I ordered an audio/video system from Westfair TV and put down a deposit of over $7,000, which was the cost of the equipment. Westfair was to install it in a new construction building in two stages. Westfair was to install the wiring before the wall panels of the new building were put on, and then all the electronic equipment was to be installed once the construction of the building was finished.
But Westfair was "too busy" to do the first stage of installation and install the wiring on the construction schedule. So the general contractor installed the wires which were provided by Westfair.
Approximately two months later a date was agreed upon for the second phase of the installation where Westfair was to install the rest of the system. But they e-mailed me that again they were "too busy" and would have to put off the installation for another week. I advised them that I was not happy about that and that they had my deposit for over three months at that point and if they couldn't make the scheduled installation date I would seriously consider canceling.
At that point they started lying their ass's off. They tried to blame the general contractor and told me he wasn't ready for them to install the system. But the general contractor told them that he was ready and advised them to do the installation on the scheduled date.
Westfair did not show up to do the installation on the agreed upon date. They also did not show up on the next day or the day after that. Nor did they give me a new date of installation. So I called up to cancel and was eventually connected with the owner, Glenn Levinson. He told me the same lie that the general contractor was not ready and that was why they didn't keep the installation date.
But again, the general contractor had told me that he was ready and had advised Westair of the same. Levinson tried to convince me to let his company finish the installation, but because he had missed two installation dates and was engaging in serious lying, I told him I was canceling and asked him to prepare and send me an invoice for the materials he did supply which were some speaker wire and a rack for the television. I told him I would pay for the materials he supplied, and that I would expect a refund for the remainder of the $7,000 deposit.
Westfair responded by sending me an invoice for $2,727.44!!! Again, this was for some speaker wire and a television rack. Levinson padded the invoice with materials he didn't supply and services he didn't render. One of the items was $300 for project planning. He said his guy spent 3 hours planning the project. It was an audio/video system with four speakers and a subwoofer. How could anyone spend three hours planning a system like that? Three minutes would be more like it. And then the planning was completely inadequate anyway because the equipment they specified did not fit and I had to change out certain components!
An additional charge was $695 for a restocking fee when none of the equipment left their store, except for the wire and the television rack which I had agreed to pay for. The largest fraudulent charge was for over $1,000 for over 1,000 feet of speaker wire. The general contractor installed the wire and he measured it and advised me that they installed a maximum of 250 feet of wire. So Westfair invoiced me and was trying to charge me for over $750 worth of wire that they didn't provide. There were other charges for products not supplied, but I don't need to go into each one.
I advised Levinson that his invoice was incorrect and pointed out the above to him. His response was to adjust the invoice down by $105. So he still wanted $2621.44. I calculated the charges for goods and services actually provided to be $802.90.
I exchanged several more e-mails with Levinson and he was sticking to his $2621.44 number and he continued to pitch for his firm to complete the installation. And during the time we were arguing over the invoice, he turned the $2621.44 invoice over to a collection agency for collection! So he had my deposit of over $7,000, and we were arguing over the invoice, and he sent it to a collection agency without any notice to me! And when I pointed out to him that he had turned it over to collection, he offered to stop the collection process if we settled. Notice that he wouldn't stop the process because he had initiated it illegally and he had way more than the $2,621.44 in deposit money. No, he would only stop the process if we settled, in other words if I agreed to pay his fraudulent charges. What an asshole!
Levinson did eventually offer to credit back $5,000 of the $7,000, so that would have been a little over $2,000 for $802.90 worth of goods and services. Since this offer still contained $1,200 of fraud, and I did not accept it.
Because of Levinson's lies and unfair business practices it became clear to me that there was no way Levinson would ever be truthful and honest and agree to an amount that reflected what he actually provided, so I disputed the $7,000 charge with my credit card company. That is one of the services which that credit card company highlights in its marketing materials. But not suprisingly Levinsion made false statements to the credit card company and they advised me to explore other avenues of recourse.
So I retained a lawyer and filed suit in the Superior Court in the State of Connecticut. The suit includes three counts of unfair trade practices and violation of Conn. Gen. State. 42-110b for rendering a false invoice, making false statements to the credit card company and retaining a collection agency to collect a debt that was not owed. So far, Levinson has refused to respond to the suit.
So prospective customers be forewarned.in my opinion Glenn Levinson is an extremely dishonest guy and is a liar and engages in unfair trade practices. Westfair TV is extremely unreliable as it failed to show up on two different installation dates for my job while they held a $7,000 deposit. I ended up going to, where I purchased a slightly better system than the one I was trying to buy from Westfair for 20% less than price Westfair was charging. And the installation people showed up on the agreed upon installation date within a week of purchase and did a fantastic job. Do yourselves a favor and go to. Don't ever buy anything at Westfair.
JPA
Fairfield, Connecticut
U.S.A.
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