Huge disappointment due to lack of professionalism, reliability and integrity.
I had a very relatively simple job to do - replace linoleum with vinyl tile, new furnace/ hot water tank, replace counter top, smoke detector, carpet and painting two rooms. $9400???
At first, signs were good. I met with Mark the contractor in May when closing on my property. At our first meeting, Mark Baker seemed like he would be a good fit to remodel my place. He was personable, punctual, straight talking and seemed very knowledgeable with reasonable prices. Sadly, only to find out later that I would completely regret the decision of choosing him as my contractor.
First he puts together a nice presentation and the price was right (not the cheapest out of all bids), but reasonable and professionally itemized. Once he was selected as the contractor I was excited, but things went down hill very fast. I was initially told my project would be 1-2 weeks to complete, but my 1-2 week project turned out to be almost 2 months of excuses with NO WORK STARTED AT ALL and the excuses kept coming and coming.
Originally he was supposed to paint two rooms, then I was told he wasn't in May, so we painted ourselves. Then in June he tells us he was going to paint, so I tell him to paint two other rooms we have not touched because we kind of splattered paint on baseboards but the walls were done already. So come July he claims he'll finally start the project only to find out he never did. I call three days later, his excuse not to paint was because it was all over baseboards but he knew this back in June.
Every time I followed up with a phone call for actual start dates he would just give one excuse after another - that is when I was able to reach him. His secretary always claimed he was out of office, sick, not available or would take a message to have him call back, but he rarely did and when he did it would be more than a day later.
Whenever I addressed my concerns he seemed to get irritated and would be very condescending or just tell me he was starting on such and such date just to get me off the phone. It was infuriating. After the many excuses he gave and waiting patiently for nearly 2 months for him to start and not seeing any kind of improvement made, I realized I was just wasting my time with him and asked for him to cancel the contract so I can have another contractor complete the work he would not start.
I'm not sure if he put me on the back-burner because I am ''African- American'' or because I was using an escrow service through a bank or if because he was just too ''busy'' and over his head to do my project but I felt he should have given some kind of explanation or just tell me he had no intention on ever doing the work instead of leaving me in the dark.
I will never hire a random van I saw driving around my local area again without doing my due diligence first. It turned out for me to be a big mistake and waste of time.
I have no idea how good their work is. Good luck if you get to that point. But I will never trust them again.
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Once I'd posted my review on this site, Mark decided to send his intimidating e-mail threatening to take legal action and suing for slander.
Subject: Re: yelp response
Date: 7/22/2014 8:42:07 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: Mark@baker-restoration.com
Mr. Brown,
In response to your entry on yelp business web page I can tell you this. First off it appears to me that you are very good at adlibbing or stretching the truth. First off you did not fire us from anything ( we removed ourselves from your job ) lie. Next the estimate price never went up it only went down. Lie. Also we do not even own a pickup truck at this company lie. Also you state that you hired another contractor that morning is that also a lie ? why do you not mention the fact that you created a gigantic mess worse than a 3 yr. old would have with a roller and a paint can. There is nothing in a rule book that states that us, as a company would have to clean up your mess before we could even get started we simply did not choose to put our name on that disaster. Also you forget to mention that you never gave our company a dime how did you get ripped off. I think that you should be very careful in your choice of statements because you may have just opened yourself up for a slander lawsuit. ( Not a lie. ) We happen to keep very good documentation of all conversation if you don't know what slander is I suggest you look it up. Not only have you personally named me you have also named our company ( mistake ) if you have made any slanderous statements that are unfounded you can be held liable for any damages suffered by myself or our company. I would suggest that you need to take whatever steps necessary to protect yourself by retracting your untrue slanderous statements or I can pretty much tell you that it will not be in your best interest if we decide to pursue any action against you. read more
