Why you should not pay all up front

[zannej]

I'm sorry to hear the couple didn't get any help. Not surprised to hear the prosecutor refused to take action though. I wonder how many people the contractor will screw over before someone will actually do something. He's probably screwed over a lot who were too embarrassed to report it or didn't have the $ to hire a lawyer. Sounds like this was planned. Likely has assets listed under the name of a wife, sibling, parent, etc. I mean, they can still sue him and get a judgment for $ but collecting might be difficult. Can't put liens on things if he has nothing listed in his name. He thought this through & likely will do it again. I hope they catch him eventually.

 

[Flyover]

A decent lawyer shouldn't be stopped by the old "nothing in my name" trick. Lawyers know people use loopholes to hide that kind of activity and so the lawyers know how to show a judge that's what's going on, and judges know it when they see it too.

 

[Spicoli43]

I agree, zannej. He has done this a lot. When I lived near Seattle, Early 2000's, one of the news stations had an investigative team that would chase these people down. In this scenario, the old couple would contact the News station, say what happened, provide documents and pictures etc., and the lead investigator would do a story on it that aired one day a week on the nightly newscast.

They would go out to said business with the cameras rolling and do everything this side of the law to get the crooks to talk. I remember there being a huge success rate, nobody wanted to be featured on that segment. I remember a lot of it was construction related.

I found an example..

 

[zannej]

Flyover, I agree. A *decent* lawyer would have found some way. Sounds like they got a cheap guy who didn't want to put in the work of finding the assets or of at least getting enough evidence to present to police for a fraud case. Really sad when stuff like that happens.

Spicoli, I hate that we even need to have shows/busts like that and that reporters seem to be the ones who have to do something about it instead of police.

 

[Flyover]

If the lawyer was presenting evidence to police and not a judge then I doubt it was really a lawyer...maybe two kids in a trench coat?

 

[billshack]

So in Canada a contractor needs a licence to do any construction work. electrical, plumbing, general ect .
is this the same in the USA ?

 

[zannej]

billshack, a license is required for working on water heaters, septic tanks, mold remediation, gas lines, etc but a handyman without a license can be used so long as he/she charges less than $500 to $1k (depending on local jurisdiction laws).

 

[Rusty]

No license is required in Missouri in rural areas except for septic tanks.

 

[acuman1212]

Buzz, it has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with some people just being scumbags. I'm in a deeply Republican area & you can't trust a contractor worth crap around here. There are just people who know that our court system sucks & that small claims court will only let them recoup $5k if they win but they still have court fees & many people can't afford to pay them and a lot of people who should be retired are having to work at places like Walmart so they can't get time off for court to sue. These scumbags bank on people not trying to sue & some will leave the state. They also know local cops are absolutely worthless & won't investigate anything unless it was a family member, the mayor, or a church who got screwed over. Cops will just say it's a civil matter and leave-- even when something is actually stolen.

Rusty, it was probably one of those things where it would have taken more time/effort to pull what was bad and fix it up properly than to just gut it and rebuild from scratch. I'm willing to bet they used the wrong materials, wrong foundation (if any foundation) etc.

Zannej, you're right, because small claims court is for disputes up to $10K in most jurisdictions. The only resort after that is to find channels for letting the general public know about an unprofessional contractor. I tried a site called badcontractor.com where I could post a picture of the damage and a profile of the offender.