Business ProfileforBricks, Blocks and Rocks

On 6/1/23 I called ************ to ask him about 2 ******************* jobs. He said he could do them & provide estimates, & I'd first need to pay him for a chimney inspection which he said was a precondition for the other jobs. I mailed payment & texted him on 6/1 (can provide texts as needed) reiterating the job details. He did an inspection on 6/16 & texted that he would send a report. In the next 5.5 weeks, he didn't send a report and usually didn't respond to messages, but when he did respond he led us to believe he intended to provide estimates and could complete the projects. For example, on 6/26 I texted him "We're still hoping for a quote re: [the jobs]," and he called me, saying he planned to return to the house again after getting new glasses in a week or two. 5.5 weeks after his inspection, when we still had no report and when he still hadn't responded to our requests for basic information regarding estimates and timeline, I wrote to him on 7/23 asking for a refund of the $250 we had paid for the chimney inspection. He then emailed a report within the hour, didn't reference my refund request, and wrote "I've retired from the chimney game." This was his first reference to retirement; the last time I'd spoken to him (6/26) he said he planned to return to our house. His report, which didn't include a date of inspection or a date of report-writing (we have no evidence that he wrote a report at the time of inspection) falsely states that we have a "good working fireplace." I told him our fireplace doesn't work correctly when I first called him; this was also documented in our home pre-inspection. We have no reason to trust his report and now have to pay for another inspection. We want a refund of the $250 we paid. We believe we'd deserve a refund even if he had not done a deficient inspection and produced an unusable report, as he took our payment under false pretenses and wasted 8 weeks of our time while he led us to believe he was available for our projects.