Fred Allen Builders

Fred Allen (Alfred F. Zappolo) is a very deceptive man. His rating really is less than one star it should be zero. He takes your deposit and payments at the start of every stage and never comes back to complete the job. He makes up excuses as to why he is a "no Show". He plans from the very beginning to get most of the cost of the project up front and promises to get the supplies and when it comes down to buying everything, and he has 80% of your money depending upon the stage of the project, he will never show up and your project is incomplete and you have to put out more money to complete the project. He walks away with your money and never appears in court or anything. HE IS A SCAM artist. Not a contractor. He is a liar, and does not accept responsibility for his short comings. He never intends to complete any project, Fred's objective is to take your money in various stages of the project and never complete the project. We paid him $3200 for a deck with railings that should have been completed within 2 weeks, at the end of three months less than 50% of the deck was completed. The work he did do was terrible. The deck had openings that you could fall into because he clearly measured incorrectly and needed to pull up the planks and cut them again to cover the entire area, but he did not do that he just left the area incomplete. When he has a problem of any type he stops working. The gaps in the decking were uneven, yet he started the steps leading to the deck which were not secured. All nails Fred used were rusting because he used inappropriate nails and should have used galvanized nails. The steps were installed on dirt and that is safety issue too. He will say that this too is untrue and that there was money left, and that we would not allow him to finish, but TRUST me, he had 3 months to complete project that should have taken 2 wks. The next stage required him to collect more money, he did not show because he knew that by now we knew exactly who he is, a scam/con man. If he feels that any of my statements were untrue, why not show up at the court hearings?? He knows exactly what he is doing, Cheating clients so he wanted no parts of a court room where a judge would hold him accountable. All Southern New Jersey beware. File your complaints with the Consume Affairs Office. I know we are not the only people he has defrauded. The number is probably very high. I just say BEWARE and NEVER use this deceitful person. I am just grateful my lost is not as large of some of the other postings.

Read the review of October 4th 2014 this story is my story along with 9 other people I’ve found in New Jersey who hired Fred Allen Builders Aka Fred Zapollo
This man is a Criminal Thief . He takes deposits to start portions of the contracts but does not pay the Workers so they walk off the job leaving the Part that you paid for incomplete for months on end . You won’t know that right away because they start the siding and start the roofing but then start something else like the Sheetrock before the siding is even up then he requires you to pay at Start of sheetrocking & doesn’t pay them after the1st day so Sheetrock doesn’t get finished then he starts the electric which requires a deposit but then only pay the first installment of the electric & then the electrician comes back to do second installment & fred doesn’t show up to pay him so the electrician leaves & never comes back then your house starts to fall apart leaks &sinking floors , he leaves all the trash on your property whereevwr they work there is trash he refuses to get a dumpster says that’s only on TV .takes over a year to Still not complete the job leaving yard destroyed from trash on top of grass and piles of dirt from holes they dug on top of grass and no gutters leaving Rutts & holes everywhere , then the grass can’t grow ,there is trash & holes &the entire yard surrounding the building is not re-graded because the job is just never finished and it’s so bad my landscaper of 10 years wants to trestify in court because in order for him to fix my yard now after a year of damage and trash he doesn’t want to charge me the true cost of $5600 to fix my yard & fred turns around and says grading wasn’t part of the contract when it doesn’t need to be in the contract if they had taken their trash & completed the additions at all but in a timely manner then the grading which would have been simple raking of ground up to the house would have been easy & part of what they were doing to complete the job but no instead we were forced to pay for 3 12 yard dumpsters to remove all of his trash,debri,&damaged property. He left everything undone & will say it was 85% complete just like he did to the man who wrote the review in 2014.
Fred has all the Money required per his contracts . Has not shown up in 90 days,left our property with everything started, nothing finished and no materials to complete the job. so far it has cost us $13,000 to finish the work $1000 in dumpsters ,$5600 in fixing damages and yard .the flooding he caused has cost us $2500 for a sump-pump and air blower into the basement , waterproofing to the foundation of my home , mold &remediation are all another $3700 We have spent almost $25,000.
Fixing what fred was hired to do . He believes he is right he will say he is 85% complete, that there was money to finish and that we asked for things not on our contract. he will say contractors don’t want to work at our house they don’t like us , he will say so many things we have 139 correspondence with him since June 2017 it is now May 2018 and he still has not complete . So if there was enough money to finish my job then why did I have to pay to put in my own land beams, Break through the wall to make new addition meet old house ? , why did I pay to have siding, gutters and soffits installed, & more materials to complete siding soffits gutters , why did my basement crawl space flood 15 times , why did I have to hire concrete workers to erect a block of wall to attach bilco doors to , and why did I have to buy a bilco door (FYI paid for to fred in October 2017) ? Why did I have to pay for the Sheetrockers to tape and spackle and attach old house to new house , & pay the electrician to complete the rough and final tie in? why did I have to find my own HVAC man to redirect the HVAC into the new room & then tap off the wires you had installed for the Mini Split HVAC unit that never arrived to this day (FYI paid for within contract at 20% down at signing of contract ) why did I have to pay for my own Entry Step installation? Why did I have to pay to have the floors leveled , and then pay for tile installation of the new additions & hardwood installation of the other section of new additions , ? Why did I pay for the baseboards & window trims in all but 5 windows , ? If my contracts were 85% complete then your saying that you contracted 2 additions At 34k & 24k
& both contracts were simply just to have you build a shell , that’s what you left me with Fred Allen Zapollo . I know you will read this & if you reply to me the same way you did to the guy in 2014 I will use it against you in court along with everything else. I gave you every opportunity to avoid going to jail . This is Theft you took my money for service & goods with no intention of providing either . You knew you were not coming back to complete that’s why you harassed me to get that other $1700. So arrogant u will find the 1 thing not true in this & respond only to that ! Criminal