I had rented a space in NYC over the weekend to run a summer market/fair for local businesses. The event was scheduled to begin at 10am, and the delivery of tables (somewhat necessary for vendors to display their wares...) was to be between 8:30am and 9:30am. Joana at POL suggested the delivery between 8am-9am but our venue wouldn't grant access until 8:30am. When the tables still hadn't arrived by 9:45am, we called and Joana said the tables were coming from NJ and they had gotten stuck in traffic and weren't even in the city yet. At 10:30am, 30 minutes after my event was supposed to start, my vendors started dropping out because we looked unprofessional. When I called back to get an ETA on the tables, Joana said there was traffic in the Lincoln Tunnel and she had redirected the driver to turn around and take the Holland Tunnel, and it all of a sudden became at least 11:00am for delivery. Joana got defensive when I started talking about a discount for my inconvenience, saying that it was our fault because she suggested we get delivery between 8:00am and 9:00am, and they'd had to try to fit in a delivery before ours... Joana also went from ready to accept our check upon delivery as payment to only taking cash, citing the reason as ""you could cancel your check before we are able to deposit it."" That sounds to me like a service-provider calling me, the customer, untrustworthy. The service-provider that is over 90 minutes late for delivery, and unwilling to accept any blame for it, and in fact blaming the customer, is also telling me that if we do not agree to pay in cash, she will cancel the contract on-the-spot and tell the driver to not deliver. That sounds to me like coercion. So, I have to inconvenience myself further by paying cash, or none of the vendors that remained to participate in the summer market will have a table to display their wares... The tables finally arrived at 11:30am (and I wasn't impressed with the broken-edged quality, but I have larger complaints at this point), and the driver told me his van had broken down, and he had to wait for another van to pick him up... So which is it, Joana, traffic or the van broke down? Lying, blaming me for a late delivery, calling me untrustworthy, threatening to negate our contract, and extorting cash out of the deal? Sounds like a real legitimate company.... Don't ever do business with these frauds, they don't even understand the idea behind Customer Service.
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