Phirst and Lassing Doors

This client purchased a white oak entry door for his home in Fair Haven, NJ from Phirst and Lassing. While none of his concerns were warranty items, his door did develop a small check (surface fracture) in the white oak which will occur when solid white oak is exposed to direct unsheltered sunlight. In a goodwill effort, we offered to retrieve his door at our expense, address the small check and return the door to his home no charge all prior to his move in date. This was not acceptable to Mr. Ryan. He insisted that this work be done on site. Our finishing department expends a laborious 5 days finishing each door in a controlled environment and we knew Denis would not be amenable to a “field applied re-finish” which he requested In this case we simply were unable to appease a client’s demands.
Todd Wilfong
CEO-M4L, Inc

Everything Mr. Rawson posted above is true. Life has taught me that everyone is not compatible with everyone. Sometimes you realize you are swimming up stream and there may be no end ahead of rapids and sharp jagged rocks.

Once through the drawing stage and many alterations and, the fact that our stain samples were making such a bad impression, I quickly and voluntarily refunded Kevin. We never want a client to feel hostage to us or the other way around.

However after 20 years producing custom doors for over 14,000 clients, we seem to be doing pretty well with our customers. But there are going to be situations where things do not go to perfection. If you feel like it, give me a call. I won't try and talk you into buying from us, but I will answer your questions directly and openly. Todd Wilfong, CEO-Owner, M4L, Inc 866-645-8885

Millworkforless (M4L, Inc) has been in business for 17 years, and we have always stood behind our work. We have thousands of satisfied customers and one who is so unhappy with us, they felt it necessary to post boldly online their disdain despite our best efforts. Please be so kind as to consider our response below when you read this clients post.
The short answer we did sell Mr. and Mrs. Vincent Ponsoda a door and they did have a panel that separated slightly. We did build a new panel for them immediately upon finding the failure instead of suggesting they do a small fill. We did forget to send the panel to them for many months, almost a year. We wanted to not just send a panel but have one of our techs install the panel.
When the replacement panel was installed, it was clear the door unit, which was now two years old, one year old at the time the panel failed, was not getting maintenance despite sun exposure and that the door was located one block off the Atlantic Ocean. The door needed a maintenance coat of polyurethane. We do emphasize to our clients that in the first 12 to 18 months, you should expect to do a maintenance top coat on your doors exterior and then, on an as needed basis over the life of the door. Secondly, the house remained under construction for nearly the doors entire first year meaning the door may not have full climate control for much of its first year.
Still, our panel in the door should not fail and, we certainly stood behind it. But the door needed a refresh on the exterior. The stress arose from our client not asking but demanding that we refinish their door onsite. Our position was the door needed maintenance which we do not provide. We did immediately offer to provide the client with the correct finish product at our expense. We were told in a demeaning tone that “this client” does not do maintenance and they had no one to do the work. This same client had visited us a year prior to negotiate their door price because they claimed to be an accomplished builder and that in turn for a favorable discount, they would be providing us with considerable business. We have since realized that the client was telling us untruths and we felt quite betrayed. After this entire debacle, we became aware the client was not only unusually demeaning to our associates and demanding to us, they were also people that brandish non-truths as a means of forceful persuasion. As a business owner, I felt I had to draw a hard line and terminate anymore service to this client while still extending an offer of no charge product to maintain their door.
The client pursued me personally by having a demeaning child of theirs call on their behalf with a bullying, lecturing diatribe. I chose as the owner of our company to not tolerate any further dialogue because our conversations had become circular. When told I was not to talk but to listen, I did in fact abruptly end our conversation.
We feel badly whenever we might let a client down. But, we must not only respect our clients but ourselves. We manufacture wonderful doors and, we do stand behind them, but sometimes we must say no and for that, I hope a reader might respect our position. This client too has some truly sad things posted about them online found in news journal criminal reports, but they are entitled to their privacy. We regret this issue could not have met a cooperative solution, but all or nothings are not good alternatives for any party.
Todd Wilfong
CEO-M4L, Inc