Woodstone

Overall the experience was horrible. I met with Charlie Sullivan at my home to have get an estimate for a basement remodel. It was at that time he told me they also did siding work which I also required. I decided to tackle that job first as it was a more necessary project that needed to be completed. Mr. Sullivan requested an almost 50% deposit, which I have now learned is not even legal. The contract was for $21,000.00 and I gave him a $10,000.00 deposit on a credit card. That was June 30, 2011. The job was supposed to start on July 17th and be completed by August 7th. It was not even STARTED by August 7th. After countless phone calls, and even more excuses as to why they couldn't start the project, I contacted my bank about working to get the deposit back. A few weeks later I heard from Mr. Sullivan, who brought two men, Julian and Joel to my house to measure and go over all that needed to be done. This only happened AFTER the funds were taken from Mr. Sullivan's account. When the work began, a week later, two completely different men, Billy & Tom showed up. In total I was supposed to receive siding for my home (small only 900 square feet) a new bulkhead for the basement, an inside basement door, two basement windows, one with a dryer vent, two side storm doors (chosen by me from a catalog) finish work inside a mud room where the storm doors were being installed, a front storm door (also chosen by me) and gutters along the sides of the house. The bulkhead siding and gutters were completed well, but nothing else. The two storm doors for the side of the mud room were not what I ordered, and they didn't eve match! They were very cheap, don't close properly and don't fit. There was no basement door, basement windows, inside mud room finishing, or front storm door completed. In addition to this, after the siding and gutters were complete I was told I had to provide more funds in order to have the job completed. In total I gave Mr. Sullivan another $9,000.00. So in total he was given $19,000.00. After many phone calls, and countless stories by Mr. Sullivan as to reasons they men weren't showing up, I came to realize that Mr. Sullivan was just a disreputable person and try and cut my losses and hire another company to compete the work. In speaking with KAKS, Champion and one other company in the same field I was given information about just how disreputable Mr. Sullivan is. He has countless judgements against him, and just changes names and moves on to more unknowing clients. A few weeks after I walked away, I came home to a note on my door from the two men, Billy and Tom who asked that I give them a call. It then became clear to me why they hadn't been showing up...................................They were NEVER paid by Mr. Sullivan. This man is the most disreptuable, unethical man with no moral compass to speak of. One of the many stories he had told me about why he wasn't showing up was that his son had cancer and all their time was being spent on him, all the while apologizing for not staying in touch. To this day I wonder if that too was just another one of his many lies. I would like to believe that even he couldn't be that sick. Of course, he may not even have a son, so it wouldn't bother him to make up a story like that. Stay as far away from this guy as you can. A THIEF through and through. Also look out for CPB Holdings or ARCN, two other business names he goes by. Like I said he has countless judgements against him.)

Charlie Sullivan is a consummate salesman. His presentation is compelling - iPad photos of work completed, nice brochure, and lots of promises. However, we learned the hard way that his execution doesn't match his sales promises. After signing the contract and paying 1/3 of the total price, we didn't hear from Charlie until we became concerned about the start date and attempted numerous contacts. When the job finally did start, his team worked hard to get us to the next scheduled payment date and Charlie offered plenty of flexibility in changes to the job to get it right. However, once he had collected 2/3 of the contract we noticed two things - 1.) his team was not as reliable about arriving as promised and 2.) Charlie's promises became more and more hollow. The initial completion estimate of 4-6 weeks turned into a 5 month ordeal, with at least 4 promised finish dates that were missed. The more aggravated we became at the missed deadlines, the more evasive and unavilable Charlie became. Through our investigations, we learned that he routinely lied to us about various aspects of the project. For example, Charlie told us that our carpeting was back-ordered, but wwhen we contacted the supplier, we learned that he had never ordered the carpeting with the required down payment. After weeks of him insisting that the job couldn't be completed because of this,wWhen we confonted Charlie with our intlleigence, he expressed outrage but, remarkably, the rug was suddenly available within a few days. It also became clear to us that while Chariie truly intended to perform high quality work, he began to understand towards the end that the project was costing him more than he expected so he tried numerous times to bill us for work that was to be included in the job and he also instructed his sub-contractors to try to collect money directly from us by claiming they were doing "extra services." In once case, the "extra service" was reparing shoddy plaster work around a door frame. Worst of all, Charlie treats his employees and sub contractors very poorly. We were told by almost of all of them that he owed them thousands of dollars from our job and other work. One employee was evicted from his apartment because he was unable to pay his rent due to back pay from Charlie. When told of this employee's plight, Charlie responded: "so?". While the outocme of work was eventually completed with good quality, we consider oursleves lucky to have gotten it completed. We now know of two other customers in our town who are still waiting for work to be completed.

