This is a young guy from Guyana Named Michael Symoothera. He came to New Orleans with a contractor company named SMS contractors, he stated he and his family were owners and were also located in New Jersey. His Chevy vehicle had Florida license plates and his cell phone was traced to Avon Florida right outside of Orlando Florida.
My wife and my 2 young daughers evacuated New Orleans because of hurricane Katrina and came back later that year to access the damage the storm had dealt us. We were not flooded but had a good amount of wind damage and storm debris. SMS contractors passed down my street and saw me wrestling with a large oak tree and a chain saw.
SMS contractors offered to help for a small fee. I said that I could handle it but we were looking for some updates to be done to our house and now seemed like a good time. He looked through our list gave us an estimate and we wrote up a signed contract.
SMS Contractors requested thousands up front and materials bought. I asked them exactly what was it they needed and how much and I went and bought the supplies. They worked incredibly slow and sometimes not there at all but were always requesting more money up front due to family, rent, sob stories, etc. I was relocated temporarily out of town for my job so my wife and kids stayed in town and handled things as best she could. SMS Contractor's crew got smaller and smaller and the pregress slowed down even more.
Eventually we had paid them 90% of the contracted amount and Michael (SMS Contractors) stopped showing up and kept all the money, left the house in shambles, kept the alarm/house keys, and would not answer phone calls anymore. We have since had to pay 2 other contractors to complete the work and refinish some of the work he started at additional costs. As you would imagine with the amount of devastation this storm produced, contractors are expensive and in high demand in the New Orleans area.
We made a bad move by giving too much money up front. (Never Do This) We found out that SMS Contractors was moonlighting on several other neighbors of ours and did the same thing to them. It is horrible for Contractors like SMS to exploit and take advantage of people already victimized by mother nature.
I hope they all get what is coming to them and justice prevails.
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