Complaints

• Initial Complaint

  10/13/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Unresolved

  More info

  The owner, Sarah M********** (aka Sarah M***********), came to our house and gave us a quote on 9/17 to do our interior trim and replace 4 interior doors. The following week she sent us a construction contract including the trim and doors for $4,459, which we signed and paid half immediately. After we made the original 50% down payment of $2230, she asked for us to pay an additional $200, then an additional $500, then an additional $1500, all of which we paid, leaving $29 left on our remaining contract (we have paid them over 99% of the original contract). She did add some services to the estimate over time and invoiced us for an additional $1454 (not costs we had discussed in advance). We said we were happy to pay her that amount because she was adding additional services, but that we were not comfortable paying her until she completed the work and we could do a walkthrough and make sure we were satisfied. She asked us again last night on 10/11 to make the final payment. Today she showed up to work and again sent us a text that we needed to pay her the final invoice. Immediately once my husband and I left the house to grab lunch, she left the house without warning and texted us saying that she was refusing to finish the work until we made the final payment. She then sent us a bunch of nasty texts and threatened to put a lien on our house. Worst of all, the work that has been done is terrible. The trim and doors are up, but many of the nails aren't covered, there is wood filler all over the place, and the cuts are laughably bad. Some of the trim doesn't match and one of the hall doors is different from the others. The doors were also cut down to size and never finished on the edges and the touch-up paint around the trim is incomplete. Finally, one of her workers came back to our house after she left one day and complained to us that she refused to pay him even after we listened to her yell at him all day.

  Business response

  11/09/2022

  I am sorry Clay I thought I had responded I have a head injury and I had forgotten that I tried and I had to edit it and it was frustrating so here’s my response to the case. Miss ****** ripped me off she asked for a lot of additional work that was not originally contracted and then refused to pay me so I refuse to finish the last one percent of work that was required. Once she pays me in full I will finish the work I have let her know this in writing and on a numerous occasions my husband has also offered to go finish for final payment which is 1455 I save them over $7000 and provided materials that they didn’t pay for and basically painted their entire house when initially there I was told it was a little bit of trimwork  they are shysters and have also slandered my business completely I am having to shut the doors and go bankrupt. 
  --
  Make it a great day,
  Sarah M****
  Owner
  Moore's Custom Interiors & Design
  Neczko Construction 
  Sarjon Realty
  ************
  

  
  

  Customer response

  11/09/2022

  Complaint: ********
  
  I am rejecting this response because: as evidenced by the photos, Sarah is lying. She came to our house and saw the condition of everything before she made us an estimate, so she can't say we mislead her. She did not "paint half our house." She also offered to do some extra work saying we would "work it out in the end" but she didn't finish any of that work nor did sne finish the work that was described in the contract. She also tried to charge us outrageous prices for the extra work she was offering to do without ever clearing that with us first. We have paid her nearly double what the original contract required up to this point because the original contract said we needed to pay half upfront, which we did, and then pay the remaining 50% on completion. Sarah refused to complete the work as evidenced by the texts. She even acknowledged that best practice and our contract said we didn't need to pay her until they finished the work but that she "knew [I] wouldn't pay [her]" as an excuse for not finishing. It is true that her husband did offer to come back to finish the work after they both picked up and left all of a sudden, but of course I didn't trust them because (1) Sarah had already told us she wouldn't finish the work at that point; (2) she had already told us she was putting a lien on our house, so I didn't trust her after she threatened us; and (3) her husband only offered to come back for one hour, which was clearly not enough because he would have had to go buy additional materials and fix nearly every room in our house. (screenshot included)

  Also, I made a post describing my experience and included the photos of her work on my local ******** and 5 separate people reached out to me telling me that they have had similar experiences with Sarah where she scammed them like she did us. Just today I spoke to one of her past clients who is having to hire an attorney to deal with everything Sarah put her through. This is not an isolated incident and I am horrified at Sarah's response. Best case scenario, she is incompetent, but I believe she is a real con artist and needs to be stopped. 

