Complaint Review: James Penn dba Pennacle Painting

First mistake was entertaining the idea of hiring someone who advertises via flyers in BBQ establishments.   Advertised "Specials this month" with what appeared to be reasonable pricing, thought I'd give a call for a quote.  Mr. Penn was quite responsive and came right out and provided me with what I felt was a fair and reasonable quote for the work required.  However, he had no business cards and stated that flyers are better because they don't get lost.  I beg to differ.

Due to weather conditions and timing, Mr. Penn indicated that my house could be one of the first he completes, as his schedule was booking up quickly for the summer.  I agreed as I needed my exterior house painted in time for city inspection.  On May 1, 2011, Mr. Penn come over with a 7-page contract with a bunch of legal drivel that he barely understood as he got it off the internet I'm sure.  We agreed on a set price and three payments; 1/3 down payment, 1/3 second half and 1/3 final.  He assured me that all his workers go through a thorough background check, they don't smoke, don't use the bathroom at my house and are particularly clean and would get the job done in four days flat, no problem.

Upon providing Mr. Penn with the down payment, I discovered he would not accept personal checks.  I found that odd.  He requested that his payment be in cash or money order.  I was forced to find a place to buy a money order.  After having done that, I wrote it out, since it was a good amount of money, in the name of his company.  In addition, Mr. Penn bragged about the contractor discount he would get at Sherwin Williams, so I also gave him some money to get the paint. 

Later that evening, I received a voicemail from Mr. Penn indicating that he might have a problem with the money order since it did not have his name on the front.  Another atypical problem for a person with a supposed business.  He came back out and I wrote over the top of his company name with his name too.  I received another call about an hour or two later, that he had the darnedest time trying to cash the money orders I gave him and that he would prefer US Postal money orders.  I was of the impression that he was going to deposit them into a banking account.  Due to late hour, all the banks were long closed so he must have gone to convenience store or gas stations to cash.  What kind of business does that?  I asked him why he had no account and Mr. Penn stated, something about not commingling with personal account and not wanting to pay taxes.   After this first encounter, I was very concerned that I had just thrown money away.  He was not business minded in the least and I was very bothered by that revelation. 

As a result of the rainy weather and rather cold conditions, Mr. Penn would not be able to start right away.  It finally let up, however on May 4, 2011 he came over and started with the removal of the birds nest, pressure washing, gutter repair and aluminum siding board repair.  He got the birds nest out, however, I question whether or not the pressure washing got done. I have one working spigot in front and the pressure wash machine makes lots of noise and my neighbors would have heard. No one saw or heard him that day.  That's odd, my neighbors are pretty good with keeping an eye on things.  There were areas on the house that did not appear to be clean and I couldn't for the life of me phantom how you pressure wash when you haven't finished putting the aluminum siding back up from where the birds nest was.  I asked Mr. Penn about this and he said that he did indeed pressure wash, but I did not believe him. 

At that point, I could sense that things were not going to go well with us, because the trust factor was absolutely diminished and I had zero confidence in Mr. Penn's ability to get the job done.  Shortly thereafter he started priming the house with a white primer. He got 2/3's of the house primed and asked for the second payment (not what was initially agreed to).  I thought he was making progress and according to him again, he would be done in four days, 4 DAYS, no problem.  He was going to get his workers out here and they would knock this out in no time. 

May 9, 2011, foolishly I provided Mr. Penn with the second 1/3 payment, this time in cash and I had him write me a receipt.  I had talked about the paint that I wanted since our initial meeting, Sherwin Williams flat and I wanted the Resiliance brand.  He left and supposedly he had been negotiating with someone at Sherwin Williams on a price for the paint.  Now you know Sherwin Williams gives contractors a slight discount in return for continued business, there is no need for negotiating unless you are up to something shady.  Mr. Penn brought back over the A-100 which is their lowest tier with only the 15 year warranty and he was acting as if he brought over the top of the line Sherwin Williams paint which is the Duration with a lifetime warranty.   When I finally saw the paint and saw that it was not what I wanted, I called Mr. Penn, left a voicemail and you know what happened now...HE DISAPPEARED!!!  Now after $1300+ and money for the paint, I felt duped.  He was gone for about a week and half on some so called "personal emergency/family drama",  phone got lost yada, yada, yada, out of state, yada, yada, yada, and his phone was no longer accepting calls.  I wondered why Mr. Penn didn't just send his so called workers over to get the paint job started.  Mr. Penn did however, leave me two voicemails, which I still have, explaining his situation and offered me a discount because of his dissappearing act. 

After which I decided to see how the A-100 satin would look on my house, because I really felt that 50 year old aluminum siding required a flat paint to eliminate paint brush lines.  I painted a couple of areas, one on the primer and one without primer and what I found was that it would take almost two coats of paint to cover on top of the primer.  With primer, you should only have one coat of paint.  This was going to cost me more money in paint.  In my estimation, Mr. Penn should know that a tinted primer would be required.

Finally Mr. Penn got in touch with me and we met and I showed him my discovery.  He tried to brush me off as if I didn't know what I was talking about.  I told him about the discrepancy with the paint he purchased and the paint I wanted.  Mr. Penn told me that the satin is really the flat and Sherwin Williams just markets it that way.  I understand marketing, I don't need a weekend painter to tell me.  The problem was, IT WAS NOT WHAT I WANTED.  After talking back and forth with him, I could see that I was not getting through and we had a huge failure to communicate, because he has no understanding that the customer DID NOT want this paint.  

