I had a run in with this same company last Thursday 1 Oct. Two men in a white Dodge Ram (2005ish) two door standard cab with Mass plates is driving around asking about doing driveways with excess asphalt material from another job they are doing. They have heavy Mass accents. The driver is a thirty something man, and the passenger is a late 50's early 60's man who I was told had heart surgery. The older mans name is William or Bill Eaton. They quoted me $3 a square foot for the work. I told them I wanted to have my old driveway removed and it widened out for 2 cars. They stated they would remove the old driveway, dig it out, put in a rock or road base, and then put 3" of hot call asphalt down and that I was looking at about 800 sf of material. They agreed to what I wanted and said they would have one of his crews come over to give me a written estimate.
I get a call about an hour later from a friend who was doing some work for me at my home to say that a crew showed up and wanted to start work. I talked with the guy and he stated that they would do the work that we agreed upon and that his crews were there and ready to start now. So I agreed to let them proceed (my mistake).
I get a call a couple of hours later to tell me the job was done. That seemed pretty odd since I knew it would take that long just to remove that old concrete slab and prepare the base for the new driveway. My friend who was at the house tells me that the crew that showed up was like 5-7 people. The equipment looked new or in good shape. The work truck that showed up had a CA plate on it.
I arrived back at my home to find that they had not just paved my driveway, but all the way along the side of my house and my sidewalk. The material they used is not a hot call asphalt which they stated they used, but a cold patch pothole material. Places it was loose, places it was very thin. Closer inpsection I see that they didn't remove the old concrete driveway, and that they had just paved over the dirt without preparing or doing any real work. The reason they paved my sidewalk was to hide the fact that they had not removed the existing concrete driveway as it wouldn't have been flush with the driveway surface.
So I meet with the orginal two men that I originally had the understanding with. They present me with a huge bill (much more than agreed upon) for all the asphalt that they had put down even though it wasn't what was agreed upon. I told them that I never agreed upon having the side of my house done, nor the sidewalk. Also that what I told them to do with the driveway they hadn't done and that it was already coming up in places. First they tried to say that I never told them to remove the old driveway. Next they tried to say I miss understood what they were offering to do. Then they tried to say that "their crews just did it on their own". They said they would have the crew back out the next day to fix it. I told them that I wasn't paying them until they fixed it.
Then they threatened to call the sheriff. Which I told them to go right ahead. Then they threatened to sue me and put a mechanics lien on my home. I told them go right ahead. They accused me of trying to get a "free driveway". Which I clearly pointed out that what they gave me was a mess and not a new driveway.
Then at that point they changed tactics. They then admitted that thier crews had made the mistake, that the economy is hard, his dad had just had heart surgury and they were on tough times. He stated that he wanted to make it right but just needed the materials to fix it so he needed the money to do that. I had another contractor arrive at my home for an unrelated thing I was having done while this was happening, and my friend who was doing some work at my home was leaving. So I just went ahead and wrote the check for the materials to get it fixed.
When I arrived home I did a google search as I really didn't feel good about what was happening. I found the following: http://usacomplaints.com/Home-Improvements/Contractor-Services/contractor-services-of-new-eng-9cfyf.htm
I immediately called my bank to stop payment on the check. I then called up William Eaton to inform him of what I found and that I had stopped payment on the check. He threatened to sue me and hung up. I called him back to tell him that I understood how things can get blown out of proportion and that not everything you read on the internet is true so I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt if he was willing to come back over and finish the job as we had agreed upon. He said he would, but he needed the money for materials. I told him that based on what I have been reading there was no way I would give him the money and that he had to prove to me that he wasn't the same guy that I was reading about. He refused, threaten to sue me and hung up.
So in summary these guys will not do what they state, in my case they put asphalt in places that I didn't want it, then tried to hit me up with a huge bill. The quality of the work is horrible, the materials are poor, and it won't last for more than one winter. I would venture to say in most places the aphalt is 1" or less thick and just laying on bare ground and on top of my existing concrete drive. You can grab it with your hands and pull it up in chunks. Now I have a bigger mess than what I started with. I am sure next spring I will be hiring another contractor to come out and haul away all of this breaking up asphalt.
I don't normally do things like this, and I knew better than to just go along with it without doing my homework.
Also I attempted to file a BBB report on Asphalt Services. There isn't a company here in Colorado Springs, but there is one listed in Denver. But upon closer inspection I found that by scrolling down the page the company listed in Denver is no longer in business. So I doubt that the "new" Asphalt Services company that is taking people for a ride is the same company that is listed in Denver.
From looking at the complaint it looks like they have used several different company names and there is a question about if these people are who they say they are.
Our local news station just did a TV and web report on this company last evening. I was lucky I didn't lose any money to these guys, but what I ended up with is a mess that I will have to cleanup next spring.
Here is the report from our local news: http://www.krdo.com/global/story.Asp? S=11263198
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