I was recently ripped of by Joe Westgate of 3 Brothers Concrete LLC and I am currently trying to recover approximately $21,500 of the $43,150 that I paid him for work that he did not complete. I hired Joe Westgate owner of 3 Brothers Concrete LLC in Painesville, Ohio to help build my dream house by installing my basement and garage footers, all the block for my basement and garage, brick work on the house, build my fireplace, pour my concrete basement, garage, front porch and sidewalk, stamped patio, driveway, and pole barn for a total price of $63,000 and I have a contract to prove it. Joe asked for three draws of $21,000 and said the draws would come after the work started, in the middle of the job, and when the job was completed. I met him at the property on Wednesday september 19th and officially contracted him to do the job. Then he asked me for his first draw of $21,000 to buy the materials which wasn't part of the agreement and I hesitated but I was so excited to build my dream home that I paid him. We discussed the time frame and he was to start on Thursday September 27th and be done with the basement footers, the block work, and basement concrete floor was to be poured by Friday October 12th so my framers could start the following Monday. Joe did start the job on Thursday if you want to call it that. When I showed up Joe and his wife were there standing around complaing about working on a muddy jobsite and said he couldn't work like that so he was going to have stone poured the next day and his guys would be there to finish forming footers. I came back the next afternoon and the footers still weren't formed. I came back a few days later to find two of his workers there sort of working while they had there 2 and 3 year old kids playing in the wet and muddy basement that had stone, steel rebar, and lumber laying everywhere while it was sprinkling rain and 45 degrees outside. I called Joe to complain about this and he assured that it wouldn't happen again and that he personally would be on the job everyday until it was finished to make sure it was done right and on schedule. It only got worse from here. Joe's so called crew which consisted of himself, his wife who has no construction experience, and a laborer with some experience poured the footers wrong and had to repair them twice. Once because they didn't have continous footers for the patio and garage. The second time because my footers that are 20and quot; wide were so far off that my 12and quot; block wouldn't fit on it. Which ended up pushing the schedule back and they didn't start laying the basement block until Fiday October 12th which was when the work was supposed to be completed. Also they dug a huge ramp into my basement with a bobcat to carry the block in which I now have to fix because Joe didn't want to pay to have it boom lifted into the basement. Then when I was talking to Joe he told me that he needed another draw of $21,000 to cover materials plus an extra $1,150 because the basement needed more stone then expected. I asked Joe about our agreement that the second draw was to come after a majority of the work was completed and at that time only one wall was up. Joe told me that either I paid him or he was pulling his guys off the job. At this point I was scared and needed the job done as soon as possible because Joe was so far behind that I just paid him. I showed up on Sunday October 14th to do some work and found the block layers there tearing down the back wall. I asked them why and they said because it was off by 8'' so they had to fix it which pushed the deadline back. I stopped out to my property on Wednesday October 17th and found that the back block wall window openings were not in the right locations. I called Joe to ask him about it and he said that he hadn't been on the jobsite the last 2 days but left specific instructions and his block layers messed up. Then I realized that not only were the windows in the wrong locations, but they were the wrong sizes and the custom windows that I ordered wouldn't fit into them. Joe said that he would have the problem corrected but it would set us behind on schedule again. So I had to reschedule my pulmbers, framers, excavators, and inspections. The block layers finally finished on Friday October 19th but I had some concerns with there workmanship and the way they did some of the block piers to support the patio and garage. Joe assured me that he would have it fixed. On Monday October 22nd I had a reputable basement waterproofing company show up to waterproof the basement, but upon inspection he said that he couldn't waterproof it without first repairing the poor workmanship that was performed by Joe Westgate of 3 Brothers Concrete LLC. The waterproofing company spent approximately 4 hours patching all of the bad mortar joints and holes in the mortar which Joe assured me was ok and ready for waterproofing. This ended up costing me an extra $300. Joe showed up a few hours later to start prepping the basement to pour the concrete and I explained about the waterproofing in which he said that the block was fine and he wasn't paying for it. He then said he was going to prep the floors and pour the basement concrete on Tuesday October 23rd. On Tuesday he sent me a text message at 6:15 am stating that he was moving the pour to Wednesday October 24th because it was supposed to rain on Tuesday. So on Wednesday he called me around 1:30 pm and said he didn't pour the concrete because my lumber company dropped my house package off in the driveway and he couldn't get cement trucks in. I immediately drove out there to see what the problem was and Joe was already gone. I discovered the lumber package was not in the driveway but actually in the front yard and there are two driveways on my property so he could use either one. I then looked into the basement and realized that the real problem was that the basment was only half prepped with plastic vapor barrier and wire mesh so he wasn't ready to pour. I called Joe very angry and discussed my concern with all of his excuses and the fact that I needed the basement poured immediately because there was a big rain storm coming in on Friday October 26th that was supposed to last 10 days. Joe Westgate once again assure me that he would have the prep work finished and the basement poured on Thursday October 25th 2012 no matter what. On Thursday around 1 pm I drove to my property and found Joe Westgate and his crew were no where in sight and there was no concrete in the basement, but he did finish prepping it for concrete. I immediately tried calling him but oddly got no answer. I caled him approximately 11 times, left several voicemails, and sent several text messages to him. Al I got was a text message that said and quot;will call soonand quot;. I tried calling him all night and texting him to find out was going on with no response from him. On Friday October 26th I went to the property at 7:30 am and noticed that sometime after I left the previoous night Joe came back and picked up all of his tools and left the jobsite vacant so I immediately panicked because at this point Joe Westgate had $43,150 of my money and only a third of the job was complete. I started calling Joe and texting him for almost an hour with no response. So I called the local sheriff and sent Joe a text that they were on there way. Joe then immediately called me back and said that he quit and wasn't doing anymore work for me. He then said something that struck me as odd. He said that the sheriff couldn't do anything and that I would have to take him to civil court to get my money back. I asked him why he didn't pour the concrete and didn't respond to any of my calls and his answer was and quot;I don't have to explain myself to youand quot;. I told him that I was going to call my attorneys so he then stated that he would work up an invoice and have it to me by the end of the day for labor and materials and send me a partial refund. I told him that I was going to post a review on Angie's List and on the Better Business Bureau about this and he said that he would sue me for slander even though it's true. To this day I still have not seen a refund, invoice, or heard from Joe Westgate or anyone from 3 Brothers Concrete. I went home and typed 3 Brothers Concrete LLC into the Bettter Business Bureau website and found two other complaints posted 10/8/2012 and 10/12/2012 against Joe for taking deposits and not performing the work or returning phone calls. He also gave the people several excuses for not returning there calls. Joe has thousands of excuses for everything. I then did some more research and found that Joe Westgate also previously had a company that he started in 2010 called Lay It Flat Concrete that went out of business in 2011 and then shortly after he started up under a different name 3 Brothers Concrete LLC. Which I had previously asked him how come I never met or seen his brothers on the jobsite and he said that it was just a name he made up that didn't mean anything. I then found out that after he told me that he had been in business for over 15 years it wasn't true. In fact it wasn't even possible considering he's 31, graduated high school in 1999 and then went to the military for four years or so he claims. (Probably another Lie). That puts him at getting out of the military in 2003 so at most he has 9 years experience, not 15 like he claims. .