Jon Ebert Landscape

Review: This contractor agreed to provide landscape installation for $21,630. That included soil prep and grading, irrigation, lighting, plants, trees, sod and decomposed granite and flagstone installation. He gave me a 5 week timeline for completion starting in December 2012. Once he started he asked for draws to pay for material which I paid. At the end of December he asked to take a few weeks break for the holidays and I agreed. In January he asked for another draw of $6,000 which I paid bringing the total paid to $17,000. Then he strung me along for two months not completing any work until I confronted him. His response was that I hadn't paid him enough money to finish and I would need to pay at least an additional $7000 to finish even though I only owed him $4,630. He still needed to finish the irrigation, lighting, decomposed granite, flagstone, sod,tree and plant installation I refused so he said I could pay the materials directly to the suppliers while he finished the job (no additional labor payments). He gave me a two week timeline to finish. I ended up paying for material that should have already been paid for with the $17,000 I already paid. He did not complete in 2 weeks and strung me along again until May 2013. Now I have paid $17,000 plus additional material for a total of $23,254. Irrigation is not finished, lighting is not finished, plants and mulch are not paid for or installed and debris has been left on the job. After almost six months of stringing me along and taking my money, I fired him and asked for the material I paid for that he is in possession of and he refused. He responded that he has gone out of business and does not have any more time for me. I have hired another contractor to finish the job which will be an additional $7,000 bringing this job to just over $30,000. He scammed me for $23,000, strung me along for 6 months and then abandoned the job with $7,000 worth of work to finish. He also kept material that I paid for and left the jobsite a mess.Desired Settlement: I would like him to return materials I paid for that are in his possession including but not limited to:350 feet of soaker hose25 dripline barbed insert couplers25 dripline male adapters inch25 dripline barbed insert teeAlso: return key to storage padlock, remove debris left on the job and refund $7,000 so the job can be finished.

Business

Response:

To Whom It May Concern,

I am Jon Ebert owner of Jon Ebert landscape. I'm responding to complaint against me for property at [redacted] in Chula Vista. I have been in business for 20 years and have never had a negative complaint against me, because I'm always willing to go the extra mile to make customers happy. As per customers 1st request to return paid material, I have done this. The second request to refund $7000 dollars, I will not comply because this job went over budget mostly due to my own doing by extending extra services not in contract. #1 installing dg in all apartment patios (5), contract stated only one patio. #2, Installing dg to change compromised drainage. #3, Installing lighting at cost, free labor. #4, Installing a wide variety of landscape services at customers' mothers house labor free, and as well as customers house, labor free. As per these extras the customer and I decided to come to terms to finish project. This information is documented via email. Customer was to furnish all material to finish job and I would provide labor cost free. We proceeded as follows and were off to a good start with customer was providing materials and I was providing free labor. Which after 2 weeks cost me $4000 dollars in labor. We were two days from finishing project, I had plants ordered to be paid by customer and was ready to install them and finish irrigation and spread final compost to complete job, two days labor. The customer halted buying plants because she was not satisfied with plant list. I was quite disturbed at this moment because I spent many hours hunting for plants and designing plant design, cost free. So another week went by and I put together another plant list as per customers request of plants. 2 more weeks passed and customer said she and her mom were again not sure about list. I then told them to come up with there own list and didn't here back from them for 3 weeks. On 4th week, they responded that they decided to let me go and finish themselves. At this point, I cannot do anymore to make them happy. I was let go from this job, and I have also lost thousands of dollars.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

This response is outrageous. Jon Ebert started a 5 week project in December 2012 and by May 2013 had not finished it. For 6 months he used delay tactics that I have documented promising on three different occasions to finish the job in 2 or 3 weeks which did not materialize. For example: my crew went to Mexico and won't be back for two weeks; I had to take a week off because my kids were on Spring Break; my wife has the flu so I can't work for a week until she feels better; it is too windy this week to work,; you haven't paid me enough to finish (even though I paid him on time for every installment requested), etc. Also, on too many occasions to count no one showed up when promised nor did he return phone calls.

In addition, he told me that he had more completed than he really did (for example irrigation which is underground so I had no way of knowing that it wasn't actually done) so he could request more payments from me by leading me to believe he was on schedule . Then he did not actually complete the work.

To say he provided free labor is absolutely incorrect. His contract price included ALL LABOR AND MATERIALS to finish the job including lighting and DG installation. Extra work was provided to install DG in 3 additional backyards. He charged me $150 for one yard so that equated to $450 for 3 additional yards. The contract price was $21,630 but by the time I paid him $17,000 he informed me that it would cost a minimum of $7000 more if I wanted the job finished. He had incorrectly calculated that the amount I already paid was $12,000 so that made sense to him knowing the contract was for $21,630 but I have the cancelled checks showing that at that point I had paid him $17,000. Contract price of $21,630 consists of: $19,330 original contract plus $2,500 for lighting less $200 for electrical which he had me pay BZ Construction to complete.

He proposed at that point that I pay all suppliers directly for the remaining material and he would complete the labor so as to stay within the bid amount. His estimates for the material turned out to be grossly under calculated and I when the total paid by me reached $23,254 I was alarmed because he was no where near finished and was still delaying on completing the work and making excuses why he was not at the job. I believe he was busy on other jobs and sent his guys over to work on my job when they could fit it in even though he had promised it finished within three weeks.

As for the plant selection I met with him in January and went over an extensive list with him of preferences and specific plants. His plant list did not meet that criteria in any way and included plants we specifically said we did not want. Several times I requested a face to face meeting but he refused. At this point I could see that he was not going to make the effort to come up with a design and plant list according to our criteria. That is when I began reviewing the invoices and I found that 1) he had me pay for material that should have already been purchased with the $17,000 (so I double paid); 2) he returned material and directed the refund back to his own credit card when I had paid for it on my credit card; 3) material showing on an invoice that I paid for with my credit card was nowhere to be found and in fact he admitted to keeping some of it at his house instead of in the storage garage at the property (some, but not all, of that material he returned); 4) he left a large amount of debris on the property including at least 12 pallets, concrete, and miscellaneous debris that still needs to be removed; 5) as part of the bid he was to improve the front yard on my personal residence and in December he pulled out all of our healthy plants and left them on the side of our yard for 6 months so they are dead and our front yard is in a shamble; 6) he fraudulently used names of other legitimate landscape businesses to gain discounts at material suppliers. When I called those businesses they were outraged.

The fraudulent acts above shocked me and I could no longer trust that Jon Ebert was dealing with me in good faith. I decided to fire him and sent him an email to that effect. Instead of responding, he sent me a text saying that he is no longer in business and has no more time for me. After speaking with a legitimate landscape company that knows Jon Ebert, I became aware that in fact, he was not out of business and had purchased a truck for himself. In addition, he feels that since I fired him that lets him off the hook for what he has done to me. To the contrary, the evidence speaks to the dishonest and fraudulent ways he dealt with me, took my money and didn't finish the work.

I paid $1,624 over his original bid plus I paid $6,833.19 to complete the work on [redacted]. This is a total of $8,457.19 I expended over his bid price.

Also, he has retained material I paid for with my credit card; he has credited return material to his credit card that I paid for with my credit card; he has left a large amount of debris on the property that needs to be removed and he left my front yard in a shamble. I have an estimate to finish my front yard for $2,500.

I will consider this matter resolved when he returns material to me that I paid for; returns credits he took on his credit card for $360; removes all debris left at [redacted]; completes my personal residence at no cost to me (since I already paid him more than his bid price); and refunds me $6,833.19 which is the amount I had to pay another contractor to finish [redacted].

Best Regards,