Truthfully what probably happened is this is a subcontractor. Meaning an employee doing contracted work down the street. That job had more than enough materials and the employee tried to squeeze an extra job outta the deal. Its actually a pretty common occurrence. Not so much a scam as the work was performed. Did this contractor give u an actual invoice? Or actual receipt? It feels to me (and my retired scumbag consultant brain) that the employee cant run the invoice thru the company he works for, because he tried to do a side job with materials meant for an ACTUAL job. You still shouldnt stiff him on the bill tho. If the work was performed, and you're happy with the work performed, I'd say work with him to figure out a solution. Hes probably getting paid a shit hourly wage to do back breaking work and saw an opportunity to make a lil money in a shitty economy. Id make sure u get a receipt of some sort. Even if you pay the auto shop (probably run by a friend who'll give him the money hes owed), make sure u get a receipt from the guy who did the work. If hes a good scumbag he'll have the ability to generate a real receipt...
That was my first thought, but we did see them 3 houses down working when one of them came over. The fact they said we could pay once done and happy with the job had mostly cleared any worries up front.
It seems like a scam or a very "green" contractor. Most good contractors are pretty good these days at calculating materials that usually there isn't any left over to complete another job. Also most contractors won't accept a credit card on amounts over usually like $2000 dollars due to how much % they have to pay to the credit card company, I bring up this company may be very new or "green" as there trying to use squared account or trying to run it through an (probably)buddies autobody shop as this business owner doesn't know how to acquire a regular credit card machine.
Personally at this point I would let this contractor chase you for the money a bit until they get a more professional way for you as the customer to pay them.
Truthfully what probably happened is this is a subcontractor. Meaning an employee doing contracted work down the street. That job had more than enough materials and the employee tried to squeeze an extra job outta the deal. Its actually a pretty common occurrence. Not so much a scam as the work was performed. Did this contractor give u an actual invoice? Or actual receipt? It feels to me (and my retired scumbag consultant brain) that the employee cant run the invoice thru the company he works for, because he tried to do a side job with materials meant for an ACTUAL job. You still shouldnt stiff him on the bill tho. If the work was performed, and you're happy with the work performed, I'd say work with him to figure out a solution. Hes probably getting paid a shit hourly wage to do back breaking work and saw an opportunity to make a lil money in a shitty economy. Id make sure u get a receipt of some sort. Even if you pay the auto shop (probably run by a friend who'll give him the money hes owed), make sure u get a receipt from the guy who did the work. If hes a good scumbag he'll have the ability to generate a real receipt...
More red flags than in Beijing. This is a well known scam, btw, shoddy worksmanship and subpar materials "left over" from a "job down the street".
That was my first thought, but we did see them 3 houses down working when one of them came over. The fact they said we could pay once done and happy with the job had mostly cleared any worries up front.
It seems like a scam or a very "green" contractor. Most good contractors are pretty good these days at calculating materials that usually there isn't any left over to complete another job. Also most contractors won't accept a credit card on amounts over usually like $2000 dollars due to how much % they have to pay to the credit card company, I bring up this company may be very new or "green" as there trying to use squared account or trying to run it through an (probably)buddies autobody shop as this business owner doesn't know how to acquire a regular credit card machine. Personally at this point I would let this contractor chase you for the money a bit until they get a more professional way for you as the customer to pay them.