Complaint Review: Pileggi Builders - Indian Trail North Carolina

Carl Pileggi claims to have been in the construction business for 33 years. Unless he's on some miracle anti aging cream, he must've started working when he was 10 years old. His actions spoke louder than his so-called 33 years experience - from his unprofessionalism of client relationship to his "I'm a man of my word" promises that never happened. The main problem I had with this man was that he never showed up to do the job. The 2 week patio project turned out to be over a month (plus showing up only 10 days of the 25 work day) - and within those 10 days, he still was unable to remove the existing concrete. Yes, the existing concrete was 10" thicker than he expected. Yes, he had some employee issues. And yes, he had to rent a bobcat to finish the demo. I understood all this, but to not show up and keep addressing all these issues to me by making countless excuses was rediculous. His last excuse for not finishing the demo was his jackhammer broke. He was going to finish when he got it fixed cause he could not afford to buy another jackhammer. But a few days later, he took the bobcat and not tell me. I emailed him and all he said was "I can't afford $XXX a day to rent this bobcat, so the rest will be done by hand." By hand...about a ton of concrete to be hauled off by hand...no explanation on the jack hammer situation. I just had enough of this BS. It took him over a month to be 75% complete of concrete demo and this with a jackhammer, and now he's going to do the rest of the 25% by hand? So for my sanity, I fired him, leaving me with a pile of concrete that he claimed he was going to finish off by hand. Well, I wish I knew then what I know now. Never fire someone who has not completed the job that you've already given a downpayment to - even if that downpayment was for materials only. That's where I am now. I stupidly paid him OVER 50% of the total project price and now he's pretty much getting away with murder. I 've agreed that he take off whatever I "owed" him - labor and bobcat rental cost - and he told me he would tally everything up and get back to me with the final refund - that was back in June 2007. I have not heard from him nor has he returned any of my emails. I have reported him to the NC Attorney General, Better Business Bureau, and even went as far as Channel 9 news -he's completely ignored all of them. They have been updating me on the status and he's pretty much "vanished"! My biggest regret is paying him the downpayment. To all of you out there, learn from my stupidity: A). do not ever give a contractor more than half of the project cost. If they say it's for materials only, that's BS! I found out that a good contractor has credit at Lowe's or Home Depot and they have over 30 days to pay their balance. If they say "I can't do this job without material downpayment", then say bye-bye and find someone else. I promise you, there are good contractors out there, you just need to do your homework; and B). ALWAYS read your contract and make sure that your time frame is in there and that there's a disclaimer that says if there are obstacles in the project, 1-either the project be stopped until you are explained extra cost and/or extra time; and 2-unless notified, that extra cost will not be charged to you.