Rosendo Torres Painting

A contractor friend recommended him to us. He said that he paid $31.00/hr for Rosendo and his helper Chuy. I called Rosendo and he told me his rate was $37.00/hour for two men. I agreed to the price and he spent 57 hours painting our home. He was on-time, willing to move book cases and heavy furniture to paint behind them. His workmanship was excellent. He and Chuy were well spoken, pleasant, hardworking, fast, and did work of very high quality. On the 7th day he finished and I asked what I owed him and he said I owed him for 60 hours of work not the 57hours I had kept track of and that I had misunderstood their labor rate. He said they BOTH were to be paid $35.00/hour for a total of 120 HOURS. I told him that I would never have agreed to pay $70.00 per hour for two painters and I didn't understand what he was trying to do. I called the contractor friend, who had recommended him to me, while Rosendo was still in my home. He said that my agreed to rate of $37.00/hour for two painters was VERY generous rate for our area and that NO ONE was paying anything close to $70.00/hour for two painters. I wrote Rosendo a check for $37.00 times 57 hours ($2,109.00) plus $84.00 for material (which I had agreed to pay for.) He called me later that evening and apologized for his "math error" and said the amount I gave him was fine. How does a man who has been painting professionally for more than 5-years double his price "buy accident"? To me, that stretches my willingness to believe beyond the breaking point. Until that final day I was planning on recommending them to anyone I knew. Now, I would not recommend a man with his "poor math skills", even to someone I dislike.