You will be mine.... eventually

For what I've lost from this renovation disaster, I could be riding around in this. It's the Alpha Romeo MiTo.... and isn't it beautiful!!!


Thank goodness it's not likely to land on these shores until 2010, when I might again be able to afford it. OK, I know I'm not supposed to post 3 times in one day, but considering that I've let a month slack without posting, I need to vent a bit.

He reads minds too!

Isn't it a bit ironic that our contractor cancelled the insurance on our condo renovation before our last contact with him. We were informed by the insurance company that the policy was terminated on June 13. exactly the date that we claimed he abandoned our job in our letter that we sent to him on June 23rd.

Ignorance is Bliss

Ok, It's been about a month and so far we understand more about the character of our contractor and the a heck of alot more about the service we used to find him.

If ignorance is bliss then our contractor is beside himself in rapture.

He has ignored our first letter to establish contact with him. He has ignored the BBB complaint that we files against him. He has ignored our telephone calls and so far he has ignored our 93A Letter that we sent to him. Our hope is that the more he ignores us the stronger our claim is against him, whatever outcome that leads to? I don't know.

I hear that this is an all too familiar occurance with contractors. It gives good contractors a bad wrap. No wonder it's so hard to find a good working relationship when there is so much mistrust in the industry.

I wish we had a picture our our guy, but the next best thing is a picture or his accessories in crime. If you see these guys on your site, be scared... be very scared

Lastly, I'd like to address Service Magic as a service. So far they are useless. They haven't tried to resolve anything and thier "guarantee" is turning out to be a sham. Every week or so I get an email stating yet another reason why they can't move our claim along... I'm just waiting for the "DENIED" email to come any day now that I've read so many bloggers complain about. All you have to do is a simple google search and it will turn up all kinds of things... my Top reasons not to use them:

1. The contractor pays them so they are beholden to the contractor. A contractor pays them X dollars for a lead, the more leads they put out the more $$ comes in.
   
2. They routinely remove bad ratings from their site about contractors
   
3. They only check on licensing in the businesses name. They won't do background checks in the proprietor of the business. This means the proprieter is free to scew you over and start a new business name. Basically their background check is non-existent. You have to do your own homework
   
4. Their guarantee is non-existant
   
5. Customer service is rude and aggressive.
   
6. If you like spam... go ahead and join their service
   

Not to say that all the contractors that they recommend are bad, but its best to find one word of mouth. We eventually hired someone who had done work on a number of units in our building and the work that we've seen has been very good and our neighbors recommend him. He's patient and move expensive than most, but in the end it's worth not having to go through the aggrevation. If you can't find a good contractor by word of mouth then do your homework and have a lawyer look over your contract before you sign!!! It pays to be obnoxiously cautious when you're spending tens of thousands of dollars or more. We thought we did ours by check with BBB and licensing board and references, but we still got the shaft.