Maybe, what they should have said was "It's what you can
expect for the price", so either you got the work at a lower
price(but less quality), or they made more by not putting
the time in to do it right. You can chrome almost anything,
provided you prepare the work first, and a good chrome job(or
any other plating) requires a series of steps before the actual
chrome plating. Correct cleaning, polishing, and then zinc, copper,and nichol(triple plating) are the foundation for
a good chrome job. If any part of this is not done right,
you get a crappy end product. *the zinc primary coat, is
used for chroming aluminum, and not necessary in other applications.