Ryan Musser

Went through a general contractor, Steve Cederquist of Cornerstone Properties (Separate review, and subsequently fired) and got totally screwed. Cederquist told me to deal directly with his stone buyer, Ryan Musser, which would also save me time/money. Between the two of them they convinced me the travertine I had already picked out was not good quality and had too much fill (turns out the place that sells it only sells at retail so nothing in the middle for the contractor). Two months go by and he kept trying to push other stuff on me that I did not even want (marble, limestone, other colors etc.) Took me to look at some one day, out of the blue, but one was sold, one was nothing that I wanted, again, and then we saw a new shipment. Still crated. He convinced me that it was almost the same color as my original sample and mistakenly I believed him. Problem was we were outside in the bright sunlight and it made it look lighter that it really was. The crates were sealed and stacked so we picked the 6 lightest from what we could see. I asked him SPECIFICALLY about the quality and the color and he assured me it was fine and as close as I was going to get to my original pick. My mistake was that I took his word for it, since he was supposedly the trusted stone buyer. He bought it wholesale (in the back room) then came out, marked it up and charged me. MSI only sells wholesale. Ironically, this was just before he left on a Cabo vacation. Upon delivery a few weeks later, for which he was not even there, they had attached his invoice to one of the 6 crates (2,025 feet) I bought (more than I needed but he assured me I would want/need all that extra). Turns out he paid $2.88 per foot and turned around and charged me $5.50 per foot delivered. Nice profit when you're talking over 2,000 feet of stone. After sorting through every single tile, it turns out that literally 2 of the 6 crates were not anything that I or the installers even wanted to use, it was that bad. Not to mention darker than what I had originally picked and LOTS of fill, and/or missing fill. I could not even finish the project, with two crates filling my garage. Went back to Musser and told him about it. Told me that MSI had none left and doesn't take material back so I would just have to make it work. I complained and he eventually came and looked at it (had never seen it) and then blamed my installers for not knowing what they were talking about. A few days later I said something about buying more, and low and behold they then had plenty of the same lot in stock. I then suggested that he buy me one crate (since he said he wanted to make things right) and I would give him the 2 other crates in return that he could then sell to someone else, since that is his business, and since he said there was nothing wrong with it. I said I would eat the retail cost of the crate I couldn't use. Fair proposal for him as far as I was concerned. He came back and said the best he would do was have me pay for another crate at "his cost" of $4.63 a foot. (later $4.88 a foot, and subsequently $4.88 with tax). I then sent him a copy of his invoice at $2.88 a foot, that he didn't know I had, and he then told me they had none left anymore. He wouldn't return my messages but eventually I got him on the phone and told him my new contractor checked and they had plenty left and he then tried saying the invoice was fake and when that didn't work he argued on how to calculate the price per foot. Couldn't bluff anymore and then actually told me "Look, I don't do that many jobs so I need to make money where I can". That was the end of it. Horrible service and no wonder he doesn't do that many jobs. In the end, I had to have my new contractor go buy more for me, at $2.88 a foot (they had plenty left), and I will try to dump the 2 crates of junk for whatever I can get, if anything, as its really poor quality. In my experience, and opinion, Musser is dishonest and unethical, at best. Obviously all he cared about was a quick payday for him, and his vacation. Couldn't care less about me, the client. Also, when he originally found out I had fired the GC that brought him in, he tried to get the work for himself. Only in it for himself. Caveat emptor!!!