We met Kevin Davis through his wife, who happened to be one of the loan officers at our mortgage company. She recommended him to us and out of good faith we trusted her and him. She asked us to not let her boss know because it would be a conflict of interest and she could be fired.
December 6th, both Kevin Davis and his wife Lori Kravitz (different last name, kind of strange) came to our house with a contract that they both had part in (her handwriting and his words) with a quote of $11,000.00 to do this room addition that we wanted and took a loan out for. He asked for the first draw of $4,400.00 to be given that night, and out of trust we did.
So we agreed to wait until after Christmas and New Years before anything would get started on this room. Well, January gets here and the process of trying to get the permit, starts. He tells me and my husband that he's done this many of times before in the past and it will be a breeze to do the process of filing for this permit.
We started hitting some stumbling blocks and he would just say, "Oh, I wasn't expecting this to happen." He would say that every time we would run into a problem. So, out of good faith, we trusted him!
Feb. & March go by with little communication and when there was communication it was just more excuses on why things haven't gotten started yet with the building of this room. His truck was broke down, or he was having surgery, or didn't have the gas money to come out to our house. At this point we were still trusting him and his wife Lori and believed that they were being truthful. I guess by this point we must have had "Dummies" written on both of our foreheads!
April goes by and there's just more excuses, that unfortunately we were still believing. May 6th Kevin, his buddy Mike and I met downtown to get the permit filing back on a roll. After we get out of the permit building, he starts telling me how he has people lined up to do the block work for this room addition. So, I was getting excited because he told me that he had gotten a really good and cheap deal on the concrete.
So, before we parted our ways he told me that he has got to have another check in the amount of $3,750.00 so that he could pay the block guys and to get the ball rolling on that. I was kind of hesitant at first, but he kept saying that "if the block people don't get their money, they may get busy with other jobs and that we can't be guaranteed that they would do the work that is needed to get our addition started." So, being as though we have been waiting 4 months for anything to get started on the construction of this room, trust was a factor in this too. I trusted that he really meant what he was telling me and me and my husband were so ready to get the construction in progress and he knew that!
Once I got home and my husband came home from work, I told him that Kevin wanted another check and the amount and he was livid! And the more that I thought about it I wasn't happy about it either. This is when the trust part is broken, only after $8,150.00.
The concrete company starts coming out and doing their job and was done in 1 week. Kevin and his buddy Mike do absolutely no work and half the time didn't even come out to see how the guys were doing there job. He would just call on the phone.
Once the concrete job was finished and the truss package arrived Kevin and Mike and some other guy started the truss work on our roof. It's back to rainy season and what used to be our back patio is now level with our house and it flooded into our dining room. On the fifth day of them working on the same area of the roof, my husband came home early because I was at this point disgusted about this whole situation and we needed to have a talk with Kevin.
So, the three of us met in our house and we had a little meeting. He brought us the invoice for the block work and told us that the bill needed to be paid. I asked him, "what about the money that I have given to you, because that money was to goes towards this room?"
And he told me and my husband that the $8,150.00 was for his labor and labor only and that the money got spent. I was livid and so was my husband. I reminded him of the second check that I had wrote to him and that it was supposed to go towards the concrete business.
And he looked away and said "You must have misunderstood me, the money you gave to me was for labor only." I showed him an itemized detailed list of all the money we have put into this room so far, which was $12,555.89, and that there was no way that we can afford to pay the concrete bill which was in the amount of $3,934.10. All he could say was, "they will just put a lien on your house."
He had told his buddy Mike that the deal he had with my husband and I was that he would put down the first $1,000.00 towards the concrete labor and that we would have to take up the rest of it. So, out of fear of going to court or having a lien put on our house we went and paid the bill. We weren't happy about it at all!
I asked the lady at the front desk if Kevin had put the $1,000.00 down or is the $3,934.10 the total bill and guess what, it was the total bill. So the weekend went by and we had some other guys come by that work in construction and are licensed. We wanted their opinion of the truss work that was done by Kevin and his 2 other workers.
They told us that there was no way we were going to pass inspection with the county and that it looked like a bunch of teenagers went up there and worked. It was awful!
At this point I am just so disgusted that I try getting a hold of Lori's boss at our mortgage company and guess who kept answering the phone and not relaying the messages, Lori! So, finally on 6/12/08 the phone rings and it is my mortgage company calling, so I answer it thinking it's the one person that I have been trying to get a hold of for days, but it's not. It's Lori again.
