A1localpaintbrush

David Smith came into our house and presented himself as a professional with over 17 years experience and was there to "help us rather than get rich" (1st red flag). He gave us a quote and we negotiated, and agreed on a price of $2,000 for labor. We agreed on a time frame of 2 weeks as we needed to move out of our old house to avoid responsibility for 2 mortgages. He proceeded to give us the list of paint and specific brand for us to buy which we promptly bought. We spent over $1,500 on gallons of paint. The job was for him to paint the whole house (ceiling, bathroom, closets bedrooms and garage). We told him the only reason we were not doing the painting job ourselves was cos we did not have time! He proceeded to ask for $1,000 in cash deposit (2nd red flag). At this point, I was concerned!! This guy talked a lot which is always a bad sign but he also wanted 50% in cash payment. I consulted with my wife and we proceeded to give him the deposit since he had moved his tools into the house including his work truck in our driveway. By the end of the 1st week, David has only appeared twice in the houseand did not even finish painting 1 room. I warned him of our 2 week deadline and he assure me of completion. At the end of 2 weeks, David came into the house with the promise to work. We left him in the house while we were moving stuffs from the old house. After we left, David parked all his tools and left our key on the kitchen counter. We came back to the house and discovered the whole house in disarray. He apparently left in a hurry because he did not have time to remove all his plastic protector. Every attempt to get David on the phone has failed. He sent me a long text on how the job is not working for him because it conflicts with his primary job (he supposedly paints bridge for the state/county). He must have planned his exit as he was dropped off by somebody so he could drive away in his work truck. During the 2 weeks he was supposed to be working on our house, he was always complaining of conflicts with his (on-call) primary job duties of painting the bridge. This struck me as odd as it was winter time. All efforts to have David refund our deposit, finish the job or return our missing gallons of paints have failed. This is an example of a fraudster parading himself as a handyman with dignity. We have shared our experience with porch.com and are now going to the small claims court :-( Please save yourself the headache and avoid this business like a plague.