PRESTIQUE ROOFING

The contractor insisted on 50% of the money up front. I understand now that this is a very questionable business practice. Although his flyer said he accepted VISA, to use VISA you have to sign saying the job is complete and accepted, even before ever started. A sub contractor was used for the gutters, but when I asked for the lien release form, I met with suspicion "where is this request coming from?" and when I said from the notice you gave me informing me of my rights and Good practices to follow, he couldn't produce anything showing sub was paid, except a camera pic of a white board, showing "Lonnie, paid." This is not going to help me if Lonnie was not indeed paid and decides to file a lien against me. The main problems came from the fact that I didn't do my homework. Contractor should NOT ask for 50% down. I signed for too many jobs before any of them started. Contractor not willing to supply lien releases from subs is not good. I should have gotten some completion dates at the least. There was no place on his form for anything about when he would do the work. I didn't think of it. Before any work started, the contractor kept finding more problems and pressured me to sign more contracts. Pretty soon, he's sitting on $20,000 of my money, and I can't get a schedule out of him. By the time I started Googling things like "how do I know my contractor is cheating me" he had me by the short hairs. He disappeared one time for a few days and I got really nervous. I left a voicemail asking if he'd absconded with my money, kind of joking, kind of worried, and I got a very abusive answer immediately. I ended up apologizing. I had to bite my tongue for months. He got into my personal business, queried my tenant, starting telling me he "is on my side" and I knew I was in for trouble. I believe he prays on elderly women. He tried to make me believe he was interested in a personal romantic relationship with me. Come on, I'm in my sixties, he's early 40's. Was I lonely, did I want company at night? Meanwhile, he is telling me in the mornings via text, "on my way" and 4 to 6 hours later he would show up. Some days he wouldn't show at all and blamed it on his worker (though he led me to believe he had full crews of people working for him) being sick. Nothing made sense, it was a nightmare. Whenever I asked about the obvious discrepancies I was punished in some way. No work for more days, or additional charges threatened. One time I got sarcastic and when he said "on my way" via text I replied "so that means I'll see you in about 5 hours?" He went ballistic. I had to apologize, again. I felt bullied and taken advantage of. When I contacted an attorney, I was told that because I'd signed the contract, given him that 50% up front, not getting any date on it, I was at the guy's mercy. I had to suck it up or risk my work being put off over and over again. The work did finally get done. With MANY extra charges, even though I repeatedly asked that he get my approval before doing additional work. I have thousands of dollars added for dry rot repairs at the rental that I could have looked at, but I wasn't asked. Was there dry rot? Probably. But how much? He kept telling me he was giving me extras, not charging me. But there was no evidence for that ever. Only his word. He didn't keep his word to me on so many things, that I can only extrapolate from that. When the final bill came, I decided to question 2 things. One was extra priming for the paint job on the shop at my home. Extreme weathering. I was home almost every day he painted and could have been shown the problem if there was one. I was threatened with a NEW BILL if I didn't pay! A NEW Bill for all the extras he'd been giving me. I feel I am opening myself up to reprisals by giving this review, but I think people need to be warned about this guy. Oh yeah! the first time it rained, my gutters leaked. He tried to make me pay a SERVICE CHARGE rather than warrant the issue. He put off looking at it so when the real rains started, he tried to say it was my fault that there was leaking, there were leaves in the gutter. I got up and looked. There were a few leaves, the trees had just started to shed leaves, I'd swept my back deck once already. There was daylight between the gutter and the house for goodness sake. I believe he just added something in somewhere else on the final bill to charge me for it. He says he gives a year warrantee. I am very worried about the paint job on my house. He didn't caulk around the windows and it was immediately flaking paint on all of them, so he came back through, caulked and painted over the caulking, but he didn't prep it. I am worried. Don't give him 50% up front! Get a completion date!! Get in writing that all extra charges MUST be authorized first!