My friends referred a contractor to me to do some remodeling work. Normally I would check references, etc but my friends used this guy a few times to do small jobs around their house and they said his work was good and cheap. I just bought a rental property and I decided to spruce it up before I rented it out. After careful inspection, I decided I wanted to do a complete remodel.
I hired Dale English to do work for me and we went through what needed to be done and wrote up a contract which included labor and materials. Paid him $3K to start so that he could buy materials. Week after week, he kept asking for money so that he could buy materials to do work. The work was supposed to be done in 5 weeks. On week 3, he started to say that he wasn't feeling well and that he couldn't come in but would try to be back the next day. Beinging a new landlord and just not knowing, I finally decided to stop by the rental to see how much work was done. I was in shock to see that not much had been done at all and I had already paid over $10K to this guy. I proceeded to call the carpet company that he said he paid $2K to for carpet and they said he stopped by but didn't put any money down. The tenant next door said that she sees him come by maybe 3-4 hours a day and maybe 3 days a week. The entire time I thought he was working his butt off to get my place ready. I then tried to call him and found out he disconnected his phone line. I went to his house and he wouldn't answer the door.
Leason learned? First off, when people say don't ever hire an unlicensed person to do work (at least not major work), listen to them. I tried to save money and look where it got me. Always get references and check them out carefully. I trusted this guy because he brought his wife over to meet me and his young son and he played with my kids and I never thought they would be scammers.
If you ever run across Dale English or his wife Sharon and their son Timothy, quickly turn away. They seem like very nice people but they took off with my money, disconnected both their cell phone numbers and moved away from the house they were renting (found out they jilted their landlord of rent also).
I know we're in rough economic times but stealing and fraud are criminal and I hope they don't get away with doing this to someone else.
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