BuildDirectReviews 72

I have been working with BuildDirect for the past 1.5 yrs as a partnered vendor who lists products on their e-commerce platform.

I'd like to write this review to warn other businesses to NOT work with BuildDirect at all. Do not even THINK about it.

The whole business seemed like a scam/fraud after their "bankruptcy" in November 2017. I would say, nearly 100+ vendors were not paid by BuildDirect because they did not properly manage their financial accounts.

BuildDirect owes us $9,000. In effort to "rebuild" their business plan, the Canadian PWC gave us an ultimatum: "You can either receive 5% of the $9,000 or fight against the business plan; however, if you still lose the 'vote against proxy' you may not get any money at all because BuildDirect doesn't have it anymore"

Seriously? 18 years in business and this is how you run it. Eventually, we moved on from this matter since as a start up business (2 years in business) we had no power over this messed up situation against an 18 y/o business.

This is where my review actually begins: Our company had moved on from the lost settlement (and yes, THEIR customers still kept the items) and 2 months ago we were informed by a "Senior Category Manager," named *, that 90% of our items that showed no sales would be removed from the website. We attempted to call him to ask if he could reconsider this decision (he stated that he makes all the decisions, not corporate and that we can accept it or move on) and he said the decision was final and that we can "refer to his first email about removing SKUs." Yeah, obviously we can refer to it. We're just asking him to reconsider it from our perspective.

During all of this, we realized that every sample piece that we gave to BuildDirect (we paid nearly $3,000 for freight) for them to store and send to their customers, they were charging us $5.00 per piece. We had actually received a quote for $2.50 per piece from a previous employee in email.

We sent an email to BuildDirect corporate office with * cc'ed and we mentioned the lost settlement of $9,000.00 and that they had been over charging us for the sample pieces.

In return, * called our office and threatened to charge us $5.00 on every single sample piece sent out in the past, that was originally $2.50 per piece. (he was furious, probably because we cc'ed him with the corporate email). Knowing that the suing matters were out of HIS control, * still dealth with this very unprofessionally.

ALSO, * stated that BuildDirect would be removing their market place system and rebuilding their business model to become a fulfillment center. So he also warned us saying that our current SKUs on the website would soon be removed as well and that there would be no drop-shipping business relations with vendors. (Just to warn other vendors now!)

*Personal information redacted by admin

We have searched all over for the Vinyl Plank flooring that we want. After measuring everything and calculating the costs, we were ready to order. Only to find out that they DO NOT have the matching "End Caps" or "Transition Pieces" to match the flooring we wanted! They explained that the "vendor does not supply them". WHy in the world would you pay thousands of dollars for the flooring you want, only to find out that you couldn't finish the flooring project with EXACT MATCHING finish pieces!!!!?

Only order accepted and No customer service after order accepted

Partial Returns are Rip off and no warranty

Certification on Material is not Guaranteed: Material with same batch number has been delivered in in multiple shipment and only some boxes had a FSC certification and other boxes does not have any certification but batch number is same - customer service response is FSC certification is placed by mistake.

After order is placed and estimated delivery is past - customer care responses is delivery date is estimated date only and no commitment, BD Don't care about customer project timelines or contractor availability. We are good with our terms and condition,

Accessories are very highly priced.

