HAS GENERAL STEEL RIPPED YOU OFF TOO?

Lakewood-based General Steel Corp. will pay $4.5 million to settle a consumer-protection case following three years of litigation, the Colorado attorney general’s office said Tuesday.

General Steel is a nationwide provider of large, metal buildings and advertises on radio programs such as the Paul Harvey and Rush Limbaugh shows. The company has 30 days to make the payment.

In 2004, a Jefferson County judge found that the company practiced deceptive sales and marketing tactics by falsely implying that it had an inventory of buildings at factory-direct or clearance prices.

Since then, the court required both sides to identify customers nationwide entitled to restitution.

Attorney General John Suthers said in a statement that the settlement would “provide some relief for customers” that lost money as a result of down payments they placed on buildings.

“In order for the free market to function properly, advertisers must be held accountable for the accuracy of their pitches,” Suthers said.

A General Steel statement described the settlement as not an “admission of a wrongdoing.”

“Although General Steel vehemently disagreed with the court’s only findings that were based on an incredibly small sampling of only a handful of customers early in the case, after 3 years of protracted litigation and the extreme costs associated … it was in the company’s best interests to resolve this matter,” wrote the company’s attorney, Richard Taub.

Restitution totaling $4 million will be paid to 1,440 consumers involved in certain transactions with General Steel since 2000.

The attorneys general offices in Colorado and California will get $200,000 each. The remaining $100,000 will pay a $50,000 civil penalty and cover costs associated with repaying people.

Read more: The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5429441#ixzz1NQ9avp8G

General Steel Scam has quickly become an enormous success! Our traffic is up, way up! We’re just not sure whether to believe ALL of the submissions we’ve received in the Sound Off Section.

We’ve received stories and accounts from over a dozen current and extremely recent former employees. We were actually shocked at the amount of employees who reached out to us until one of these former employees informed us that half of the sales staff was laid off due to a…downturn in production. =(

Some employee submissions are legitimate accounts from salesmen who are or have been ON THE INSIDE; a treasure trove of information in regard to current internal business practices, sales training, Jeffrey Knight pep talks, the decline in sales volume, etc.

Other employee submissions seem to be rosy colored posts about General Steel while in the same breath, throwing mud at other companies.

News Flash! This site isn’t about other companies! These people, these customer accounts, and these lawsuits aren’t about other companies! We weren’t scammed out of our hard earned money by other companies, we were scammed by General Steel!

This website exists to save people from being harmed by Jeffrey Knight, General Steel, Anthem Steel, and the smooth talking scammers at General Steel and Anthem Steel. While the Sound Off section was originally created with wronged customers in mind, it has turned into more of a ‘tip line’ [which is GREAT news for the Colorado Attorney General's Office].

This website does not exist so biased employees of Jeffrey and General Steel can voice their opinions. This website exists for customers like us. So to all of you General Steel drones, save your opinions for the water cooler.

If you:

a)    worked for General Steel and feel like coming forward for the sake of protecting the general public, clearing your name, or assisting the California Attorney General or the Colorado Attorney General in their current ongoing Consumer Protection lawsuits against Jeffrey and General Steel,

b)    sent General Steel money and have nothing to show for it, or

c)    were mistreated by General Steel throughout the sales process

WE’D LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU!

If you:

a)    work for General Steel and are upset that this website exists

b)   worked for General Steel “a long time ago”, want to cry about how unfair it is that your name is here, and are upset you are listed as a culprit for having assisted Jeffrey Knight in stealing people’s deposits, or

c)    are interested in justifying your behavior by explaining it off simply as, BUYER BEWARE!

WE’RE NOT INTERESTED IN HEARING FROM YOU!

We have decided to turn the “Sound Off!” section Into “Contact Us [or the Attorney General]” because, well, let’s face it. All of these internal employee accounts, customer complaint submissions, etc will be turned over to the California and Colorado Attorney General’s Offices so they can do work.

