The owner of this company is Jon Drewniak. He operates out of Auburn, MA and also has had mail going to PO Box 176 in Assonet, MA. He was a good friend that also did landscaping. I gave him $6000. Toward materials to take care of my yard. He put in some plants/bushes and then never came back.
June 16th - I gave Jon a check for $6000. To get him started. Why did I give him this much up front? I knew money was tight and I wanted to help a friend that needed some work. He's done other jobs for me in the past and there weren't any problems.
On the weekend of July 9th, Jon came by to do the plants and mulch in one corner
After this, it really started to turn into a project to get any work done. I would keep getting dates when he would start the rest of the yard but they would come and go with no results. The other work was going to include 6 trees near the road along with plants and bushes in the front, along the side and in back of the house. He would also be planting some more bushes in the back yard.
August 6th - Jon finally came by and planted 5 bushes. He said he'd be at the house most of the following week to take care of the job.
August 10th - This day is Wednesday and no Home and Garden guy. Seeing that this has been dragging out for over a month, I called a few times, received no answer so I left a message that he needed to be there by the next day or I'd have to find someone else. This got his attention because he called back around 4pm. He kept pushing off the day that he could get there and kept coming up with excuses why he couldn't do the work yet. Some of the excuses that I had heard in the previous weeks were - he hurt his hand, there was some wood/trash in the front yard (I had that stuff cleaned) and he had other jobs to do. Jon then told me that the whole job would take 2 days and that he didn't want to be at my house any longer than he had to.
Monday, August 15th - I called to let Jon know that I would be at the house early the next morning (that would be a Tuesday) and I would see him then. He got very cranky and gave me an attitude. He said that he told me that he's be there on Thursday and Friday of that week (8/18 and 8/19). I didn't feel like I knew the person on the other end of the phone. He was totally different and I pointed this out to him.
Tuesday, August 16th - I called the nursery where the plants/trees were supposed to come from to see if Jon had been there to tag everything. They said no. Jon called about 9:30 to ask me who I spoke with at the nursery so I told him that it didn't matter. I located a note that I wrote when we talked a few days earlier. It confirmed that he was supposed to be there on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. He said that he didn't know why because he told me Wednesday or Thursday. So I said ok and told him that I would see him tomorrow. He said "NO, I said Wednesday OR Thursday". At this point things weren't looking good and I had a suspicion that I knew why he kept putting this job off. So I asked if he still had the money for the materials. I just received a one word answer. That was "yeah". I think told him that I thought he was pushing the job off because he didn't have the money anymore. His answer was "no". The conversation ended there. I found this to be strange because most people would question why I was even asking things like that.
Thursday, August 18th - Jon was supposed to be at the house early today. I called to see how he was making out around 10:30am. He didn't answer so I left a message. Called a few other times with no answer. He finally returned my calls around 11:30. He asked what I wanted. So I asked where he was. Jon told me that he had some errands to do in the morning. He was going to finish them then head down to the nursery to tag the plants and then head to the house. At first I said ok. Then after I hung up, I thought about it for a few minutes. He's been putting the job off for at least 6 weeks. He kept giving me start dates that came and went with no results and now it was pretty much etched in stone that he would be doing the entire job this day and the next. It was 11:30, he hadn't even been to the nursery to tag everything yet. Then the materials would have to be delivered. I'm not an expert but I knew that wasn't going to happen in a few hours. So that would leave him one day to do the job that he's been putting off for awhile. Another empty promise. I called Jon back and told him that it just wasn't working out. I asked him to stop by the house to give me the rest of the money and we'd just put the whole experience behind us. He laughed and hung up. Yes, you read that right... He laughed and hung up.
After many calls to him that day he said that I paid for the materials and that I would be getting the materials but no money back. I told him that I didn't know where that came from because he'd supposed to be doing the entire job. Seeing that he hasn't done it he should give me the money back and I would hire another company to take care of it. He was now persistent that I only paid him for materials and even through he didn't pick them out yet, he was going to pick out all of the plants and have them left in the front yard. We went back and forth with this for awhile... I wasn't getting anywhere.
About 2 weeks later I had a local attorney send him a letter to demand payment. It was stated that he was in breech of contract, fraudulent misrepresentation, unfair and deceptive trade practices and other violations of the law. Jon then offered to pay me $3000. I said no to that because he only had about $500.into it with materials and labor. He told me he had about 32 hours into the job and $1000.in materials. His breakdown for this was -
12 hour of labor at the house (he might have been there a max of 5 hours total)
8 hours for "drive'bys". There might have been 2 hours max. Seeing that I was friends with Jon, I had had helped him and got lunch this day. He charged me for the whole day.
8 hours for walking around the nursery picking up plants and trees (we spent about 3 hours at the nursery and he didn't do the job so I should bill him for my time).
4 hours to pick up the plants and bushes that he planted in the backyard. This probably only took about 2.
Oh yeah speaking of those plants. This picture was taken on August 15th. These plants have been sitting in pots for over a week. He never came back to put them in the ground so I took care of them.
As of today, I still haven't received any money from him. 16 months later.
He has been advertising on Craigslist trying to get work in the Boston area.
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