Building With Intergrity

Hiring Marco Ramirez as my renovation contractor is one of the biggest mistakes of my life. He cultivated my trust in the beginning and got me to pay in full, which was about $70,000, then he abandoned the job leaving it only 40 percent complete. During the initial phase when he was showing up, he got me to pay him an additional $7500 up front for windows and interior doors that he said were back-ordered. He never brought these doors and windows to my home. I am pretty sure he just pocketed the money I paid him for these supplies. He also destroyed a brand new Bosch washer and dryer set after he missed getting electric ready for professional installation by a Bosch-certified installer. Ramirez then opted to unpack and install the washer and dryer himself, thereby voiding the warranty. He hooked them up wrong, without leveling them or installing the stacking kit that came with them, and he never removed the packing bolts per the instructions printed on the back of the washer and in the manual, so the whole stack rocked violently and fell over the first time they were operated. They are now destroyed. He also got me to pay him $2200 for a slab for a countertop that he said was Italian marble, but what arrived was a cheap, ugly countertop that was stamped with a logo on the back that said it was a manmade material. After collecting all this money up front, with the job less than halfway done he became arrogant, childish, emotional, dismissive, rude, uncaring about deadlines, and told me he was over it with my project; he would leave me waiting for days at a time for someone to show up and do some of the work I had paid him for, and eventually he stopped showing up completely. Now my home is less than half finished and I am stuck looking for an honest contractor to finish the work I already paid Marco Ramirez to do. He is a complete nightmare and generally a nuisance. I have hired an attorney to deal with Marco Ramirez. I have reported him to the California State Licensing Board, and I intend to report him to the IRS. Save yourself a ton of grief and regret and find someone else. Note that Ramirez uses several other business names to hide from bad reviews, including BWI (Building with Integrity), PCRJ Construction, and ADP Construction. By this time he may already be using a new business name.