Armstrong Communication Systems, Inc Overbilled for Hourly Services and could not complete the job. New York New York

Our NY Company was having internal phone issues where we could not dial out or receive calls. We were told by our carrier to seek an independent service company to repair the problem. In trying to stay local and within our community, we found Armstrong Communications which was only 7 blocks away.

We were told by Joseph who is the representative for Armstrong, that they would send a tech at $125 per hour. We agreed and signed off on this. When the tech arrived at 10AM, he advised immediately that he had no experience with our system and probably could not fix it.

He then spent the next hour or so, in my office, on the phone with our carrier and then our IT person off site. After that he concluded that the problem was with the carrier. I called the carrier who promptly sent a technician. With the assistance of the carrier's technician, both he and Armstrong's technician concluded that this was a switch.

After 4 hours on and off we asked the Armstrong technician end services, since from the beginning he knew it was not a repair Armstrong could do. I signed his work order which had no time on it and let him leave. 

One hour later we received a bill for 952.00. For his tech to be on his phone, standing around while the carrier figured out the necessary repair needed? Then I contested the bill with Joseph and he revised it to $1197.00. He raised the bill and stated in an email, "If you can't accept our first invoice, then you will have to pay the second who does not include a discount".

Who are they kidding? This was followed up by 8 harassing emails, and threats to sue us. All of this within an 8 hour day.

When I spoke to Chris (Joseph's superior), he reduced the bill to $734.91. However we still questioned how they could charge for 5 hours when 10 the job was not completed; 2) the problem still exists; 3) his worker never put more than 2-3 hours into this.

Additionally he charged us $50 for travel time. Quite an expensive cab ride for 7 blocks.

Then Armstrong sent us a copy of the signed work order now with a time (obviously doctored) showing 9:15 -4pm (6 hours 45 min).

These are devious people who tried to rip-off our company. They sent 4 invoices with 4 different costs, doctored a signed work order sheet and to make matters worse, sent a technician who admittedly stated when he walked in that he could not fix our system.

Armstrong is not ethical, not professional, and just looks for a way to charge billable hours, whether they can service or not. Their behavior totally disagrees with the the term "customer first".

Don't take your chances with Armstrong. They spent more hours doctoring sheets, writing condescending emails, and revising invoices, then actually servicing this customer's repair needs.