On April 5th our business was burglarized. The burglars threw a large rock through the front glass door to gain entry. Our alarm went off and we were called at about 1:30am. When we arrived at the business, the entire door glass was lying on the ground outside the door.
We had never had a situation like this so we basically called the first emergency glass company we found in the phone book. We called Marc's Glass Mirror Company. They arrived and replaced the door glass (approx. 6' x 3' piece of glass). Our bill was $750.00. We assumed that was "normal" and paid it.
Exactly one week later, our business as well as two other businesses in our building got burglarized once again. However, this time, they didn't get into our store. They just left "pock" marks on our glass like a BB gun would leave. So we decided we would get it replaced during normal business hours. But they did get into the other two businesses, taking out their glass doors, identical to ours. Their bill? $850 each. This was one week later and the charge was $100 more. After I informed the other tenants of the discrepancy, the installer lowered the price to $750.
Later the following week we got our glass replaced once again. The cost? $175!! Same type of glass. I have since talked to others familiar with the glass business and one individual owned a glass business for a number of years. He stated that we clearly got taken advantage of. He also mentioned that the actual cost of the glass was probably not much more than $40.
The bottom line is, I feel Marcs takes advantage of others misfortunes by charging a ludicrous "emergency" premium for after-hours service. I can understand a small premium, even $200, but a $600 premium?
I did call Marcs to inquire why there was a $100 price discrepancy over just 1 weeks time. Their explanation was that our business was given a "discount" of $100 because our associates had been doing business with Marcs for a long time. Gee, I feel so lucky.
The bottom line is, at 2:00am, you don't exactly have the luxury of calling around and getting quotes. I suppose you could, and in retrospect, perhaps I should have.
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