Al Witty

Al Witty signed up with the State Journal Register newspaper and ran a special for $120 worth of handyman services for $60, We bought one of the deals and called his number. He did not call us back. I called again, no response. I finally called him one last time and on this message told him that if I did not get a call back I was going to contact the newspaper. Then he called me back. He explained that his nephew had been in an accident. I told him that I was sorry and was just trying to schedule an appointment before the deal ran out. He said he would not hold us to that deadline. I told him to give us a call back when he could and we could set up an appointment. It took a while and a couple of messages to get things set up. I explained to him that we lived in a 2-story house in an older neighborhood. He came to give us an estimate and talked to my husband. When he saw our house he told my husband that it was too tall. He said that I led him to believe that it was not that tall. (What??) He quoted us a price of over $1,000 because he would have to rent a tall ladder and we had gutter covers and that would take longer. We decided to have a faucet replaced instead so that we could still get the deal. We went out and bought the faucet and called him to set up an appointment. The appointment time came and went - no call and no show. I called him and he said that he did not have transportation but would have it later in the day. So we changed the time to the afternoon. Again, no call and no show. I called again and still did not have transportation. He wanted to do the job on the weekend but we already had something scheduled and that would not work for us. At this point I felt that we had gone to great lengths to try and work with him. I just wanted a refund. He said that would be no problem.. In fact, he had to do that for a few other people. Time came and went and no refund, no call, no contact. I called the newspaper and they refunded their share of the $60 ($30) immediately with a credit. We have contacted Mr. Witty numerous times and he always said he would pay us but never has. When the newspaper found this out they apologized and unfortunately they could not do anything about it except refuse to do business with him again. I understand if he was going through a rough patch or had difficult time getting his business off the ground and we gave him many chances to get it all worked out. But he was just not professional in any way.