So the awesome engine machinist I have previously used and had great results with decided to actually retire, he was a retired UAW guy that worked out of a shop on his personal property. In the last few months I have tried 2 other sources in the Indy area, first guy is a "crew member" on a top fuel team, works out of a nice big building on his personal property, has nice modern equipment, we talked about what I wanted:
(G3 Hemi block, align hone, bore and torque plate hone, square and parallel decks to a height dimension I provide)
He says no problem, is fairly busy but will have it done in 4 weeks. 8 weeks later I call and ask WTH is going on, he says he will need the crank and rods to set the deck height, mind you I have $100k worth of of inspection equipment at my machine shop (non-automotive) and before I took the block to him I checked the crank stroke, Callies Compstar (found it was 3.992 vs the advertised 4.000), Scat rod length (6.125 was dead on) and the Diamond pistons compression height (advertised 1.110 was 1.110), while dropping everything off I stated that I wanted the decks at 9.241, with a .030 gasket that gives me .040 quench, he confirmed yes no problem, so either he didnt trust me or had no way to actually measure deck height. 4 weeks later after a lot of BS excuses I pick it up. The final bill was damn near twice what he said it would be, the weasel wasn't even there so I could call him out, I had to settle up with his what I assume was his wife. So I wrote him off as "never again " after the bait and switch stunt and discovering he torque plate honed using my torque plate and not putting a head gasket in place, in addition to re-using used torque to yield fasteners that were in place.

A few weeks later I have another G3 block just looking to have align honed, call a race engine shop, he gives me a price says about 3 days, 12 days later he calls, says it's done, however the price he quoted the day before I took it there had multiplied by 5, I ask WTH, he responds " oh, that was the price per main cap"
If I tried this crap at my business I would expect to be out of business in no time.
Is this crap normal??