Signtronix is a company based in California, but has offices and representatives all over the nation. My main problems are with the corporate office and not the St. Louis office, so keep that in mind - the problem is nationwide. If you want the short version of my dealings with the company here it is: Signtronix is a rip-off company that has been a nightmare to work with and I wouldn't recommend them to anyone. If you want signs for your business, I would 100% recommend that you BUY THEM FROM ANOTHER COMPANY! If you'd like the long version with the details, read on.
A representative from the St. Louis office came into my business and presented us with several reasons why one of their signs would make us tons of money by providing an increase in customer traffic. Out of respect for his livelihood, I will refrain from mentioning his name. He was very typical in his door-to-door salesman approach and pretty much wouldn't leave until we signed the contract. I don't doubt that the sign will probably help business, but the way Signtronix treats its customers is not worth it and I wish I would have bought them from another company. If I would have known what kind of a nightmare Signtronix was to deal with, I would have bought them from someone else, which is why I'm passing this information on.
The salesman's incessant nagging about us buying the signs really turned me off to the company from the start, but we had thought for a while about buying some signs and this seemed like a good opportunity to do so. When he presented us with the custom artwork for the sign, we were under the agreement that it was a rough draft and not the final artwork. He assured us that the artwork department would be in contact with us via email to either approve the design for print or request changes. We had plans to change the design from day one. That was May 7. On May 12, a lady from the corporate office called to say that the sign was going through its final process. My mother, and co-owner of the store, spoke with her and told her that the artwork had still not been approved. The lady said, 'The artwork department is in charge of that. You'll need to speak with them.' We left messages with the artwork department and no one got back with us. To this day, we have still not gotten ahold of anyone in the artwork department. We kept waiting for a copy of the artwork, didn't get it and we were still wanting to change the colors, the font and the graphic. We kept calling and leaving messages every few days. On June 26, we got a call from a customer service woman saying she was returning a message - finally someone returned a message! The company denies receiving all but one of the messages that we left up to that point. The lady called to see what we needed. We told her that a copy of the artwork had still not been sent to us or approved by us and she said, 'Well, the sign has already been shipped.' We told the lady about the problem with the artwork, she said there was nothing she could do.
On June 27, the signs were delivered. I took the signs out of the box, and was immediately disappointed with the artwork. The LED sign was fine other than some dings and scratches and black marks on it (which doesn't affect the performance, sure, but when you pay that much for a sign, you expect it to be brand new). I called the company, complained about the artwork and told them that we didn't approve it and we wanted to return it and all I got were 4 hang ups, and several people telling me, 'Returning is not an option. There's nothing we can do about the artwork. You signed a contract.'
I kept a log of the calls I made to them.in just two days, I got hung up on 4 times, I got transferred to voicemail 16 times, got transferred from person to person countless times, etc.in those two days, I left 9 messages with various people and Signtronix denies receiving ANY of them. I finally just resorted to telling the receptionist, 'BEFORE you transfer me, let me ask you why I can't get ahold of any one.' She said, 'I don't know why, they're all in their offices.' Good grief. That time when she transferred me, I was put on hold for a minute, then finally got a person and she told me the famous line, 'There's nothing we can do about it.' After jumping through a ton of phone line hoops, I eventually ended up talking to one of the co-owners of the company who said, 'You're under contract. There's nothing we can do.' When I told him we would pursue the matter with the FTC, and possibly the courts, he said, in an extremely condescending tone, 'I don't care. Go ahead. Do what you want to do, ' then hung up. What complete asinine arrogance!
I called the salesman who sold me the signs in the first place and asked him if there was anything he could do that I just wanted to return the signs and be finished with the company.By this point, it was no longer about me not liking the sign. It was now a matter of being treated like trash by a company I was paying $7,000 for a couple of signs. I told him about the circus with their so-called customer service and he did apologize for my experience with them. I insisted that I wanted to return the sign and all I could get out of him was, 'That's not an option.' When I told him about pursuing the matter he said, 'That would be silly. You'd be wasting your money. People have tried to sue us before and they don't win. You can waste your money by hiring a lawyer, but because of the way our contract is written, FTC laws don't apply to us and no one wins lawsuits against us.' He even went on to explain the specific laws they think they're exempt from and also told me that I could technically return the sign, but I would still have to pay for it.
When you deal with them, I'm sure they'll give you the spiel about how they are in good standing with the BBB (they're not even members), how much positive feedback they get from customers, etc. All I can tell you is that I had terrible experiences with them and saw them for the money-sucking, greedy corporate machine that they are. They care about your signature and your money. That's it.
All in all, I'm disappointed with the product, I've been run down by the people at Signtronix and I still have to pay them $7,000. I'm ashamed they're an American company.
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