Complaint Review: Altamont Homes Inc. Systems Built Construction. Altamont Modular Homes Inc. Modern Custom Homes

I see that over a year after all this went down, and the clown Eric Peterson filed bankruptcy and got away with FRAUD against 30-40 home buyers, he is now trying to say it was MY fault.  That, and some unnamed employee that accidentally put the wrong spec in the CONTRACT we both signed.  Mr Peterson, contracts signed by both parties are binding in California.  10's of thousands of dollars went to his company, and in the months that followed, they did NOTHING!  No permits even applied for, no work done, and the project manager that he "hired" to handle the case said he (Peterson) was a fraud, and if it ever went to court she would be happy to testify against him...she also says she never got paid anything by Peterson.

Oh, yeah, the lender quickly settled out of court and as long as we agreed to not hold them liable for Mr Peterson's actions gave us a very satisfactory settlement.

Anyway, the bottom line is, Eric Peterson WILL RIP YOU OFF, no matter what line of snake oil sales he is in today.  Do not do any business with him.

If you have any intention of getting a pre-fab home of any kind, I strongly recommend  you deal directly with a FACTORY Rep.  We did this, and are currently "building" a Discovery Modular home, and everything is going very smoothly

In regards to Ted Hamm, there were five pages in the 34 page contract that had the wrong specifications, not 12 full pages as he alleges. There were two other pages that had the correct specifications. Ted Hamm used this inconsistency to demand Altamont give him approximately $100,000 in compensation. Although Altamont Homes would not agree to provide to Mr. Hamm all of the specifications that were accidentally put in the contract, it did offer to give him the vast majority of them as an accommodation. Mr. Hamm did not agree to Altamont Homes offer. Instead, Mr. Hamm took Altamont Homes into arbitration through the Better Business Bureau, of which Altamont Homes was a member. During the arbitration, both parties had the opportunity to provide documentation to the Better Business Bureau to support their case. At the conclusion of the arbitration, the Better Business Bureau determined that Altamont Homes had made a reasonable offer to compensate Ted Hamm, but that Mr. Hamm had refused the offer.

The crux of Mr. Hamm's allegation is that he states that he thought that he was getting a home totally different than the one that he ordered because of the incorrect specifications that Altamont Homes personnel had inadvertently put alongside the correct specifications in the contract. The picture of the home with the proper specifications, however, had always been on the Altamont website. I had a conference call with Ted and our local representative long before he signed the contract and explained exactly what type of home he was getting. California law states that in the event of an inconsistent contract, it will be interpreted based on the parties' reasonable interpretations. Based on the picture on the website, the homes appearance in the drawings/elevations in the contract, the conference call that I had with him in the very beginning, and his own emails admitting that he was not expecting these specifications, it is not reasonable for him to expect that he was getting a home that didn't look anything like the elevations or pictures he was shown.

This is really about financing. In Ted's emails he stated that he had no money for options and extra's because he couldn't get a high enough loan. In fact, not only could he not get reimbursed in his loan for his out of pocket costs on a well he had previously put on his property, but we had to remove $16,000 from the price of the home that had been budgeted for extra's and options in order for him to qualify for the loan. It was only when he realized that he could not afford his desired options that he started focusing on an inconsistency in the contract in attempt to force us to give him the options that he wanted.

In contrast to Ted Hamm's assertions that Altamont Homes took his money and ran, we actually worked diligently on his project. Mr. Hamm is well aware that we hired a project manager for his project who was in direct contact with him. This project manager was moving on several fronts to progress his project before Mr. Hamm started complaining about the inconsistency in the contract and forced us to cease work.

In regards to other allegations by Ted Hamm, Systems Built Construction is a separate company started by Eric Peterson in 2006, but it is not in operation. The Altamont Homes/Systems Built Construction website is no longer owned by Eric Peterson or any company that he owns or has owned in the past.

Also, the complainant identified as Sucker who added to Mr. Hamm's complaint is really Matt Clark who also goes by the name Joe from San Jose, and Eric P Stole from Me. I have already responded to his separate report on this site.

We had been pursuing litigation for the last few months, most of which was tracking this guy down. Now that Eric has filed bankruptcy I'm not sure what is left to do? We've talked to others who also were pursuing litigation. He also sold us a home, then tried to switch it charge us more money, etc.. The BBB is a joke, we had the same experience. Eric lied and the BBB does no validation of the responses. Now knowing how many other people these guys have ripped off I have to believe this is criminal? How is this guy not in jail, and his assets being sold off to pay every one he's ripped of back?

I have contacted all the modular home builders I am aware of, and all but one have removed Eric Peterson's companies from their sites as "approved builders". EXCEPT one, Genesis Homes of Arizona. Not only do they still list Altamont Homes (now out of business), but they are continuing to do business with him under the new corporate banner of Systems Built Construction, Inc. Peterson is, as you read this, ripping of two more customers. He has supposedly sold them both a Genesis Home, Model Jefferson. Unknown if CTX is still involved in his fraud.

It is now appearing that CTX Mortgage is invloved in many of the ripoff home building contracts. We now have former employee statements that CTX and its representative John Norton were fully aware of Altamont's ongoing and illigal business practices, and yet chose to do nothing...and infact continued dumping funds into Eric Peterson's greedy hands.

In addition to civil litigation, we are pursuing other actions against this guy. We are working on getting criminal fraud charges filed against him, but this is easier said than done. We are posting notices such as this. We are working on the web site suggestion. We are contaction the manufacturers that supply the modular homes. We are contaction the contractor licensing boards. But all of this takes time.
Unfortuneately, BBB is rather a joke...Peterson lied to them, so the BBB shows on our complaint that Altamont tried to resolve the issue but we rerfused to accept a reasonable offer...Peterson forgot to mention to the BBB that his offer of a different home included that we would have to pay an additional $20,000 or more. Money he knew full well we didn't have. You have to realize, we had Altamont's contract to provide a very specific house, which 8 or 9 months into the project Altamont then refused to produce. Peterson then claimed HIS contract had some "clerical errors" and he should not be held to it. The "clerical errors" he wants us to believe in is about 12 full pages of the contract specifying the house, the building specs the house would be built to, as well as to what company would build the house.

We are in litigation, however, he is now changing company names, etc. trying to change/hide his true "colors". My notice here is simply to warn anyone thinking about getting a modular home, and that might run into this criminal hiding in a contractors suit.

If this company is doing what you say they are doing, you need to contact the local authorities.

It shows on there site that they are building homes in Canada, I am in contact with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on this side and they will start monitoring to see if they actually start building homes in Canada.

They assured me they will shut-down his operations before he rips off innocent people.

You also need to report them to the BBB in all the areas and also contact his webhosting company and tell them what you think about them hosting a "scammer like this"

you take there website away they will not be able to conduct business...