If you’ve read any of what has been written in past posts you’ll understand the subject line of this post. We’ve been burned and we’re still a bit singed on the edges. There are a lot of dishonest people out there and we’ve found more than a few – from Jimmy Mills to fraudulent City inspectors – oh wait, haven’t got to that yet.

The picture above is an itemized list from our framing crew. They were to frame our house, then afterwards apply all of the siding on the house, complete construction of our decks and screen in our porch. We got about the framing part (minus several adjustments), about 1/3 of the siding part and NONE of the rest. A third through the siding and after many delays we were told by our framing crew that they had done more work than expected and that we had to pay for all of these “Extras” before they would proceed with work. 

By this point we had paid forward a bit so they could still receive a weekly check to pay their crew. Generous and at the same time stupid. Stupid to trust these assholes would do the right thing. Finish the work they were paid for and complete the job correctly.

At the time they presented this to us we were taken back a bit to say the least. We knew they had done SOME extra work and we were willing to pay for that, but not the $19,000 extra they had claimed we owed them. It was ridiculous and led to at least a month of phone calls, faxes, delays and ultimately to their firing. On top of that we decided to sue them and beat them from putting a falsified lien on our property for this money. We knew we had a case and were willing to fight them in court for it.

Reason this comes up now in the process is that mid-February, with the construction of our house coming close to a close, our court date had finally arrived. That day, in the Gwinnett County Courthouse we had Russ, Brian, Kelly and myself in tow. We were all ready to get this over with and have record show that we were in the right.

Upon entering we were all a little nervous, except Kelly that is. She’s in court for work all the time so it was nothing to her and she was fired up! Not even the awkwardness of seeing the framers outside of the court room bothered her either. 

Once our time arrived we were ready. The way our contract was set up – between Russ and the framers, meant that Russ had to deliberate on our behalf. Good practice for him for future jerks that want to take people’s money. We spent at least half an hour being interviewed by either side. I got on the stand, Brian on the stand until the judge had decided that she was ready to rule. 

Based on her findings she decided to throw out the case. Mainly because of lack of bookkeeping on everyone’s part. If we had contracts in place when adjustments and changes had come up we would have been in a better place. So they didn’t end up with amy money and we didn’t end up with money back for the work they didn’t complete. In the end they probably ended up with extra. Paying forward seemed like the right thing to do at the time, unfortunately it didn’t end up that way.

Eventually I look forward to getting Jimmy Mills and Harry Cardile in court. Payback is hell and karma is a bitch.