An Edmonton man wants to warn anyone who may be thinking about renting equipment. Andrew Burke says he rented an excavator to install weeping tile around his home but, when he received the equipment, it didn’t work.
Due to a tight schedule, Burke ended up renting more equipment, for twice the price. Now, he wants his money back.
Burke rented the excavator from John Morocco of Stone-Gate Stucco, who he found through an advertisement on Kijiji.
“Prices were a bit cheaper and he assured me that everything was good and he had been doing this for a long time,” Burke explains.
The machine was dropped off at Burke’s house while he was at work. When he got home, he noticed the battery in the excavator was dead.
“The contractor that dropped it off left a light on inside the cab.”
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The boom on the machine wouldn’t move, either. Burke says the button that is used to get the the boom to articulate side to side, wasn’t working.
Over the phone, Morocco suggested taking it to a repair shop, saying it could be a broken wire or fuse.
“For the long weekend, a lot of these machines were already rented out and no techs were available to do the work,” Burke says.
Burke’s friend, who is a certified operator, had driven in from Saskatchewan for the long weekend to do the job, so Burke says he was forced to rent another machine, at a higher price.
Burke paid Morocco $1,000 for the excavator so, he asked for his money back.
“(Morocco) said ‘well it must have been the previous people that rented it that did it,’ and as soon as I asked for a refund he said ‘you guys must have broken it’.”
When the contractor came to pick up the excavator, he claims everything was working fine when he dropped it off.
Staff at the CAT Rental Store say consumers need to do their homework.
“There’s always somebody out there that’s willing to rent purely on price,” says Rim Ranson, the Health and Safety Manager at CAT.
Ranson wants to stress the importance of a pre-rental contract and inspection. He says if something doesn’t work, pick up the phone right away and call the company or person you rented the equipment from.
That advice is now being echoed by Burke.
“Rent from a reputable company. If anything goes wrong with your machine, those techs are going to be on site to fix it or they’ll be getting you a replacement if they can”
Global News tried contacting Morocco however, emails and phone calls were not returned.
Burke says all he wants is for Morocco to do the right thing, and give him his money back.
With files from Julie Matthews.
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