Madison Masonry and Custom Bldg

The person who does the work for me is named Ray. He is a contractor. He has many court cases against him at the moment. He scams people by taking their money and running away. He is terrible. He keeps ripping people off. He did some work then came back the next day to do some more of the work and after that never showed up. The job which he started for me has been ongoing for the last year. He took $ 6000 and ran away. He has not finished the bathroom tiles work which he has started because he has to buy the rest of the tiles. He charges me a good and decent price. He never gets the work done but his quality of work is fair. He does not return my calls. When I take him to court he responds and begs me. I tried helping him out by giving him an extra $ 200 and he did the work for two days and then disappeared again. They also take tools and don’t return them. I would not use him again in the future.

Learned of this company from my daughter who I thought at the time, had received a referral from her boss, i.e. I interpreted the information to be the result of my daughter's boss using the company. Learned, after I signed the initial contract, that someone had just handed my daughter the company's business card. No one had actually hired them. By the time I learned of this, Madison Masonry had been on the job for a couple of days and seemed to be making satisfactory progress. I agreed at that time to an addendum to the contract to cover chimney work not addressed in the original contract. About a week later, with work still ongoing (though intermittantly by now), signed a second addendum adding the interior finish and deck work to the original contract. Each time I advanced one-half the total price for the work to be performed. Thought half was a bit high but was aware that small contractors often get a percentage of the total cost up front for materials. After I signed the second addendum and provided a check for one-half that increment of work, that was essentially the last time I saw Ray Sholtzhauer and his workers. What ensued was about a six to eight week effort to contact Mr. Sholtzhauer to get him back on the job. Spoke to him on the phone several times during which he related a series of personal problems that kept him from completing the work and on at least three occasions requested more money so he could purchase materials to continue. I told him he had received all the money he was going to get until the work was completed. Finally told him the relationship was at an end, I was getting another contractor and that we needed to get together to see if we could agree on what he owed me for work not completed but paid for, and to get his tools. We set at least two appointments for this purpose, neither of which he showed up for. His tools, which were on a locked porch, turned up missing during one of my visits to this property which is unoccupied. I estimate that Madison Masonry completed no more that $4,000 worth of the work for which I advanced $8,000. That may be a generous estimate. Have contemplated a civil court case but am stymied in this regard for lack of a good address to serve the papers (a requirement according to my attorney). During our initial tour of the property to determine an estimate of the cost of work to be performed, Mr. Sholtzhauer told me, "Frank, you'll never get a better price than what I'm going to give you. Proves the old adages of "you get what you pay for" and "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't".