P.M. Maintenance

Review: We received a bid from P.M. Maintenance for replacement of a kitchen countertop. The owner of the company came to my home, measured the countertop and provided me with an amount to remove and install a new countertop in my kitchen. Mr. [redacted] quoted me the amount of $250.00 to remove and replace my countertop. The countertop was purchased, sink was purchased and Mr. [redacted] was contacted to install. Install date was set and he had two workmen come to my home to install the countertop on Thursday, November 18, 2014. They came into my home after 9:30 a.m. and left around 5:30 p.m. that evening and indicated that they needed additional materials to finalize the install of the sink and would need to come back the next morning. They came back the next morning after 9:30 a.m. and left by 12:00 p.m. At no time during the installment was anything ever said or given to us that there would be additional charges for the work that the workman did. I received a bill in the mail today for the amount of $1,128.00, which is four times the estimate amount. I wrote Mr. [redacted] and told him that I was extremely upset about the bill and said that I was willing to meet in the middle, but I was not paying the price he was charging as there was no change orders ever given to me, there was not talk about there being additional charges, there were no deposits made, there were no contracts signed, nothing. I have asked Mr. [redacted] for his contractor's license number and he has refused to give that to me. He is unwilling to talk to us and has threatened to take us to collections. We offered him 40% above what his estimate was along with the costs of the additional materials and he has refused to accept that amount. He is charging for time that his workers were not at our house. We would have never agreed to the amount that he is charging for the install if we had known he was charging the massive amount that he is trying to recoop from us.Desired Settlement: While his workers did an excellent job and we are happy with the work, I never would have had them do the job if I had known that he was going to charge such a high amount of money for the install. If he had told us ahead of time that there were additional charges, providing us with something in writing as to how much we would be looking at for the installation, we would have reconsidered and found someone else. There was nothing ever provided other than the original sheet he provided with the measurements for the new countertop which I asked him how much it would be and he indicated the $250.00 and now he is trying to renig on that amount indicating that we are "scammers". We were willing to work with him, but he is being very unreasonable and he is at fault because he never informed us of the additional costs, not did any of his workers. He has nothing signed by us nor did we give him a deposit. Everything was based on his original estimate at the time he measured the countertop for replacement.

Business

Response:

Several months ago I was contacted by [redacted] to come to their home to discuss a countertop install with them. I went to their home and was immediately told that they would like a bid on replacement of the countertop but that they would be buying all the matierials. At this point I immediately informed them that if they were buying the materials that the job would be charged out hourly labor plus any materials as that is how I always bid jobs when I do not have control over purchasing the materials. This is standard for me as often times consumers purchase very cheap or the wrong components for a job and it generally causes more labor time to install. I also indicated to them at that time that I charge from the time that my guys leave the shop until the return as I do not charge for a trip charge.