelling 45 minutes to each of these appointments and being let down we decided to build with another company. When we decided to build this time, we initially had our consultation appointments with SB in December 2009 and January 2010. We were hoping to get the build underway and sign up in December however due to Sb not returning phone calls, we were unable to even get an appointment to get the ball rolling until January. We were only able to finally arrange an appointment when I called your head office on multiple occasions to complain that we were actually trying to buy a house from your company and could not even get a return phone call to make a time to do so. We then finally met with Sb and whilst discussing the building process with him we asked him approximately how long it would take to build the home. Sb replied and said it would take approx 6-8 months from the date we sign up with him. ie January. I further questioned him on this by saying ' So should we sign today we should be in the new house by July or August.?" He answered with a definite yes. Subsequently we then put our home on the market, this sold and we moved out into temporary accommodation, putting our furniture into storage. We also had a number of variations and we discussed these with Sb, Sb replied that these would be attended to at our tender appointment. A few days before our tender appointment my husband contacted your office to discuss variations and what we needed to bring. We then received a phone call from JM stating that we would need to reschedule our tender appointment to 4 weeks down the track as we had not previously submitted these variations to be approved. My husband and I didn't accept this for an answer because we had previously been given incorrect information from S and we were not willing to delay our home because of this after much negotiation and hard work from yourself and Jb, the tender appointment finally went ahead. We then attended the tender appointment with N and he was fantastic, he fixed all the outstanding issues and spent over 4 hours with us. We were extremely grateful for the time he spent with us and the effort he puti in. After receiving our final contract, we then received a letter in the mail with the estimated completion date which was 29/01/2011 - a big difference to what we were told originally by Sb. However we had to proceed because our house had been sold and we were already living in temporary accommodation. Overall we have found the communication and customer service from your company to be very dissapointing. As mentioned earlier we were happy with the way you handled the situation and the way N handled the situation, however these situations should never have occured in the first place. We previously built with another builder and found their customer to be vastly superior to yours. Phone calls were always promptly returned and emails answered quickly. We also had a customer service officer regularly contact us to advise of progress and allow us to voice our concerns. From your company we receive sporadic email updates on the properties progress, however these are worded in builders terms, and when I reply to ask for further explanation, it takes approx 48 hours to receive a response. The emails often do not make sense or flow on from the previous update. This is not good enough for the amount of money that we are paying the company. An example of this is below: On the 1/10 We received an email that states "Your final program has been set and I will have the date to advise you when your file will be proceeding to the Warranties Handover Department for your New Home Presentation in your next update. " (what does this even mean to someone who doesn't work for your company?) The next update arrived without the date and with no explanation or apologies for the date not being given The next email from you states "prior to date being set for job to proceed to the Warranties Handover Department for the Final Process (New Home Presentation). The date for this to occur will possibly be known later this week.. " Yesterday I left a voicemail for Jb voicing my frustration and asking for an explanation of what these emails mean and an approximate date of handover. I also requested to walk through the home as we have not been offered a walk through at any stage. I was then sent an email that stated " I will find our from your supervisor tomorrow and let you know" at 4.28pm the day after I still have no response. My concerns and frustrations were also not acknowledged. Then today I received an email from your accounts department. A final invoice. I open it and read through, the completion date there stated 28/10/2010. I called my husband at work to tell him we were elated and so happy to finally be moving into our home after months of temporary accommodation. I then read further into the invoice read further into the invoice and realise this invoice is for ANOTHER CLIENT. Extremely dissapointed and frustrated. Words cannot describe how frustrated and stressed we are. I understand building a home takes time and delays can be expected howver we expect clear communuication and to be treated with respect. Something that has failed to happen so far. I hope to hear from your soon. Kindest regards, JB /10/2010 11:40 AM ----- Hi Janelle Thank you for your email below outlining your frustrations with your experience building with us. I have spent some time looking over your file and can confirm that a quality assurance inspection will take place this week, at the conclusion of this inspection, any rectification works or touch ups that are deemed necessary will take place before you are contacted to arrange your new home presentation. This presentation is your opportunity to inspect the home (it normally takes approximately 2.5 hours) and raise any concerns you may have. We will then complete any rectifications required before having you attend a final inspection. Once the final inspection has taken place and you have signed off on the home (basically signing a document in agreement that the house is complete as per the contract) settlement will be booked in with our settlement department. I completely understand your frustration with the misinformation you have been supplied with throughout the process however I can assure you that our team is doing what they can to complete your home as quickly as possible. As today is Jb last day with us I am happy for you to contact myself for updates or any questions you may have regarding your property between now and settlement. Kind Regards, R, I found the response to my email outlining my frustrations to be very poor. Not once has anyone apologised for the terrible service that we