Jim the Drywaller

Jim Gilbert the owner came on Friday March 8th to determine the extent of work needed and gave me a written estimate of $900. He had done work for me previously in 2015 and 2018 with excellent results. That is why I hired him again and gave him the requested $450 deposit by check that day. He said he could start the following week on Wednesday and left. Later that day he contacted me and asked if he could return my check to me in exchange for cash instead and he would give me a further discount of $45 on the job. He explained that he had two deposit checks bounce recently and his bank no longer would give him immediate access to deposited checks. He had to wait 10 days or more for the checks to clear in order to access the funds. I declined to give him cash but offered instead to go with him to get the materials, pay for them on my credit card, and deduct the amount from the final bill. Jim said that would not be necessary because he has extra emergency funds set aside for such situations and he would start work on Wednesday March 13th about noon. He did NOT start on March 13th. He changed the start date to Monday, March 18th instead. When I asked what time to expect him, he said he would give me a time on Saturday March 16th. On Saturday he did not give me a time but said he would tell me on Sunday. Sunday afternoon he said he would tell me Sunday evening what time. Monday at 11:24 AM he sent me an e-mail telling me that someone else named Chewy will be coming to my home in one hour to do the work. I asked him to call me on the phone to discuss it but he would not do so: only e-mail now. I responded to his e-mail that I would not allow Chewy in to do the work because I had hired Jim Gilbert to do the job based on his past experience of excellent work. Jim said he would not come here with Chewy but would "talk him through the work on the phone when Chewy got to my house." At this point I told him I no longer felt comfortable doing business with him. I cancelled the job completely. No one came to my home to do any work. Jim Gilbert kept my $450 deposit and declined to refund any portion of it even though no work or services had been performed.