My contractor is a liar: The customer of the day

[jmowreader]

Today's bundle of retail joy is a woman who saw an Owens-Corning shingle called MiraVista on the Internet. She fell in love with the product--it is a fiberglass-reinforced plastic shingle that looks like either slate tiles or wood shakes.

So she called the store and asked us to order some. My boss went through all of the Owens-Corning literature we had, I went through the same stuff...no MiraVista.

Okay, I have some time to kill, let's go on line--to discover that MiraVista shingles were discontinued three years after they came on the market. It seems that the stiffness of the shingles works against you--when the wind gets under them, the shingles break.

I called her up. "But the webpage says any Home Depot can get them!" Yes ma'am, but that webpage was written in 2001 according to the date at the top of it, and the shingles came off the market in 2003. "Are you sure about that?" Yes, I have a press release.

"Oh, okay...my contractor said they were discontinued, but he has done nothing but lie to me ever since he started my house, so I figured he was lying about these too." Uhh...last I checked you can fire contractors who do nothing but bullshit you.