Al Smith Rigging

Good guys to work with. They made some complex moves look easy.

On November 13th, I contacted this company to put together a quote to rig 14 lots that were won at the Branford Group Auction. I included our invoice and the statement from the Auction, informing them that we needed the lots removed from the facility by November 27th. I received no response to my email, and no return call when I reached out to follow up. A week later on November 20th, I again called the phone number listed on their website. The woman that answered the phone said that everyone was out of the office for lunch (at 2pm) and that someone would call me back. Later that afternoon, I received an email from someone at the company, letting me know that they got my email and would begin working on a quote. They repeated the information about the lots needing to be removed by 11/27. On November 22nd, they finally sent me a quote - which totaled $3150 for disassembling, rigging, and loading all 14 lots. It also listed $2425 for the transportation to our facility, totaling $5575. This seemed a little pricey, so we attempted to shop around to different companies. Al Smith Rigging reached out on 11/26 and asked whether or not we would be using their services, and said they needed to know that same day. I called him back and asked if there was any wiggle room in price, and he agreed to lower the price by $200. I let him know that we accepted this quote, and he said that he would have to call around to arrange everything, and would get back to me. Later that evening, he contacted me informing me that it would be an extra $800 due to the request being last minute. After a discussion with my superiors, we decided we had no other choice but to accept this offer, considering we were running out of time to get the items removed from the facility. He then explained to me that the new price would be $6,375 - which did not include the $200 discount (that we later discovered we were not given). The following morning, I called to make our payment by credit card and was informed that there would be a 4% fee for processing our payment by phone, bringing our new total to $6,630. The invoice I was provided clearly stated that it covered all 14 lots, rigged and transported to our facility, yet almost 3 weeks later on December 17th, Al Smith Rigging reached out to me and explained that they still had 2 lots at their warehouse and required an additional $1,300 to transport it to us. I called and explained that we already agreed on a set price, their company already visually inspected the lots and quoted us based on the size, time needed, etc. and that it was not our responsibility to cover any unexpected changed in these matters. They tried to say that they were not aware it would take a second truck, although they are supposed to be experienced in deciding this information based off of their initial visit to the facility, prior to quoting a customer. He spent 10 minutes trying to explain that this was my fault due to a last minute request, saying that I 'clearly don't understand how the process works', and even threatening that they would not release our items until a payment was made. I eventually talked him down to splitting the remaining difference, and we agreed that we would pay an additional $650 to get the final shipment. A total of $7,380 (after our initial quote said $5,575 ; or $5,375 if they would have followed through with the $200 discount they offered us). Will never use this company or recommend their services again.