Charlie Sullivan is the General Contractor. He came to our home and gave us an estimate for new windows, new french doors, a partial bathroom remodel, repair of an outdoor deck, and repair of 2 ceilings due to moisture damage. He came and fixed the ceilings in the kitchen and bedroom (drywall, plaster, paint, etc) that work was done.It was unorganized from the get go - they did not start when promised, they did not show up when promised, they did not complete the work as promised. One evening we had the painter in our home until 10pm as we were desperate to have them finish at least some of the project and we were not sure when they would show up next. soon - it was apparent they would not show up regularly. they disappeared for a while and my husband emailed, texted, and called Charlie and the guy who worked for him (Dan) and there was always an excuse as to why they could not show up. i have emails that state their plan to show and the work they were going to do and they did not follow through. we asked them on several occasions to speak directly to my husband for info on the project, if they had any questions about the project, and/or if there were to be any decisions made regarding payment for the project. we could not have been more clear on this point. And Charlie and Dan both agreed to this communication before we started the project. i was mostly unavailable at this time. they disregarded this wish and many others.my husband was available by phone email and text to speak with Charlie and not his painter as requested - Even though we were very clear that we wanted to speak with Charlie - after all - his was the GC on the job --Charlie continually ducked our questions, calls, emails, texts and had Dan (the painter) to contact us on his behalf. We had excuses of a "sick family member", of "pneumonia" "flu" and other such claims from the business owner that these things caused him to be "unable" to reach us over several months - his having the flu apparently shut down operations and no one in his company was able to dial out i guess. Ironically, at the start of the job we were contacted by a very pleasant woman who informed us of how the job would go that day or week. She mysteriously disappeared from the process early on. Charlie quoted the job would be finished the second week in september so by the end of october we started calling him to task. A neighbor who had also hired him told us things were not going well on her job and she called to warn us about his business practices. She said he was behind in her job as well and had NOT ordered the materials for her job when he said he would. Thus warned, we asked Charlie for the bill showing that he had ordered the windows and none was forthcoming on three separate occasions over several weeks. He promised to provide it the first weekend and failed. After that, he no longer returned my husband's calls, texts and emails to him. When we said we wanted our money back, as we had no windows, no french doors, no work being done in the house - weeks went by without any activity. we told him we would pay him for fixing the ceilings and painting the ceilings, demoing the bathroom and repair of the deck but we wanted the rest of our money back. He then went into a spin about having to restock the windows - and that he would be charged for that. we had asked him over and over again for the itemized receipt for purchase of the windows and none was ever shown to us. He had more than enough time to supply the information - he could have even had his "supplier" call us or we could have called them but no. He never showed us a recept for purchase of the windows so has no reason to charge us a "return" of the nonexistent windows. We asked to speak with him through out the process and he had his painter do the dirty work. As of yesterday we received a call from his painter who wanted to disassociate himself from charlie (i have the phone number and record of his call on my cell). charlie said he could not reach us at home which is amusing as we go back to our original request to contact my husband on his cell phone first - then the house.There were multiple ways to reach us and, in fact, when it came time to make excuses they reached my husbands cell, our home phone, my cell phone and lastly both my husband and me via email. Charlie claims his "supplier" charges him 50% - so he is trying to keep our money without proof of purchasing anything and he says he can not refund anything until december 1st. This guy is unethical and i would steer clear of him and his company. Unfortunately, this is an instance where we are seeking legal counsel to get our money back as this guy will not do the right thing.

Eventually I realised that if I do not push the case I will simply lose the money. I called police to find out what to do (I had never been in such situation before). Police suggested to go to court, the rest I think is obvious - pricy and long with not really material outcome. I called Woodstone again and left message describing my conversation with police. ONLY THEN Charles Sullivan contacted me saying they mistakenly estimate the job too low and they will not be able to do it anyway (question is why they took the money). By that time my money were taken from my account for more than month. Per Charles Sullivan I could expect calcelation letter from them shortly. After waiting 2 more weeks and no letter from Woodstone I contacted BBB and explained the case. By that time Woodstone was not registered with BBB. BBB tried to contact Woostone and got in response the same tale about wrong estmation and cancelation letter. BBB respond to me was that they can not solve this... But they gave me excellent tip. BBB suggested to contact Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General. They have online service that helps to solve similar problems. The best point is it is FREE :) That is what I did. Only when Mr. Sullivan started receiving letters with header stated it is from MASS Attorney General he managed to move his a** much quicker. In less thet week I got my money back. By that time it was already too late to start the project because of the weather and I had to postpone it for the next year. During winter my steps got much more damage and now I am facing really expecive things to fix. Bottom line - if you have money you do not care how to spend then open the window you are sitting close to now and throw them out in there on the street rather that give them to Woodstone. Much simpler and the result is the same.