Pinnacle Painting

After knowing the owner of Pinnacle Painting for about a year (Reese ***) I hired him to paint my commercial buildingHe gave us a good price and plan and the deal was struckPer the agreement we paid him $up front for paint and wood that he would be replacing
He came by and dropped off all of his equipment and said he would start the following MondayHe did not show up and for weeks we played text tag, (he would not answer his phone) with him consistently saying he would have his crew up there the next day and then the next day when finally he stopped communicating all together
He never came back for his equipment but it is probably worth $and he stole $of our moneyWe have filed a small claims court against him and a police report but will probably never see him againDuring a investigation it was found that he had stolen over $400,in merchandise from his previous employer years agoLive and learn and do your research

Review: I am a first time homeowner who needed some remodeling done on my new property. I came to the [redacted] customer services and they sent my request to several background checked, licensed, and bonded general contractors. I was contacted shortly afterward by Mr. [redacted] of Pinnacle Painting (LIC# [redacted], he gave me an estimate for the work, and we came to an agreement. Mr. [redacted] offered me a contract on August 4, 2014 and because I trusted the [redacted] referral service I did not check to see if Mr. [redacted]s license was valid. I gave Mr. [redacted] a deposit of $1,000 and two progress payments, $13,000 and $17,000, respectively. However, during the project (from August 9 to September 5, 2014), I started to notice that Mr. [redacted] often strayed away from the detail in both written and oral orders that we had agreed upon. Also, workmanship was unsatisfactory and material provided was a lot cheaper than what was stated in the contract. When I complained about this, he promised to have his employees fix the problems, but ultimately ignored it. In addition, he missed the 3-week deadline indicated at the beginning of the contract and kept pushing back the date of completion, causing me to pay my mortgage and rent at the same time. Mr. [redacted] kept asking for another payment even though he did not make much progress on the project. For the reasons above, I went on the [redacted] website to check Mr. [redacted]s license and found out that his license was suspended prior to the signing of the contract, and it was only a painting license. Therefore he was working on my house illegally. When I confronted him and refused to give him the demanded payment on September 5, 2014, he quit, cleaned out his equipment, left debris on my lawn, my front and backyard, threatened to have all his employees file a mechanics lien on my property, and told his unpaid subcontractor to contact me for payment.Desired Settlement: I have had a licensed general contractor estimate the work that Mr. [redacted] provided and the value came up to $15,400. I would like Mr. [redacted] and Pinnacle Painting to refund the rest of the money, an amount of $15,600 from the total $31,000 that I have paid him.