We had J & D Construction come out and give a estimate to complete some simple repairs. James DeMagone arrived and gave an esitmate of $2,950.00, and requested a $1,000.00 deposit to order materials. James price was reasonable and at the time we felt he was a honest and trustworthy contractor, but we were mistaken. We decided to go with James for the work, and overnighted him the $1,000.00 depoist, and it was to an address in Aurora, Indiana (614 Green Blvd, #3, Aurora, IN 47001) which should have raised some red flags, since that is not his listed address, but we sent it anyways. Upon recieving the deposit, which he cashed same day (confirmed through our bank) and notified us that he would schedule the work the following day. This work was to be done after hours, so we made arrangements to have some one available for James to complete the work after hours. The morning after James was to have started the work, we were informed that he never showed up. Upon finding this out, we tried to contact James all day, and it wasn't until late in the afternoon did he return our calls. Regardless of his excuses for not showing, we needed to get this work done, so he agreed to return that night to start the work, and was to arrive at 8pm to start. We received a call from James a little after 10pm, he said he fell asleep. After hearing this we informed him to immediately go over to the store and start the work, which he than told us he was in Indiana, which was more than 2 hours away and couldn't make it tonight.
The next day, we felt it was best to find a more professional contractor to complete the work, so we notified James that he no longer had the job, and he was to return our $1,000.00 deposit. He was fine with losing the job, but refused to return the deposit. We spent the next week trying to get a hold of James, but he would not return our calls. We finally got in touch with him, and he said he could not return the deposit money because he had already purchased the materials for the job and could not return them. So we gave James the option of dropping the materials he purchased off at the store so our new contractor could use them, or reimburse us the deposit amount. Needless to say, it is now over a month later, and we did not get the materials, nor have we recieved reimbursment for the deposit. We had notified James we would be filing a lawsuit against him, which he told me was fine because he always wins, so I guess he has done this to more than a few customers.
I would highly recommend not using J & Construction (James DeMagone) for anything, and if you do, make sure you don't pay them anything until the job is done.
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