On April 28th, 2003 we signed a contract for a new deck. Not a normal deck mind you, but a top of the line vinyl deck. PVC that wouldn’t splinter, burn or need any maintenance beyond being hosed down occasionally. According to the contract it would installed in “2-4 weeks, completed in 2-4 days”.

We never heard anything from them 1 month later. I finally tracked down the installer who said we were scheduled for the first week in June, Wednesday in fact, “as long as I straighten some things out [with the company]”. At the end of the day Wednesday, when nothing had happened, I called again and he said, it wasn’t happening that week. So I said thank you and I was canceling.

I then called the company directly to cancel. I was put on the phone with the owner of the company who said “First off, if you cancel, I’ll sue you personally. I had to fire my business associate for not doing his job and not getting anything done and your materials are here. I’m not paying for them and I’m not a jerk but I’m going to play hard ball with you and if you cancel I’ll sue you and it will damage your credit report. Win or loose I don’t care, I may not have a leg to stand on, but I’ll sue you.”

I asked about the policy the salesman had brought up whereby if at the end of the deck construction if I wasn’t pleased I wouldn’t have to pay for the deck, because “we should be able to afford to eat a deck installation, if we can’t you should do business with us”. The owner said “you’d pay, no matter what you’d pay”. Hummm….misrepresentation from the salesman sounds like fraud in the inducement to me.

We left the conversation with him promising to have his “number one deck guy” call me and talk to me and then bump me to the head of the line so the deck could be built “next week” and he’d “look at his profit” and see what type of discount he could give me. Of course, all this after I threaten to cancel and he threatens to sue.

This was Wednesday, June 4th. By Tuesday, June 10th I still hadn’t heard anything from him or his “number one deck guy”. So I called him and he tells me he’ll have the deck guy call me right away. A half hour later the owner calls me back and says he talked to his deck guy and the permits haven’t been filed yet. That will take 3-3 ½ weeks for approval. Then a day or two after approval they can start and it will take about a week to build the deck. He wants to send over a contract that nullifies the original dates and have me sign that. I just say “ummmhummm and we end the conversation”.

At this point we defiantly want to cancel but I need to know where I stand legally. Turns out quite well. The contract says “2-4 weeks for completion” and it’s dated 4/28. So I call him back later that day and tell him we are canceling, I even made sure to call him before he filed for permits. He told me he was going to the small claims court to file against someone else and he’d just file against me at the same time. I said “fine, you do what you have to do” and hung up.