H & E Equipment Services

The service, with Mark, was good, except that he gave us a written quote, detailed all charges, and quoted the same thing on the phone, NEVER mentioning a deposit of any kind.
The quote was submitted for approval to the home office and, trusting our word on the amount, the VP authorized the payment.  All was fine until the machine was delivered and the driver asked for my signature.  On the receipt, the total amount was now over $1,000.00!  There was a $200.00 charge to our credit card that was NEVER explained or even mentioned in any of the telephone conversations Mark and I had, nor was it included anywhere on the written quote. 
I called Mark to ask why I needed to pay a "deposit" for a machine we paid for and he casually said "oh that's for fuel and the balance will be refunded after we deducted the cost to refill the tank."  I then tried to explain that this was not what was agreed upon with Mark's boss, Phil, but his response was the same.  I told Phil that I felt this was a case of "hidden charges" and he insisted that "that's the standard way business is done."  He argued that the deposit was on the credit card authorization form signed by our home office and felt that this made it OK to tack on a hidden charge.  I asked how much he would be charging for the diesel fuel and he said it would be more than $7.00 per gallon.  When I asked why his price was higher than the gas station, he told me it was because they have to "drive the truck there to put the gas in!" However, Mark had told me in an earlier discussion, that it would be cheaper for us to "just fill the tank" ourselves.
This story goes on much longer but for brevity's sake I'll cut it. Phil sent the driver back to reclaim the machine after I told him I felt cheated and wouldn't do business with them again. His explanation for this was "based on what you said, you weren't going to pay...", which was not true; how could I "not pay" when it was already done?   I told the driver that they only way he could remove the lift, WHICH WE ALREADY PAID FOR, was if he returned our money at the same time. After threatening to call the sheriff to get the driver off of our property and not remove the lift, he finally left.
I called the main headquarters of the company and left a message for a man whose name appears on the website as one to contact for "ethical" issues.  I only received a call from the local regional manager and found that his attitude was that of "the company man," exactly as his coworkers and not as a higher level professional. Needless to say, I will be going with the better company in the future, even if they charge a little more for professional, honest customer service. We did get the final statement which indicated that the company charged the credit card for $15.73 for 4 gallons of fuel....at $4.14 per gallon.... hhmmmmm.