THIS WEBSITE SERVES one PURPOSE. THE DESTRUCTION OF HARMFUL BUSINESS PRACTICES BY GENERAL STEEL, WHICH ACCORDING TO MULTIPLE EMPLOYEE ACCOUNTS, IS still TAKING PLACE.

The first time we called General Steel and Anthem Steel, we talked to Tim Wright. He said that they had a steel building that was normally 15,900.00 but if we sent in the deposit of 3,000.00 now with a signed contract, that we would be able to purchase it for 12,990.00 plus 1,400.00 freight. I told Tim the type and number of doors my building would need and that we would need to change the pitch of the roof and we also talked about the type of insulation that would be needed. Tim told me that he could not give me an exact price on doors, insulation and roof right now, but he said that with the doors, it would probably increase the amount of the building back to the regular price of 15,900.00. and that insulation would probably be around 1,500.00. We sent in the deposit of 3,000.00 and signed the contract and sent this to them.

We then received a purchase order from General Steel for the doors and insulation and roof modification, the price of this order was 18,737.35. not including the price of the building , So, our discounted General Steel building that started out at 12,990.00 now cost 33,127.35 . We told them that we could not purchase the building with those additional cost.

After reducing the number of doors and trying to cut the price down as much as possible, we had reduced the amount from 18.737.35 to 8,894.86. This added to the original amount for the building still brought up the price 23,284086. Trying to make the best out of a bad situation, we were still trying to make this work. But with the additional charges we could not afford to get the General Steel building.

We told Ronald Lamping that we could not afford to purchase the building. Two weeks later, we received a set of blueprints for the General Steel building. We called General Steel and asked what was going on; that we had canceled the order. We talked to Wayne Gasto (last name is a bit off) Wayne said that since they had already made the blueprints, that in order to cancel the order, I would not only lose my deposit, but I would be required to pay an additional 6,500.00 cancellation fee. I told Wayne that we would not pay it.

That is when we found out about their prior lawsuit. On 4/8/06 we received a certified letter from General Steel or Anthem Steel, Bruce Graham stating that if we did not purchase the building that they would take legal action against us. We have now received a letter stating that we have ten days to either take possession of the building and pay for it, or to pay the 6,500.00 cancellation fee or they will take us to court.

Connie
Gloster, Louisiana
U.S.A.

Anthem Steel gave us a price for our new building which was lower than the other bids we received. After signing the contract we were informed that the price would be higher than originally agreed to. They gave the price based on drawings we sent to them, but after signing the contract they refused to deliver the building we requested and said that it would be an additional charge for some of the features shown on the original drawings. The new price made them the highest bidder, not the lowest.

They have consistently mislead and lied to us over the last six months. We have tried to resolve this issue, but they basically said that we have no recourse but to pay them the higher amount. I do not believe that they have honored our contract, but the wording seems to give them license to lie, and do whatever they decide is in their best interest.

Carl
Mechanicsville, Maryland
U.S.A.

General Steel, Capital Steel, Anthem Steel, Discount Steel and now they are under a new name of Building Services Group. They are not in the business of “customer service” or “delivering buildings” but in the business of collecting deposits. They put up smoke and mirrors, and hide behind the contract and the team of lawyers they have of staff.

The best way is not to fight them, but to contact your Attorney General and file with them. Also contact the BBB in Colorado, and file with them too.

This blog was created to protect consumers who have yet to go down the path we did. STILL NO MONEY BACK. NOTHING BUT THREATS. After doing tons of online research, we realized we are FAR from the only ones. There are hundreds if not thousands of customers without buildings years after they’ve placed orders with General Steel.

In fact, General Steel is in hot water with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office, the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office, the California Attorney General’s Office, the Kentucky FBI, etc

Please be careful in dealing with these people and don’t believe anything they say. They have sued news outlets and the Better Business Bureau in an attempt to keep their dirty laundry from seeing the light of day.

I’m choosing to exercise my freedom of speech rights and you should too. Our attorney told us that everything found here is already in the public domain. The quotes, the affidavits, the case filings, everything. You’ll be able to find it right here, in one place.

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Deuteronomy 31:6