Isaac responded to an ad on Craigslist for someone to lay tile. He showed up and said he worked for a company called Parker Phoenix. He talked us into giving him the entire renovation project which included moving gas lines, installing light fixtures, building a master bath, installing sewer lines and a laundry list of other items. He told us he was licensed and that he had a crew of 30 workers and the project would take just a couple weeks.
We made the mistake of hiring him prior to obtaining the financing for the project. We ran into problems with the financing partly because Isaac did not actually have a licence in Nevada. By the time we realized he did not have a liscense we had already invested heavily in Isaac and his company. Since his crew had done a some of the work already (moved gas line and some carpentry) we felt like there was an honest effort going on to work on the projects.
I should note at this point there were some red flags:
Only worked on a cash basis, would not take checks. (He said he had problems before with bad checks)
Workorder looked very professional however there was no license number on it.
He hired all of his workers (Including his foreman) for this job off of Craigslist. There was No staff of 30 as he stated in our initial meating.
He kept trying to get 100% of the money up front. We eventually gave him approximately 3/4 of the money for the renonovations and 100% of the money for the sewer line.
After the trench had been dug for the sewer line (Leaving a giant pile of dirt and a deep trench through what will eventually be our bedroom), and layed most of the pipe he sent a message saying that another client had bounced a $25000 check and that if we wanted to have our project finished we would have to pay the rest of the money or wait 6 weeks until he got his money from the other client. We refused and he had his workers walk off the job. Since then I have done much of the remaining work myself. I still have wires hanging out of my ceiling that I have no idea what they were intended for and no power to the future bedroom. I would say the project was left about half completed.
I turned him into the Nevada Contractor Board and they are trying to get some of our money returned but the deadline has passed with no money returned. He will most likely be arrested if they catch up to him.