I received a very attractive bid from Curb Appeal Landscaping for a sizeable job of more than $20,000. I gave the company an upfront deposit of $10,000 to start the job and order materials.
Just after giving the deposit, I thought I really should have done some research. My first Google Search took me to his Mug Shot where he had been arrested for basically not completing work and taking customers monies. In addition, I discovered he was listed as one of the ten worst contractors in Charlotte NC with the Chamber of Commerce and had extensive negative reviews with the Better Business Bureau.
I was building a new home and I had a licensed contractor. We discussed the situation and he said he would help manage him and hold in accountable and insuring me he would not pay him anything beyond what we had unless all work was completed.
My first attempt was to immediately get my money back and not do business with him. When it became obvious I could'nt get my money back, I decided that if I could at least get enough work completed to cover the monies I had given him. I would either remove him from the job at that point or only pay for any additional work completed.
We eventually told him we were fully aware of his past situation and told him if he treated us right. We would do everything we could to provide a very positive reference and help him restore his tarnished image.
As the work progessed the quality of the work was very, very poor. His work crew consisted of high school kids with no experience. The work was extremely slow as he would very rarely show up on the job and if he did, it was for an hour or two and he was gone.
We had no choice but to babysit him at every step and plead with him to complete the work, in some cases having to accept less than quality work. He would play nice and push a little harder when he needed money, but once paid you might not see him for weeks.
Our contract included the installation of a Complete Irrigation System. One January day I arrived home and he said stand here for a second I want to show you the irrigation system. Moments later a bunch of sprinkler heads popped up with water shooting out. See the "Irrigation System is now working".
I was unaware at that moment that he had simply rigged a few sprinker heads to a garden house. It was a ruse to trick me into seeing the irrigation had been completely installed. I was aware but he reported to my builder that he had installed the irrigation and request payment from my builder. Stating he demostrated the working unit with the me, the home owner. My builder went ahead and paid him in full for the irrigation system.
Shortly after, Curb Appeal Landscaping vanished and would not come back to complete any additional work. It became very apparent that his strategy is to offer a very attractive bit to entice a consumer to agree to work and give him a sizable deposit. From their his strategy is to complete as little as possible. Fortunately we had held some monies. We had to spend a few thousand correcting his bad work and a few more thousand completing the unfinished work.
The real shock to us was when spring rolled around and I decided to turn on my new irrigation system. I discovered he totally ripped me off, by never installing anthing beyond a few lines and irrigation heads to trick me. No Timer and other units necessary to operate the system for which he charged me for a complete system. We also discovered he never pulled the necessary permit and was not even licensed to install and irrigation system.
Overall it was a very bad experience costing us several thousand and some lessons learned.
If you come across this contractor BEWARE, he is a real pro at taking advantage of customers and if you Google you will see he has a criminal past and long history of ripping people off.
Curb Appeal Landscaping Reviews
I received a very attractive bid from Curb Appeal Landscaping for a sizeable job of more than $20,000. I gave the company an upfront deposit of $10,000 to start the job and order materials.
Just after giving the deposit, I thought I really should have done some research. My first Google Search took me to his Mug Shot where he had been arrested for basically not completing work and taking customers monies. In addition, I discovered he was listed as one of the ten worst contractors in Charlotte NC with the Chamber of Commerce and had extensive negative reviews with the Better Business Bureau.
I was building a new home and I had a licensed contractor. We discussed the situation and he said he would help manage him and hold in accountable and insuring me he would not pay him anything beyond what we had unless all work was completed.
My first attempt was to immediately get my money back and not do business with him. When it became obvious I could'nt get my money back, I decided that if I could at least get enough work completed to cover the monies I had given him. I would either remove him from the job at that point or only pay for any additional work completed.
We eventually told him we were fully aware of his past situation and told him if he treated us right. We would do everything we could to provide a very positive reference and help him restore his tarnished image.
As the work progessed the quality of the work was very, very poor. His work crew consisted of high school kids with no experience. The work was extremely slow as he would very rarely show up on the job and if he did, it was for an hour or two and he was gone.
We had no choice but to babysit him at every step and plead with him to complete the work, in some cases having to accept less than quality work. He would play nice and push a little harder when he needed money, but once paid you might not see him for weeks.
Our contract included the installation of a Complete Irrigation System. One January day I arrived home and he said stand here for a second I want to show you the irrigation system. Moments later a bunch of sprinkler heads popped up with water shooting out. See the "Irrigation System is now working".
I was unaware at that moment that he had simply rigged a few sprinker heads to a garden house. It was a ruse to trick me into seeing the irrigation had been completely installed. I was aware but he reported to my builder that he had installed the irrigation and request payment from my builder. Stating he demostrated the working unit with the me, the home owner. My builder went ahead and paid him in full for the irrigation system.
Shortly after, Curb Appeal Landscaping vanished and would not come back to complete any additional work. It became very apparent that his strategy is to offer a very attractive bit to entice a consumer to agree to work and give him a sizable deposit. From their his strategy is to complete as little as possible. Fortunately we had held some monies. We had to spend a few thousand correcting his bad work and a few more thousand completing the unfinished work.
The real shock to us was when spring rolled around and I decided to turn on my new irrigation system. I discovered he totally ripped me off, by never installing anthing beyond a few lines and irrigation heads to trick me. No Timer and other units necessary to operate the system for which he charged me for a complete system. We also discovered he never pulled the necessary permit and was not even licensed to install and irrigation system.
Overall it was a very bad experience costing us several thousand and some lessons learned.
If you come across this contractor BEWARE, he is a real pro at taking advantage of customers and if you Google you will see he has a criminal past and long history of ripping people off.