  
  Regards,
  

  
  **** ******

  Business response

  03/07/2023

  Hello Clay,
  
  The complaining party has tried to go to the Boulder County DA liaison for assistance in coming after me with no resolution.  They have slandered my business and filed a small claims case against me which is now going to trial and I have submitted a counterclaim. The judge has brought to the complaining parties attention that they must comply with CDARA, a group of statutes in the state of Colorado.  Preventing frivolous law suits.  The complaining parties requested that additional work be completed and allowed me to do the work and I had trusted that they would do the right thing and pay the additional cost at the end.  The last day of the project and near completion they were acting very suspicious and I had a feeling that they would not pay.  My husband as you can see in her screen shot did not offer to "only" come back for an hour.  That very same day he reached out to offer to resolve the remaining finishes for their project with the promise of the final payment with no response.  I NEVER quit just simply stated that I would finish with final payment.  They fully intended to take advantage and this is clear with her constant statements such as "she offered to do additional work".  Furthermore per our construction contract it clearly states that the homeowners are responsible for providing the paint and other materials.  There was extensive damage to their walls due to their improper removal of the old base trim and I fixed all of this.  As well as a large drywall patch behind their washer and dryer area as well as removal of their existing master bathroom door jamb and boxing in the threadshold and doing additional trim work such as master bathroom window and a extensive amount of paint.  Non of these items including the paint that I purchased for them as well as a toilet ring and bronze doorknob for their master bedroom door which were ALL given to the homeowner at a greatly discounted price were paid for!  As far as the 5 other folks that jumped on her "bandwagon" they had also taken advantage of me and my company at around the same time of the complaining party.  And I am pursuing a defamation of character and slander and libel law suite againt this complaining party as well as the other folks who jumped on the ******** post.  I offered solutions with payment and as far as charging "outrageous" prices.... I quoted the job at a very good price and the extras were only $1,454.03 and I can submit or include the breakdown in pricing if needed.  However it was more than fair.  We had to custom fabricate ALL of the homeowners doors due to previous poorly done work including by the husband and I do agree that (1) closet does need to be redone.  However, the rest is just finish work and shouldn't take long ~ "an hour or so".  I was in a major auto accident last August with a semi who was the at fault party and I feel that the complaining parties totally took advantage of my injuries including a traumatic brain injury.  Their unwillingness to do the right thing by me while I was completely trusting that they would and then viciously attacking and trying to "get me" any way possible is very disheartening.  There is a substansial amount of good quality work that was done at their residence.  I hope that I no longer have to reply to senseless complaints by this person.  I have all of the proof to back up all of these claims and can submit per your request.  As far as the current invoice which is at $10,827.83 due to the fact that in the construction contract it clearly states and was signed by the homeowner that all unpaid invoices will accrue daily late fees as well as interest monthly hense the elevated amount.Thank you for your time with this matter.  Please feel free to reach out to me if you need supporting documents or anything else regarding this matter.
  
  Thank you very much,
  
  Sarah M****
  Neczko Construction LLC

  Customer response

  03/07/2023

  Complaint: ********
  
  I am rejecting this response because:

   

  Sarah is not doing anything to fix her mistakes. As I said before, I paid nearly 100% of the contract price when I was only due to pay 50%. There is absolutely no merit to her claim that we would not pay. The claim that we were acting "suspicious"  on the last day is ridiculous; we were becoming very wary of Sarah because she told us daily that the work was "almost finished" when clearly it had a long way to go, but all we wanted was for her to finish the work she had promised. The bottom line is that she broke her contract after I had paid her nearly double what I owed her and now she is trying to charge me an additional 10k+ in late fees after abandoning the project, as evidenced by my screenshots. I realize she is arguing that she intended to come back after I paid her but I had already paid her more than what I owed her per our contract and, like I said several times, I would have been happy to pay her even more. However, I simply would not pay her more until after she finished the job which is what our contract stipulated and which is best practice in the contractor industry (as Sarah herself admitted in our texts). 

   

  I don't see how we are going to come to any resolution in this matter because Sarah is not willing to own up to her poor behavior and poor workmanship, but I felt like it was my duty to report her business to the BBB because of how she scammed me and several others as evidenced by the responses I received on ********.
  
  Regards,
  
  **** ******

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