Neal's Brick Masonry

I hired Mr. Neal in July to build a brick mailbox after seeing his high rating on the Better Business Bureau website. Although I also saw his name on Porch, there was no information or reviews so I hired him directly. He showed me pictures of mailboxes he had constructed and they looked nice, although they were all the same shape. I sent him a picture of the one I wanted which was more intricate, and he said he could do it. From the beginning, there were issues with him showing up on time, and the craftsmanship of the work. Although I thought he would be the one to build the mailbox, he dropped off workers and left soon after, and returned later in the afternoon. To make a long story short, on the last day of the job, there were still areas that were sloppy; dripped mortar left on the bricks, holes not filled in where he drilled different areas to put the flag, an area where he used cement instead of mortar, and the back of the mailbox was not neat. I pointed these issues out to him before he left, but I didn’t push the issue at that time. A few days later, he was asked to fix those areas, which shouldn’t have been an issue since he gave me a five-year warranty in writing on the craftsmanship. He did not show up on the scheduled day, nor did he show up the other four times he said he would. He never called when he didn’t come, and I had to contact him to ask when he would make the repairs. In addition, one of his workers took my tarp that covered the mailbox due to rain. When I asked him about it, he said he would bring it back, but he never did. Now I will need to hire someone to make repairs and buy another tarp. It really is disheartening because I honored my portion of the agreement, but Mr. Neal failed to keep his word. My advice is to make sure you look at multiple sites for references before hiring someone, and at the first sign of unprofessionalism, don’t hesitate to look for someone else. Also, even though BBB can be helpful, don’t rely on them solely because that may just mean that no one has posted a complaint with them about a particular business.