have received. I find it ridiculous that the fact that someone else's personal details have been forwarded onto myself. This has been brought to the attention of both D and yourself, again with no apology from either of you. Because of the misinformation from your company on multiple occasions, we are now stuck in a really difficult situation, with no idea of when this situation may end. Again communication has been poor. We still have not seen our property at all within this whole building process apart from looking through windows. Last night my husband and I looked through the windows, and noticed that each door to each robe is fitted with a different door handle?? I am also very concerned about the finish of the fireplace "upgrade" that we chose in the living area. Chipboard is exposed. Surely this is not the way it is going to be left? Hi J I do appreciate your concerns however I am not involved in the accounting department and cannot comment as to how or why an incorrect invoice was issued to you. From my understanding you have discussed this with D from our accounts department. If you have any further concerns in relation to this, please refer them to D. In relation to your concerns with the service provided to you to date, I have acted on each concern raised by you as it was brought to my attention and believe that I have actioned your concerns promptly. I assure you that it is always our intention to provide our customers with a high quality of service and am disappointed to hear of your dissatisfaction with our service. Due to Jbs recent resignation from the company, I have now taken over your file to ensure that there are not further problems between now and settlement. I have spoken to (your site supervisor) and he has advised me that he has spoken to yourself and/or D several times throughout construction and has conducted a site meeting with you. I can also see on your file that you have received regular updates from the office regarding the progress of your home. Ss has also confirmed that he is opening the house for you tomorrow for a measure and quote for floor coverings at your request. Please note that we are happy to arrange site meetings with our clients during the course of construction at the clients request. If you have requested site meetings in the past that have not been arranged, please provide me with details of this so that I can investigate further. The fireplace has been completed as per your contract; it is provision for future fireplace to be installed by owners so the actual fireplace, mantle and surrounds are to be completed post settlement. Ss has confirmed that your file will be referred to our New Home Presentation department this week. Kind Regards, R -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ]
Re: opinions please = am I over reacting? 2Oct 29, 2010 6:22 am would be really really ropeable if that was us......hugs hope it all works out! Re: opinions please = am I over reacting? 3Oct 29, 2010 6:30 am That is terrible, and I had to think for a minute about what you could do. There isn't much they can do with your letter at the moment. If I was that new girl there is nothing I could say but sorry... You need to ask them for something to compensate you.. it doesn't hurt asking... I'm not sure exactly what you could ask for but then they could show if they are willing to make you happy. You can't do much about the delays that have already happened unfortunately... I hope this helps!! opinions please = am I over reacting? 4Oct 29, 2010 6:44 am You're not over reacting, you've had enough which is sooooooo understandable! Sorry you have had such a bad experience with the company. I hope the quality of you home is SUPERB! Re: opinions please = am I over reacting? 5Oct 29, 2010 6:49 am JBridge Hi J I do appreciate your concerns however I am not involved in the accounting department and cannot comment as to how or why an incorrect invoice was issued to you. From my understanding you have discussed this with D from our accounts department. If you have any further concerns in relation to this, please refer them to D. What a cop out! This should be "Please accept my apologies for our mistake.", not "Uh it wasn't me, it was someone in the other department, and I'm not even going to discuss it with her, you do it yourself". I think it's pretty obvious that you were asking for an apology in the previous email, and this is all you got. Quote: In relation to your concerns with the service provided to you to date, I have acted on each concern raised by you as it was brought to my attention and believe that I have actioned your concerns promptly. Again, R is trying to explain why he/she is not responsible instead of trying to understand what you are concerned about and do something to address it. It's the same with the paragraph about site visits. I don't think you're overreacting at all - this is poor customer service. I had a similar situation with my builder where I was asking for an apology and wasn't getting one. They were trying to change one of my selections without my consent, and completely ignoring my concerns. It did get resolved in the end, during a scheduled phone call. I suspect that the person I was talking to spoke to her supervisor and got some coaching, because during the phone call she apologized, resolved our problem right away and we have had no problems since. Metricon Riva 33 - http://herlihy-riva.blogspot.com Site start 15/03/2010 - Handover 23/12/2010 9 months and 8 days (284 calendar days) from site start to handover
Re: opinions please = am I over reacting? 6Oct 29, 2010 6:54 am Not overreacting at all, but you need to remove names from your original post (and the duplicate post if it has them). In this you have named both the company and many of its employees, and that leaves you at great personal risk given the nature of your complaints. Good luck. Re: opinions please = am I over reacting? 7Oct 29, 2010 7:36 am that is my exact issue! That she is just defending herself and not apologising. When i rang the head office at the start of all this i asked who i was best to discuss my concerns with and they said R Because she is the senior customer service administrator! She is hopeless! I have no idea where to go from here. Hi everyone, Looking for some advise. We are about to build an above ground pool in our backyard. There is a private sewer line running under the pool at 1.6m… 0 11763 Much a do about nothing. You can see the fall heading to the actual drains. Stormwater ingress will be minimal and it's far better to have the top sitting flush rather… 12 6254 Levelling compound Ardit is the best but buy a bag of sand and make sand dam to protect your wood floor 2 15259 |