She asked me what was up. So, I in return said that I needed to speak to her boss and she said that nobody was in the office but her (Lori) and that she needed to talk to me. I just told her again that I needed to talk to her boss.
She came back with, " I feel as though I have a live bomb sitting next to me that's about to explode any minute because you keep calling here wanting to talk to my boss!" And I asked her why would she feels that way. And she wanted to know what's going on and I just told her that maybe she needs to talk to her husband.
She said that she doesn't ask him anything when it comes to his work and business. So I again in return asked her why would she feel that way if she doesn't know what's going on? She just came back with, "are you and Terry going to be home tonight at 8:00pm?"
And I said, "Yes, why?" And she said that her and Kevin would be out to our house at 8:00pm and that we all need to act like adults and be civil with one another. I told her that would be no problem and that the only one that she needs to be concerned about acting like a child is her husband.
So, they show up right at 8pm and Lori claims to be the mediator of the bunch. I asked once again, how come the money got spent on personal things instead of where it was supposed to go (towards the room)? He came up with excuse after excuse after excuse!
He said that the first $4,400.00 he would work off doing odd jobs around here for free. FREE! I thought that was funny. He said that he would pay us back the $3,750.00.
So, we pursue to go outside so that we can show them the damage that was done with the truss work. I asked him if he really thought that he had done $8,150.00 worth of labor and he said that he would fix it and make it right. Lori and I went around front and she still defended her husband saying that he has done $8,150.00 worth of labor and that those 2 checks were his pay checks.
I looked at her and said, "we trusted you! How can you do this? Do you honestly believe that there is that much labor done for that much money?" She said right our of her mouth, "I'll tell you were the money went. It went to my bills, groceries and gas."
I was not believing what I was hearing. She goes to say that she feels like putting her 2 weeks notice in because she feels as though that bomb is just waiting to go off. So, I said, "why else would you feel like that other than you know this situation is wrong and that there is fraud involved?"
She still denied that fact that her husband is in the wrong. So, Kevin and my husband came from around the backyard and I looked right at Kevin and told him that I wanted my original contract back (because he stole it from me) and he said that he had it in his briefcase inside my house. So, I took him back into my house to get it and Lori and Terry (my husband) followed.
Terry (my husband) told him that he was fired and off the job and that we wanted our money back by 6/18/08 (6 days). All he could say was that he couldn't crap the money out that he would have to sell personal items or hit someone up for the money. I told him that how he got the money did not concern me!
Wednesday June 18 comes and goes and we don't hear from either of them. Tried calling but wouldn't answer. Days later I called the mortgage company to try to get a hold of Lori's boss and she just happened to be the one to answer.
I told her Terry and I needed to meet with her ASAP! We made an appointment and I took all of my paperwork that concerned this room that we are having built with me. I wanted to let her know what was going on and what one of her employees was doing and how she and her husband had affected me & my family.
To this date I am not sure what happened to Lori and her job. I have filled out a fraud report with the local sheriff's department and now I am filling out this report. As I stated earlier in this report that we got quoted $11,000.00 to have this addition completed.
Right now, we are at $19,484.00 and we still are not able to live in it yet! That's a difference of $8,484.00. Me and my husband are just sick to our stomaches over this whole ordeal.
And if I could kick myself a million times, I would. This was our first time ever dealing with construction and it has been a very bad experience. This has surely been a Live & Learn situation. To top it off, we didn't find out until recently that Kevin Davis has been arrested for this same thing before (impersonating contracting license~Fraud).
Our bank account is literally drained because of this guy. We can barely make ends meet now. I don't know how people like them live with themselves. Stay away from him! He is bad news and so is his wife.
I wonder how many other people she lured in to him. She is/was working the perfect job. Most people get loans out to remodel their home and she new what she was doing.
Like I said before, I wonder how many other people are in the same position that me and my family are in ~ but they just haven't spoken up yet. Always check people out before you do any kind of business with them especially when there is money involved. We trusted our loan officer (Lori) at our mortgage company and she is the same one who has put us in this position.
Goes to show you can't trust anybody now-a-days. It's a dog-eat-dog world and unfortunately we got caught up in it. Thank you so much for reading this.
I hope that me and my family has helped someone else from making the same mistake we made. We know now what to do and what not to do when working with and hiring on people.
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