Business ProfileforBub’s Handy Services

I utilized an aggregator service to request bids on multiple outdoor projects around my home in early 2023 including fence repair, construction of a privacy wall, tear down of an existing playset, and painting of some faux shutters on our home. Brandon came out to and wrote up an estimate. We decided to move forward with him for the work as summarized under invoice #*** for a total of $3100, of which he requested a deposit of $1100 up front for materials. We thought this was reasonable due to the amount of lumber needed for the job, so we sent him the $1100 deposit on 07/03/23 via ***** as he requested. Since then, we received no communication from him on when he'd start the job, so we began reaching out to him at regular intervals starting in mid August. We received excuse after excuse as to why he hadn't been out yet (completing a job out of town, family was sick/hospitalized with covid, waiting for the weather to be right, lumber order was delayed / misordered etc). He also kept switching phone numbers and methods by which he could be contacted (text / call / email) which was very suspicious. At this point he has stopped returning our emails / texts / calls and has no voicemail box set up on his latest number. I have sent him a formal request via ***** for a refund of our deposit and followed up with an email, call, and text to request the same. I can see read receipts on the texts but he has not responded. As it is clear he has no intention of doing this work, and we've seen no evidence our deposit was actually spent on materials, we consider this theft. We've given him an opportunity to avoid further problems (legally) by simply returning our deposit but he has not responded. I hope no one else has to go through this - we were much too trusting. We have evidence of all the times we've tried to contact him. He has since deleted the online invoice to which we had an emailed link.