THE WARRANTY THAT WASN'T THE COMPANY TO AVOID

I PURCHASED 15MM TOKLO FLOORING WITH A FIVE YEAR WARRANTY. SIX MONTHS LATER THERE WAS A SPOT ON THE FINISH THAT LOOKED LIKE IF YOU DRAGGED A CHAIR OVER IT IT WOULD PEAL UP THE BUBBLE. ITS NOW TWO TO THREE YEARS AND THE FLOOR IS COVERED WITH THESE SPOTS SOME 12 INCHES LONG. DEPENDING ON THE TIME OF DAY YOU SEE SOME AND NOT OTHERS. IT LOOKS LIKE CRAP.
I CONTACTED DIRECT THEY SAY TAKE PIC. I DO HE SAYS HE WILL ASK SOME ONE. THEY SAY ITS FROM ASSEMBLY. ("TAPPING" KEEP IN MIND THESE BOARDS ARE 5/8 THICK)THEY HAVE A QUACK COME TAKE PIC'S. KNOW ID COMPLAINS ABOUT HIS SHOES GETTING DIRTY. BRIGHT SUN LIGHT CAN'T SEE MUCH, NO CONVERSATION. THE SO CALLED EXPERT SAYS WHAT BUILDDIRECT WANTS. YOU TELL ME HOW YOU CAN DETERMINE ASSEMBLY PROBLEMS WHEN THEY NEVER ASKED THE DIRECTION THE FLOOR WAS PUT TOGETHER. HALF OF THE DEFECTS ARE IN THE CENTER OF A 3 FT BOARD ON THE BACK OF THE ASSEMBLY. MY PROBLEM IS FROM THERE CRAP FLOORING. EVERY MONTH THE PROBLEM GETS WORSE ITS DOUBLED IN THE THREE MONTHS SINCE THIS STARTED. THEY SAY THAT'S ALL THEY CAN DO. HOW DID I NOT SEE THAT COMING
THEY JUST DON'T LIVE UP TO THERE WORD. STAY AWAY FROM BUILD DIRECT
THEY TAKE YOUR MONEY AND LIVE OF THE FACT THERE IN CANADA AND YOU HAVE KNOW RECOURSE.
BUILD DIRECT FEEL FREE TO DO THE WRIGHT THING.
RUSS CT *******

I received damaged hardwood and porcelain flooring, I had to unload part of the shipment myself from a FedEx truck. (59 boxes of hardwood flooring and 84 boxes porcelain tile) I am now reading the other reviews of the product after installation. BUYERS BE AWARE!

Don't even think of purchasing from this seller. They are based in Vancouver British Columbia thus avoiding U.S. consumer protection laws. Their wood flooring products are inferior and manufactured in China and delaminate (plies come unglued). Their wood flooring warrantees are a scam since they require the purchaser to maintain the humidity inside your home at 35-55% AT ALL TIMES. This cannot be achieved in virtually ANY HOME IN AMERICA. Please check for yourself the AM and PM humidity levels in the city you live year round. You will find that there is not a single city that will stay at 35-55% humidity at all times year round. BuildDirect simply uses this scam warrantee to void your warrantee when your floor delaminates or has other issues supposedly covered under warrantee (and as explained above can be used to void the warrantee on virtually even plank of wood flooring that they sell). If you do have an issue with your flooring, the terms of use of their website VOIDS your right to sue them in small claims court. Their terms of use of their website REQUIRES that any disputes be settled by an arbitrator hired by a company that Build Direct hires. You decide if that places you at a disadvantage compared to Builddirect (the de facto employer of the arbitrator). If you decide to pursue the arbitration process required by the terms of use, you MUST travel to Canada to do so. Stay away from this company!
Please also note when you visit review sites like TrustPilot and Reseller Ratings to look carefully at the supposed 5-star reviews. What you will find is that the majority of 5-star ratings are tightly clustered within a very short time period. For instance on Reseller Ratings you will find that over 90% of ALL 5-star ratings for BuildDirect were posted in a 22 day period. This is highly suspicious when ratings for this company span approximately a 4 yr period. I personally believe that BuildDirect encouraged their employees/affiliates to post fake reviews to counter the increasing number of poor reviews. Again if you look at BuildDirect reviews on Trust Pilot this same clustering of the majority of 5-star ratings occured in even a tighter cluster at the end of October 2013. I personally believe the majority of 5-star ratings in these clusters are fake.

If you have an interest in reading the response from BuildDirect about why they refused to honor the structural warranty on my flooring, you can google "My BuildDirect Nightmare," which is a thread on another forum which includes the input from a BuildDirect representative. I think it will give warning to anyone considering buying from this company when there are many alternatives
The photo shows some of the $10,000 worth of newly installed BuildDirect flooring that had to be ripped up due to wide delamination. It was replaced with another manufacturers Santos Mahogany engineered flooring which remains beautiful today without any delamination since it was not defectively manufactured like the BuildDirect product.

OK, we've all heard of Lumber Liquidators (LL)... forget all about them. The quality of flooring you will get from BuildDirect (BD) is MUCH better than anything I've ever purchased from LL. They have samples that they will overnight to you for free, and they have VERY affordable flooring (hardwood engineered starting at $1.99!) to gorgeous exotics. Even though you have to pay for shipping at BD, you will probably save that in paying taxes anyway - and their freight rate is quite reasonable (depending where it comes from). Their customer service is awesome as well - I will not hesitate to buy from them again.