Fantastic Painters, Inc. Woonsocket, Ri

Mr. Alphonso Nealy purported to own the company. He represented that he was licensed by the State to
do painting and contracting and had the requisite insurance required by the
State.  He had done work for me that included garage repair, external house painting/siding repair, interior
painting and door repair.  He also had provided
a quote (verbal) to renovate my bathroom for approximately $5,000.00 and to
tile my mudroom and laundry room.
 Recently, Mr. Nealy bid on doing work in our home that included significant interior painting, closet renovation, door repair, etc?
.  Two key elements (beyond basic licensing and insurance) to his proposal were that: (1) he commit the necessary
manpower (4 men full time) to complete the job as scheduled (we were taking
time off of work for this project); and (2) he personally supervise and be
responsible for the men in our home, as we were concerned about security.  Mr. Nealy did not provide a written contract,
nor did he provide a Contractor?s License Number, as I now understand he was
required to do, if licensed to do this work in Rhode Island. 
 Regarding security, Mr. Nealy committed that all of his men
had been working for him for years, he knew them all personally and that he
could personally guarantee that they posed no risk of ?any problem?.  We relied on these assurances.
 Unfortunately, after reaching agreement, nothing related to
the project went as agreed.  The start
date was delayed, as Mr. Nealy said he had a ?Woonsocket Job? that required his
men.  When it did start, there were only
two men assigned to do the work and Mr. Nealy was not on-site supervising them,
as agreed.  Again, he said he had to be
on the ?Woonsocket Job?.  From the very
beginning, it was evident that the two men lacked the skill to do the
work.  They were constantly arguing and
the older man was continually and loudly berating the younger man for his
incompetence, errors and general ?stupidity?. 
The older man was also venting his frustration out loud at Mr. Nealy for
placing him in a job that he could not possibly get done with his ?Know Nuthin?
assistant son-in-law and such limited manpower.
 The problems with the job were many and included among other
defects:
1.    Failure to complete the agreed-upon scope of
work (ceilings left unpainted, closets left unpainted, windows left unpainted,
etc? .
2.    When molding was painted, they only painted
certain sides that were visible from the doors of the rooms.  They left the tops and some sides unpainted.
3.    In the closets, they removed clothing racks, but
left the brackets on the walls and then unsuccessfully tried to paint around
them.  This left white wall brackets with
paint smeared all over them.
4.    They neglected to replace wall plates for
outlets and phone jacks, so we just had the exposed outlets and jacks.
5.    They dropped an entire bucket of paint off of
the top of a ladder in a bathroom that splattered all over every surface,
including the hardware.  In response,
they just tried to wipe off the walls and some bathroom fixtures.  This left streaks of ceiling white paint on
the walls, door and bathroom fixtures.
6.    The younger man (the ?Know Nuthin? ?) had no
experience, so, instead of sliding the medicine cabinets out of the wall to
paint the wall (as the older man did), he just left them in the wall and then
tried to paint around them.  This
resulted in paint smeared all over the sides of the cabinets.  The older man screamed at the younger man for
this, but it was not corrected.  The
older man said that this wasn?t ?his problem? and that ?Alphonso could take
care of it?.
7.    In the rooms painted by the younger man, the
white moldings around the doors and windows were, in every case, smeared with
paint that he had applied to the walls.
8.    They left nails in the walls (used to hang
pictures) and tried to paint around them. 
The result was painted nails.  The
agreement was that they were to remove the nails, fill the holes, sand the
areas and then paint over the areas.
9.    
Most of the ceilings were unprofessionally cut
and either the ceilings had wall paint on them or the walls had ceiling paint
on them.
10. On the last day, Mr. Nealy showed up and directed ?completion? of the work and
requested a check.  By this time the job was several days over the completion date agreed upon.
told him that it was now nighttime and that I didn?t have the time or the light to inspect the
job.  He assured me that if there was a
problem that he would come back and fix it.  
 When I did have a chance to review the work the next day,
all of these problems were discovered.  I
informed Mr. Nealy and he agreed to come back and fix the problems.  I told him that I did not want the two men
who did the work in my house again and he agreed.  As before, he agreed to come on a certain
day, but cancelled.  When he did arrive,
he agreed that the work was unprofessional and tried to correct much of
it.  However, it was never all completed
and it was still a sloppy job.
 While doing the limited corrective measures, Mr. Nealy told
me that he had only hired the younger man (the ?Know Nuthin??) that
Monday.  He also said that neither of
these men should ever do work inside homes, but only do outside painting on
buildings.  Finally, he lamented that he
only recently employed these two workers at the urging of his wife, who knew
them personally and wanted to give them ?a chance?.
 Beyond being left with an entire second floor of our home
that has a slapdash paint job, we realized that we were missing valuable electronics.  I called Mr. Nealy and advised him of this
and he then shocked me by saying that the younger man who he sent into my home
had been stealing from customers.  He said he had a drug problem.  I told Mr.
Nealy that we have many electronics and sent him the receipts of the GoPro
Camera and attachments that we were certain were stolen during the work.  After much delay, Mr. Nealy was able to
retrieve the camera for us.  I more recently informed Mr. Nealy we were also missing some expensive ?Beats? headphones
and asked him to try and retrieve them. He advised that he had been ?more than reasonable? and refused, saying "do what you gatt a do".  I asked him to then provide the name and contact information of the employee who had stolen the items, but he has
refused to provide that information.
 In reviewing the RI Contractors? registration and Licensing
Board (the Board?) web site, I learned that Mr. Nealy and his company do not
have the State license required to do the work that he undertook to
perform.  He also needed that license to
perform the bathroom and tile renovation work for which he provided a bid.  He never provided any license number or even
a written contract.  He also never
provided any evidence of insurance.  
Alphonso seemed like a nice guy, but, in the end, h