A & B Home Improvements & Repairs

Our dealings with this individual/company could be described as nothing less than a disaster. In short summary: He made a hole in the house, took $300 from us for materials which he never purchased, and disappeared only to return a week or so later to pick up his tools. Read on for more details.
After coming to do an estimate in late December/early January, Mr Billy Raines gave us a date he would return to begin work. On the prescribed day, he showed up and stated he was going for materials, but didn't ask for any money. He never returned, and after a few days sent a message stating that a family emergency had arisen which he had to attend to immediately. We gave the benefit of the doubt, and scheduled a new date. That date came and passed, a no show. Against our better judgement, we rescheduled again.
This time, he showed up with tools and ladders and proceeded to assess what needed to be done - in the process making a sizable hole in the floor/wall  The hole was large enough you could put your arm through to the outside, and remember, this was in the middle of winter. Mr Raines requested $300 to go buy materials, which we gave him in cash in exchange for a receipt. Again, he disappeared. In the meantime, we hired another contractor to come fix the house.
A week or so passed, and he finally contacted us. Mr Raines said he'd been arrested and spent the past week in jail, and was out now and wanted his tools back. Being a nice people, we allowed him to come get them. When we asked about our $300, it was not available, presumably having been used to help get out of jail. Promises were made to repay the $300, but they were never made good.
The events described happened in mid to late January of 2013. It's now June 10th, and the money still hasn't been returned. Messages aren't being answered, and at this point it looks like we'll have to take legal recourse to recover the money.

Billy of A & B Home Improvements was the third person I called after a "no bid" from one of the highly rated service providers on Angie's List. Another highly rated provider gave me a reasonable estimate, but I wanted another estimate before deciding. Neither of the aforementioned estimators were proactive and they relied on me telling them what I wanted done without identifying other repairs that I might require. One of them didn't even take notes or have a tape measure!I found "A & B Home Improvements" advertised in the Huntsville Times and called. Billy arrived at the time we agreed upon, and performed a thorough inspection, including climbing on the high pitched roof to assess the work I wanted performed.Billy provided an estimate the next day and I asked him to return the following day with a written contract to review the work to be performed and sign the contract. He began work the following week.I would recommend A & B based on the quality of the work performed, clean up at the job site upon completion and value received. I will use again without hesitation.