First, I will say quality of work was good. Al came out to replace an underground elbow hooking into sewer line going out to my street. This did entail jackhammering the floor, then repairing afterwards. He also replaced my main water shutoff valve, which required shutting off water at the street. Unfortunately, he couldn't access the water main with his key (not his fault), but had to call city. He led me to believe this would happen within a week. In reality, it took nearly 3 months. I paid the bill in full, which was around $3,169 (against my better judgment) even though he couldn't finish the job until city came out. There was mix up with city doing the work improperly, but when I finally called Smithys back, they were insistent I still owed money, $175 to get the job done and that the balance owed was due to tax. I repeatedly asked them how much they had on record that I paid and they couldn't tell me. I asked multiple times, nearly got into a shouting match with Alex, the owner via text. I decided to have phone conversation with Alex to try to address things professionally. We came to an amicable agreement that Al would come back and finish the job including work the city didn't do properly for $175 "due upon completion" was the exact phrase used and I had text confirmation of following our phone conversation. Al finally came back, got the job done, but then charged me $200 instead of the $175. I pushed back a little and he was insistent it was $200 because of tax, except the math doesn't work out. How do you get to $200 from $175?? What about all the tax I already paid when I made the $3,169 payment! All this, after the aggravating conversation I had with his brother, who told me $175 due upon completion. It wasn't "$175, plus tax" just $175. Finally, one more thing Al had taken one of my garbage cans to dispose of some extra debris from my property when he started the job 3 months prior. I told him it would be fine because he said he would bring it back when he came to finish the job. Of course, with it being 3 months later, he forgot, and who knows what happened to my garbage can.
Bottom line, I would not use them again nor recommend them. They are very disorganized and unprofessional. Their pricing is extremely vague and changes, always with the excuse of "oh that's extra for tax" though you can't seem to get to the math to work out how they are calculating the tax. The only reason I am not giving it a 1 star is because the work was done well despite the shady pricing changes.
If you go with them, I would highly recommend paying with check or credit card. Part of their vague pricing involves a supposed discount if you use cash (presumably, because they are trying to avoid income and payroll taxes), but then if you use cash there is no record of it, and they are free to deny the exact amount you paid, which is what they did with me.
1 review 