Is it me? Or are they cruddo?

[Dawg]

I want to change (I'm not looking for quotes here), a small .asp cart on a site I have. I thought I'd get an off the shelf and have someone do it for me, say up to £200 for the cart and £500 for labour.
First company, a recommendation; sounds good and keen on phone, arrange an initial visit on a Friday evening, (his request, not mine, to fit in with his schedule), cancelled when he was due to arrive. Rearranged for following week, no show. Answered phone, rearrange: no show.
Second company, Googled, (looked at about 40 sites, choose 3), rep turns up when I was expecting techie...OK...no quote for 3 weeks. I chase, sorry she has been on holiday. My cup of confidence is not overflowing ...yeah please dick with my site when you can't get a quote together.
Third company, Googled as above, tech comes around, downloads a cart, seems to have a bit of trouble inserting into site, says he'll go away and do it, and let me know. I chase after a week. Being ill. OK people get ill. 2 weeks later no answer to landline, mobile or email, although a colleague of his says he is around, and working.
What have I done wrong? I want a simple cart, maybe with a bit of extra, (automated newsletter sign in, up selling off basket page etc.), but nothing eye watering, no lemon stroking moments: and I'm prepared to pay what they asked..
Any clues please?

(And sod it, I'll wack in Roman Cart myself for £50, and a couple of hours on the machine.)

[computerfaq]

Its a shame you've had such a bad experience with people like that. I offer exactly the same services normally, and aside from being very ill over the past couple of months, would definately have not let you be treated in the same way. Unfortunately those cowboys are the ones that give this whole industary a bad name!

[quikshop]

Sorry to hear about your experiences, sadly it appears to be quite common. We've got a new shop keeper who paid £5000 to a local web design company for a web shop only to get something that looked like it had been thrown together in one evening. Worst of all the company they used registered their shops web address as their own and refused to transfer it back to the proper owner when they decided to go elsewhere!

(And sod it, I'll wack in Roman Cart myself for £50, and a couple of hours on the machine.)

Sounds like the best option, I'm sure others on this forum can advise on how to integrate it if you need help.