After much convincing, Mr. Penn offered to knock $300 off the price because of his DISAPPEARING, delayed completion and my complaints of the primer and the paint and that he would eat the difference on the paint, cause I was not paying for it.  I agreed, with reservations and understood that I would need to engage the services of another painter to fix up the mess Mr. Penn was getting ready to unleash, I could feel it. 

As I already predicted, Mr. Penn required 4 more gallons of paint and yes, it did take two or more coats to cover, because I watched him and I saw the results.

I give Mr. Penn a D+.  I would not recommend him nor re-hire him for any position, painting or otherwise.  These are the reasons below:

• Mr. Penn couldn't reach the top of the chimney area with his ladder and seemed to get somewhat agitated with me that I would even want that painted.  If you are a painter with over 30 years of painting experience, you would have ladder extensions or what have you.  Now I have an area at the top of the chimney that is not covered, thanks to Mr. Penn and his ineptness.

• Painters that have been in the business for over 30 years, usually take very good care of their brushes/rollers, by cleaning them and rinsing them out.  I did not witness Mr. Penn doing any of that. 

• Mr. Penn misrepresented himself and his so called company, Pennacle Painting.  Workers never appeared on the job, because there weren't any.  Of course according to Mr. Penn, it was because he gave me such a great discount and that painters make $25/hour.  Is that so?  In Mr. Penn's world that is.

• Told me it cost $100 just to put the ladders on the truck.???? WTF!!!  I have never heard of that.  A new one.  In Mr. Penn's world.  Each time Mr. Penn came to my house, he drove or was driven by his Mom in a very clean SUV.  I don't think he had a truck.

• Mr. Penn appeared very wobbly and quite unsteady with the ladder.  For a painter with 30 years of experience, he did not look like he was comfortable at all getting up on the ladder. That gave me pause on a few occasions.  He painted from the ground with a huge extension on the rollers and did much of the painting that way.  Quite odd, you might say.

• Provided a fictitious address on his estimate to me.  Why??? Only shady people do that.

• No bank account, doesn't pay taxes - those were his words to me.  Shows a lack of integrity.

• No business cards.  No reason for that, they are free on the internet somewhere.

• Disappeared for a few days.  I think he took a vacation after he got all the money from me.  Had a good time and had to come back home and face the music.

• Rather than take the shutters down, there are six, Mr. Penn painted around them.  Something about the screws not be able to go back in.  WTF??  Half a**ed job in my book, but not Mr. Penn's world.

• Heard some very unflattering things about Mr. Penn and his ability, plus his state of mind.

• Wanted to charge me for the materials to fix the gutter (chicken wire) and before I put the kibosh on fixing the hole in aluminum siding, wanted to charge me $30 for silicone in addition to the charge to fix.  That is not how you conduct business.  Oh I forgot, this is Mr. Penn's world.

• Hung a very childlike poster on the tree in front of my house with his company name and number.  It was on neon poster board with stencil and black marker.  I was quite embarrassed for him, plus he hung it on my tree with a corn cob holder.

• Said he would be on-site everyday at 7:30am.  Yeah right.  Whatever.

• We had a very heated exchange at the end, when he said he was done.  He acted as if I was asking him to do something outside the realm of painting, I was not.  I had an expectation that the yellow paint would be covered.  Mr. Penn, then said, "I'm done, give me the balance of what you owe me" very rudely and intimidating manner.  He had an attitude because he was the only one on the job and it took way more than the four days he said it would, somehow it was my fault.  Oh you gave me a discount too, somehow that was my fault too.  

• In my opinion, this was Mr. Penn's first real paint job.   Probably his first house.  I saw no evidence that would convince me otherwise.  He bit off more than he could chew, got in over his head, and then wanted to get mad with me.  My opinion, is if you do a job, you do your best.  Unfortunately for me, Mr. Penn's best was not up to snuff.  He just isn't capable as he professed or as he thinks in his mind.  I am sure that Mr. Penn will refute everything that I have said here, but it is all 100% truth.

• Mr. Penn said that I was being "anal" because I had an expectation that the paint job should cover the paint underneath.  I'm confused as to what a paint job is according to Mr. Penn, a so called painter, who touts on his website 30 years plus experience of painting.  Actually that was my only expectation after working with him, that the 50 year old paint underneath not show.  That is not too much to ask.  Mr. Penn then stated to me, " No paint job is 100% perfect".  In his world, I guess not. 

• Left a mess in my backyard after leaving in a haste.  I paid him the balance and now I will interview new contractors to come out and finish up the job.  I've learned my lesson though.  Only painters that I know, those whose work I've seen and those that I truly trust.

Overall, from a distance, the paint job looks fine.  Up close, all the imperfections and spots of yellow come through.  The chimney is incomplete, but passable.  It looks 100% better, but it was 25 years in the making.  Anything would have made it look better.  My home is no architectural gem, just your regular run of the mill 2-story colonial with lots of straight lines, one primary color
and trim color. 

In my opinion, Mr. Penn lacks the experience necessary to adequately do a job of this nature.  The quality is just not there.  He is not meticulous, if you don't care about the quality or how it looks.  He appears to have an unseen hubris about his painting abilities and I am sure that he will have many more unhappy customers.  Mr. Penn's level of five-star quality and your level of five-star quality will differ, just based on what I've seen. 

A few positives however, Mr. Penn was very professional in his dealings with me (except for our last meeting), very responsive most of the time and once he came back from "personal emergency" called me regularly to check-in, appeared to listen to what I was saying, even though I know he didn't hear me.  I believe he thinks in his mind, he is doing excellent work, however, in my opinion of excellence and his opinion are two different versions. 

His so-called company only exists in his world and good luck if you decide to go with him.  I would absolutely go elsewhere for my painting needs.