coat of arms slate roofing

I hired Steve Tolmie from Coat of Arms Roofing in April 2021 for a job in Portsmouth NH. He gave a quote of $17K to do the job and asked for half up front. I should have been alarmed when he became very pushy about getting his deposit check. I signed the contract on Friday and told him I would meet him at noon on Monday to give him a check but he kept pushing me to meet him earlier than that. I held my ground, met him at noon, and gave him a check (which he asked to be made out to his personal account, not his professional account.. another red flag). The job was estimated to take 2 weeks and Steve asked me to rent a lift for one month in case bad weather slowed things down. During the first week, Steve never showed up to do any work. I called multiple times to try to figure out when he was coming and his wife told me that he was out quoting other jobs, but that he'd get to it soon. He never did. He showed up for an hour here and there he never stayed for more than an hour and most days he never showed up at all. I continued to try calling after several more days past, but then my calls started going to a prank recording of Donald Trump. Finally, a month went by and the lift needed to be returned. Steve performed a total of 6 hours of work on an 80-hour job and repaired less than 10% of my roof. I involved my contractor and a city official in Portsmouth to speak with Steve and he repeatedly promised that he was coming back to finish but he didn't. Instead, he took off with $8500 of my money and finally disappeared. I've never heard from him again. My lawyers are now involved and we are filing a claim to recoup my losses. However Steve lives in a trailer in Raymond and we're not sure if he may have used all of the money on drugs, as his inconsistent behaviour and continuous lying was consistent with an addict, although I cannot confirm he's doing drugs. While this has been a horrible situation for me, and I feel I've been taken advantage of, I would feel much better knowing that I may help to stop this from happening to anyone else. So please do not hire this man. He lies. He doesn't do the job, and he will take your money. Hopefully someday I will recoup my losses, but I'd love for others to avoid this type of disaster all together. - Jessica, Portsmouth NH