We have a new Troubleshooters report today, but it’s a very familiar topic.
2 families tell us they hired and paid a contractor to do some work on their homes.
The families claim they had to fire the contractor because the work wasn’t getting done.
Of course, we’ll hear the contractor’s side of the story as well.
Juanita Ramon and Fred and Patti Puckett called us claiming a contractor named Nick Lopez did them wrong.
Ramon says she hired Lopez in August and has paid him nearly $8000.00.
She says she initially hired Lopez to just paint the outside of it.
“He was very slick,” Ramon told the Troubleshooters. “You would kind of ask him a question, and he would gear you to ‘well look at this. I’m telling you this is the way it’s supposed to be. Trust me. I know what I’m talking about. It needs to be like this.”
The Puckett’s say they hired Lopez in September and estimate they have paid him close to $27,000.00.
Their house is already paid for, but they took out a reverse mortgage to pay for the improvements.
“It feels like you’ve been raped,” Patti Puckett said.
Lopez told us by phone he can’t really remember how much he was paid.
“So I can’t tell you exactly what they paid me personally because I, you know, I didn’t put it all on paper.”
The Puckett’s showed us pictures they say show what their house looked like when they decided to fire Lopez.
Ramon says she fired Lopez because the work just wasn’t getting done, and there was very little, if any, communication with him.
“But why would they both make a decision to fire you ?” we asked Lopez.
“Because sir, they both were talking over the internet. Matt Hoffman introduced them to the Pucketts,” he replied.
Matt Hoffman used to work with Nick Lopez.
“We were supposed to be in a 60-40 partnership. Then he started getting less money and less money, and he lied to her and turned things around. And it just got kind of off,” he told the Troubleshooters.
Hoffman quit working for Lopez, and has been hired by Ramon and the Puckett’s to finish the work Lopez started.
Lopez says it feels like Hoffman went behind his back and took the job away from him.
He has a different story to tell about him.
“The Hoffman’s told the Puckett’s that I was not paying them. That they didn’t have anything to eat, yet he’s got an apartment, because when he met me, they were living on the beach.”
Neither Ramon nor the Puckett’s have hired an attorney.
Or called police.
And they don’t expect to get any money back from Lopez.
What they want, according to Ramon is “I really want people to know who he is. I want the city to know who he is. I want the engineers to know who he is. And anyone else, not to hire this man.”
