We purchased cabinets for our dream kitchen from a dealer of STARMARK'S, Maplewood Inc. Affordable Kitchens and Baths. We we promised from the salesman at Maplewood along with the brochures from Starmark the highest standards of quality craftsmanship. The brochure states such promises as "For high standards without the high cost." and "When only the very best will do." "Make it unique make it Starmark." I could go on and on about the quality that they promise.
My husband and I could not believe after all the build up that when our cabinets came our nightmare began. No return phone calls, us always calling back, blown off, put off, for the Home Expo, long weekends, and every other excuse possible. Promises made repeatedly, and still not met. This is just from the dealer. When contacting Starmark about the poor quality of workmanship. We were met with a laughing executive who let us know that perhaps we should have done more reasearch. This was after I explained the situation to him. I knew that I was not getting any where with their dealer. I truely thought that Starmark had to care. I had done reasearch, I went on line to find out more about their company. I believed all that they advertised and had on line about their quality. That the were a family based company that took care of their employees.
This is what should be expected when ordering mid-priced cabinets. That our expectations were way too high. That their realtionship was with their dealers and not the customer. Imperfections should be expected, nicks, scratches, gauges, and burrs were all acceptable and within specs. That it was our problem that we were installing our own cabinets. That if we would have had the dealer install them we would have never known. That all of these issues are touchable and within specs. That these issues are touched up upon installation and the customer isn't aware.
After ordering from their custom cabinet line, spending what we did. We didn't feel it was mid-priced. We should have ran from the begining when I was treated so rudely by our salesman. We could have and should have done business with someone else. I blew alot of things off, and gave them chance after chance to rectify this situation. Poor work ethics, lack of follow through with the customers order that leads to mistakes. Poor communication with customer, promises of phone calls that never come for days so you are always doing the call backs. Just one thing after another that creates terrible stress.
Especially worse at the holidays, when you don't have a kitchen to bake cookies. Your grandson believes that Santa won't come due to this fact; and going to someone else's house just won't work. Perhaps I missed the humor in this Mark Clemments, executive at Starmark. After finally becoming so stressed that we were on edge with one another and no phone call for days as promised I found no recourse but to release my frustration out in letter form to anyone that will listen. I do not to see other people go through the same things that we have. I was told by more than one person that this is common practice in this industry. I believe that the old rule apply to let the buyer beware. How do you tell the difference in companies with all their promise. I have not found a bad report on either of these companies. I realize now that a lot of these are hidden.
There are just so many hard working people just like us that save to have what they dream of just to be taken advantage of. What has happened to our America. No pride is evident in most of the businesses that I encounter any more, it is truely sad.
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