Shift General Builder & Design

WARNING! DO NOT FALL FOR THE BAG OF ROCKS THESE PEOPLE ARE CRIMINALS! We have to second Tim B's review. The exact same thing happened to us. On the surface, everything seemed in order -- licensed and bonded, they came out to to the estimate, worked with us on the price, and even "got us a deal" on the permits -- the owner said he had a hook up. We were naive and this guy talks a pretty good game. After getting us to expand the project mid-construction, shell out over $25k (for "supplies" and "permits") they disappeared and we did not see anyone from the crew in over a month. We called, emailed, texted, probably a hundred times. Nothing. They left an unfinished, unpermitted retaining wall, a huge gaping trench that is extremely dangerous, and about 75% of the job un-done. We will have to tear down all the work (at our expense) and start over entirely. Because the work was not permitted ("Al" said it was) we have now been cited by the city and have had to shell out 13k in surveys and soils report, just so we can un-do what these idiots did. Our back yard is ruined, we are out thousands of dollars and both contacts at Shift have ghosted us. Alfredo Rodriguez (also goes by George) kept us on the line for weeks saying they would "come back tomorrow" or that he would call us, or that he had just gotten back from vacation (that's why we did not hear from him for ten days despite dozens of texts). Finally, when we threatened legal action and said we did want them continuing work, and would contact their bonding agent, they sent the whole team to our house at 7:30 in the morning on a Saturday without warning. Of course, at that time we had realized that the work was not permitted so we had to send them away. Angelica Plasencia claims to have no knowledge of this job or the thousands of dollars we gave "her" business, and confirmed that George (Jorge) is not his real name. I assume they are in this thing together and she feigns ignorance so she has plausible deniability. After months of back and forth, and Al admitting all the money was gone, we got him to sign a notarized promissory note, committing to refunding half what he stole over the next year, in installments. We even got post-dated checks to be safe. Unsurprisingly, he closed the account before we could cash the first one. We are now working with the police and our lawyer to find this guy and make sure he is held accountable. It is clear he does this over and over using different business names, personal names and license numbers. My understanding is that we got off easy, only tens of thousands not hundreds of thousands gone. I do not want another good-willed person to be stolen from like this. Please note: this happened to us in August, and this ordeal is ongoing. The damage to our property is still un-resolved (due to the city now being involved) and we only got $2700 back, out of the $15k he agreed to.