We did most our landscaping by ourselves but we were looking for someone to build a deck, install sod & a sprinkler system. My parents had an old business card from Steven Long of Total Concepts when he was employed with her builder. We called him out to our house to give an estimate. Him & his wife Dena came out to our house and showed us work the had done, and that the two of them were going to work on the job along with other people that usually work with him.
We signed a contract & work was to be started the last week of August. We left to go on vacation & when we came back, no work was started. We called Steven & he claimed that he was delayed. This delay stretched out for quite a while, until we said that we wanted out $3000 down payment back. He came out the next day to work on the deck. He was purchasing the deck materials from Menards & we decided that we will give our credit card to the store to charge the materials to be delivered to our address & we would keep the receipts. Things went well for about two weeks, then he was a no show.
Anyway, in the first week of October, he showed up drunk & I told him to leave. He took his things & left. My wife typed up a promissory note saying that he owed us $2,500 that we had given him as payment for sod, he was supposed to purchase. He signed it & we hired someone to finish the job. From October, we have been calling him numerous times to return the money, but there is always some frivolous excuse. During November, we noticed few charges on our credit card that we did not make. The only reason we decided to leave our credit-card number at the store, is because we were told by the store that no one would have access to the information except employees. Some charges were made at that store & at other places. When we contacted the store, they claimed that they did not give him that information & that they would cancel his account immediately.
In April of my husband filed fraud charges against Steven Long with the Scott county police dept. This case is currently being investigated. While filing the report, we found out that this individual has an extensive criminal record. We just wanted to share our plight with other residents of Minnesota to watch out for Steven Long and other fraudulent individuals like himself.
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