NASHVILLE,
Tenn. - A local man says he paid thousands of dollars to have his roof
fixed by a contractor, but he says he was left with an unfinished job and
dozens of excuses.
At 75-years-old and with limited mobility, Otis Burns can't do many
things on his own.
Burns says when a contractor came to his Bordeaux home and said it
looked like he needed roof repair, he says he believed the contractor.
"When he came down he said, 'It's quite a bit of hail damage
up there and wind also,'" Burns recalled.
Burns called his insurance company, and they sent a representative
who agreed there was damage.
He says the contractor told him to contact him as soon as he
received the money so he could get right on the job.
"The roof is good," said Burns. "I had no complaint about the
roof. The problem is the patio top."
After paying more than $8,000 up front, Burns says the contractor
left him with only half of the patio covered, and that was only done after
Burns's daughter got involved.
She says this half-done job came after several calls
followed by empty promises.
"Then the next time I called, I think he told my father
he had to go to a wedding, so he couldn't (come) that day," said daughter
Deborah Bridgeforth. "I called him back again; I think somebody had died.
I called another time; I think it was too hot for his guys to work, and I
called him again; he told me he was on vacation."
Bridgeforth says at this point, she doesn't want the contractor to
finish the job. She says she would rather have a refund to pay someone else to
get the job done.
"From my point of view, it's just a thing of people
coming by taking advantage of an elderly person. The bottom line is, he got
paid over $8,000, but he did not complete the job," said Bridgeforth.
It's a lesson Burns hopes others will learn from.
"It's not nice. I will leave it at that," laughed Burns.
NewsChannel 5 checked the company's rating on the Better Business
Bureau website, and while they are not BBB accredited, there were no complaints
against the company within the past three years.
A representative with Dennis & Co. tells NewsChannel 5,
the company is scheduled to complete Mr. Burns's patio cover this week.
