A Cabin in the Woods

In August 2008, Phoenix Buildings Solutions accepted and signed an order to produce a custom designed cabin to be built in Ohio. The order was processed, the contract was signed between the client and Phoenix, and the deposit was accepted. Engineering completed plan schematics and received approval from the State of Ohio Building Department in early September. The original plan was to start production in late September, but production did not start until mid-November. Why? Tom Hennings simply did not want to produce the product and had no intentions of producing the product. This was simply a scheme by Tom Hennings to inject capital into the company. At the contract signing, a customer is required to make deposit of at least 10%. By signing contracts with clients, the company is making quick cash.

Over the next two months, the client was lied to repeatedly by Tom Hennings about the status of the model plans. The client was told that the plans were still at the State of Ohio, and had not had been approval yet. The story then changed after client found the plans were approved. The new story became “engineering needed more time to produce production drawings”. This went on for two months, while Tom Hennings tried to decide if he wanted to build this product. Other orders placed after the cabin were placed ahead of it and produced. When the production began in November the home rolled through the production line quickly and by mid-December was delivered. The site of this project was at the top of heavy forested hill with a steep grade. By December the weather had turned ugly and rain, snow, and ice were a constant reminder that homes are not usually delivered in the winter.

Every attempt for a week to ascend to the top the hill failed due to adverse weather conditions. Tom Hennings, informed the client that they would be financially responsible for each day the team was unable to deliver the product to the top of hill. The client refused the invoice over the delayed delivery due to faults committed by Phoenix. If the product would have been produced in reasonable time after the contract was signed, the product would not have delivered in such adverse conditions. By refusing to pay the invoice, Tom Hennings and Phoenix have withheld materials that failed to ship with product. Those materials are currently held hostage in their now closed and locked production plant.