February 12
Everything people say in these reports about Home Team Advantage is 100% TRUE. John Ostendorf and Doug Livingston are complete rip-off artists and have no conscience for their clients.
They are currently in court in Broward County, Florida facing a jury trial for 70 felony counts along with their former partner Mavis Barclay. The charges stem from their previous company named HOMECO under case #04017053CF10A (Doug) 04017053CF10B (Mavis) & #04017053CF10C (John). Their trial started Tuesday February 6. The charges include 1 count of communications fraud, 5 counts of extortion/threats, 2 counts of grand theft 2nd degree and 62 counts of grand theft 3rd degree. Today they are on their 4th day of trial. I pray they are found guilty and get the book thrown at them.
We signed a contract on November 6 to enclose our garage.By doing this we were expanding our master bedroom, adding a bathroom and walk-in closet. We were told by Doug it would be a 7 month project, 5 months for planning & permitting and 2 months for construction. We had scheduling problems from day one. It took 9 months and 4 attempts to get plans approved. We received an ANTICIPATED SCHEDULE on August 28, the job was to be completed November 6, currently our bedroom and garage are a shell, open to the elements with 6 new hurricane windows partially installed and a piece of plywood in the hole where our new bathroom window is supposed to go. Hurricane straps have not been installed and hurricane season is approaching. I have been sleeping out back in our popup camper for 2 months and my wife is bunking on the living room couch at night. I have my clothes hanging in my utility shed. John said we would be out of our room for 2 to 3 weeks when he did the demolition.
John is a totally unorganized compulsive liar who can't remember who he told what lie to, does not answer or return phone calls and could not build a dog house that would pass inspection. He's not aloud to make a move without approval from Doug. He is the President of the company and can't make a decision for himself. Doug refers to him as Idiot John to clients and other employees. I almost fell over at a meeting when I heard Doug say that.
Doug is nothing but a smooth talking salesman, he enters your home and shows you a fancy website on your home computer, pulls out a colorful example flow chart and explains how smooth your project will go, he builds himself up with an entire bag of self serving lies, (says he is a former Navy Seal, says he developed computer programs for Home Depot). When you question something his MO is to become argumentative and threatening with babbling BS and big meaningless words, when you stand up to him he gets angry, either hangs up or finds a lame excuse to get off the phone, then he calls back in 5 minutes in his nice calm collected voice (probably after kicking the dog) and says we really want to work with you and finish your project. It's nothing but a ploy to get to the next pay draw. Then everything stops and your right back in the same boat as before, nothing is getting done.
HTA has a constant turnover of employees and sub-contractors, we've had no less than 4 construction bosses on our little project, most last 2 to 3 weeks, as soon as they don't receive their paycheck they are gone. Every employee from HTA has complained to my wife about being owed money, all are behind on receiving payment. One guy told us he was arrested on a Monday morning for non-payment of child support because he had not received his paycheck for 3 weeks and his ex called the police. I spoke to the same guy the weekend before last Christmas and he was unable to travel 15 miles to a jobsite because his truck did not have gas and he did not have money to buy gas, even though HTA owed him thousands of dollars in back pay. (the weekend before christmas). That's heartless.
This company is so bad, the Sun Sentinal, our local newspaper has done 3 articles in the last 4 years warning consumers about their business practices. We originally found out all the problems when a reporter called and asked if we knew what our hired contractor was up to.
Home Team Advantage (Lic. #CBC1251699) is located at 125 N. Congress Avenue, Suite #17, Delray Beach, Fl. 33445. If you accidentally walk into their showroom, don't walk out, RUN OUT SCREAMING. It will be the best construction decision you ever made.
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