We ordered engineered stone countertops from Barry Zolin in March 2016. At first enquiry he replied immediately and was OVERLY helpful, calling daily, offering to go shopping with me for the Quartz etc. When we received his quote it came in well below other suppliers I had emailed and this, coupled with his desperation immediately raised suspicions for me. When I conducted an internet search I saw 1 or 2 bad reviews about his service and this made me even more suspicious. My husband and I called him and discussed the issue of the bad reviews to which he replied "there are 1 or 2 bad reports from years ago and I am trying very hard to shake the reputation". We decided to give him a chance and met with him to show him the kitchen and discuss the job. He arrived promptly and seemed to know what he was doing. Against our better judgement we decided to use him to install our counter tops.
He came a day or 2 later and installed them perfectly- we cannot fault the work. He did such a good job in fact that we decided to put Quartz on another area in the kitchen where we had previously planned for wooden counter tops. He asked for an additional deposit to order the product. We made the EFT and he placed the order whilst standing in our kitchen. This was on the 18th March 2016.
WE ARE STILL WAITING FOR THE PRODUCT TO BE INSTALLED. We call Barry almost daily and he always answers the phone claiming that "he is not scamming us cause then he would be dodging our calls". 5 months and NUMEROUS emails, telephone calls, whatsapp messages and screaming matches later we are almost ready to give up. I cannot tell you how infuriating it is. The long and short of it is he is thousands of Rands in debt and nobody will do business with him anymore. Our deposit has gone to pay off some or other debt and the chances of us ever seeing our kitchen finished by him are slim to none.
We went against our better judgement when we used Barry as all the signs where there. All I can hope for is that NOBODY else makes the same mistakes that we did. DO NOT do business with this man. He is unprofessional and you will never see your money again. I have taken months to write this review as I saw a man in an unfortunate financial situation and thought I would give him a chance, but this is just ridiculous. My husband and I are young, newly married and starting our first home. We worked extremely hard for the money we just handed over to this scammer and we have NOTHING to show for it.
Please don't fall into the same trap as we did!!! I will update this review if we ever do receive our counter tops, but don't hold your breath.
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