A one star rating is being overly generous with this outfit. This review is a heads up to Government Contractors who have the misfortune of doing business with CXT/LB Foster. If (or in all probability when) CXT delivers a defective product to your job site and you are forced to have to fix it (in our case, two cracks in one of their restroom vaults) because CXT is either a) unwilling to fix it themselves, or b) incapable of fixing it to the Forest Service’s satisfaction (as was the case with us), I would strongly advise that you get your money up front from them for the cost of fixing their faulty product.
Our excavation company charged CXT $1,500 to fix the two cracks in one of the restroom vaults they delivered to our job site at a campground near St. Maries, ID that we worked on in 2023. Prior to our company fixing the cracks, CXT’s “Commercial Operations Manager” (Brian Hall) agreed (via email) that CXT would pay us this amount if we fixed the cracks for them. After we fixed the two cracks to the Forest Service’s satisfaction, instead of paying the $1,500 Brian Hall agreed CXT would pay us, he instead stopped all communication with us after we told him we don’t accept credit card payments and to send us a check instead. From that point on, he ignored our phone calls and voicemails and stopped responding to our emails demanding payment from them. Apparently it’s fine when CXT doesn’t pay what they owe, but in my dealings with CXT, they consistently hounded us for payment in full (including delivery charges) before their products even left their production yard. They actually wanted full payment from us before the buildings were even completed. With the numerous cosmetic defects the buildings had straight out of production, I’m just glad we didn’t pay them until the Forest Service went to CXT’s production yard and inspected them first. If we had paid CXT prior to inspection, I doubt very much those cosmetic defects would have been fixed.
Something else I would advise other Contractors to do is to check that your initial quote and final invoice are itemized. Since I have already explained to the CXT salesperson we dealt with what an itemized invoice was (as he didn’t know), hopefully he has the capability of retaining that information for future requests from other customers. Make certain CXT lists separately the price of the buildings, the price of the delivery charge, and the amount of sales tax you are being charged. On our final invoice, CXT lumped the cost of the buildings we purchased in with the delivery charges and then charged us sales tax on the total amount. I then had to prove to their Accounting Department that my initial quote for the buildings and delivery charges had been separated out (which I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t be in the first place) before they would re-figure the sales tax. I don’t even reside in a state that has sales tax and even I know you don’t charge sales tax on non-tangible items. Makes me wonder where the overcharge (in our case it was over $13,000) was ending up.
If ever given the choice between CXT and Missoula Concrete when bidding on a Forest Service project, I would highly recommend to always go with Missoula Concrete…hands down. Missoula Concrete is easy to work with, they don’t lie to you, and their finished products aren’t full of defects.
