Mike Bergeron quoted us a fair price for finishing a room over our garage and insulating and sheetrocking the ceiling of our garage. After paying our initial deposit, the first week of work progressed fine with considerable progress made on the upstairs. On the fifth day, Mike requested the second installment of his payment, presumably to purchase the materials necessary to finish the downstairs of the garage. Happy with his services so far and with the upstairs close to completion, we complied. Mike cashed the check that same night. This was the last day he was on-site working on our job.
Two of his workers returned for about five hours the following day, Saturday, and assured us they would return Sunday. They didn’t. No one came Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. One of the workers arrived after hours on Wednesday evening and asked to pick up a tool from the garage, which we were happy to allow him to do. He assured us they would work from 12-8 the following day. However, Thursday came and no one showed. Friday either. Never on any of these days did Mike call or communicate to us that no one would be working on the property. Over the weekend we were able to reach Mike by phone and he assured us work would continue on Monday.
Monday came – no one showed. Mike didn’t call. When we called him that evening, Mike assured us the work would be completed by Friday.
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday came and no one showed. Mike never reached out to us with any explanation. Thursday night we wrote Mike an email out of frustration asking that he contact us by Saturday with either a plan for moving forward or a plan for returning our money. Mike responded on Friday, claiming several reasons for the delay – most importantly, that he was not able to set aside the $500 he needed to purchase the materials to finish the downstairs of the garage despite the fact that the last time we had seen him, he accepted a check from us for $1100 for this very purpose. In response, we asked Mike to either complete the job by the following Friday or refund us the money for the materials that were never purchased and the work that was never completed and to let us know his decision by Sunday. He never responded. We called several times on Sunday but Mike never took or returned our calls.
At this point, Mike has approximately $1300 of our money for materials that he never purchased and a job he never completed. His equipment is still sitting in our garage and our repeated requests for a refund are still unanswered. We have no choice but to follow up in small claims court, undertake the unfinished work on the upstairs ourselves, and abandon the downstairs of the garage because we can no longer afford to pay someone to complete the work Mike left unfinished.
Please, avoid this business at all costs. Mike is, at best, incompetent in business matters and, at worst, an unprofessional and unethical contractor who will take your money. He used our money to pay for other expenses and then refused to communicate with us to find an amicable solution or refund what we were owed. He has caused our family no small amount of stress and anxiety and has stolen our money three months before we are expecting our first child. Do not work with him.