Specifically Cook County, what is the process?
I'm not going to lawyer up for $650 but was wondering if small claims court would be my best option and something I could do on my own.
Here's the story... I had our concrete steps re-paired and re-capped in Oct. 2006 with a 1 year warranty. A few months after they did the work we noticed they pitched the stair steps back and they now collect about an inch of water when it rains and the water has to be swept off or takes a week to evaporate. These stairs lead to our basement and are rarely used so it took us a while to notice the problem.
I finally called June 29 to have someone come take a look at the problem and see if we can resolve it, I left a voicemail. No one returned my call and I made a mental note that when I got back to work from vacation on July 10 I would call again. On July 9 we got a call from John, who is remodeling our basement, that there was someone at my house working on our stairs. We were in northern WI and getting ready to come home, and I couldn't for the life of me remember the name of the company to try and call them to stop them.
That evening we had planned on removing our washer, dryer, hot water heater and a 400lb utility tub out of the basement up the stairs so that the flooring guy could do contracted work the next morning.
No one ever called me to find our WHY I had called them in the first place and no one called me to SCHEDULE the work to be done. They just showed up and re-capped the stairs, not knowing that we had people working on the basement all week and couldn't make the stairs unaccessable.
So I left a message on Mon. night July 9. I had just driven home 7 hours, it was pouring rain and now we has to disassemble our utility room at 8pm AND walk on the wet stairs. So my message was not pleasant, however I was not rude, I didn't swear or call them idiots... I was disgusted and it came across in my tone as I told them they wasted their time, we had no choice but to walk on the stairs and I was upset that no one took the time to return my call and schedule the work to be done.
The next morning I didn't wait for a call back, I called on my way to work and talked to the secretary she said she would have the owner come take a look on Sat. 7/14 between 10-11am.
Then about 45 mins later the owner called after he heard my message and accused me of mocking him and laughing at them and then proceded to SCREAM at me. He immediately told me he would tell his secretary to not answer my phone calls or return messages and that I should file with the BBB. I decided I would kill him with kindness and explained my message was not intended that way and I apologized if that's how it sounded and tried to explain my frustration and that his company had no business being at my house the day before without calling me. While I was on the phone he confirmed with his secretary that she did not return my call on June 29, that no one scheduled the work, and that the job was completed at 4pm just before it started pouring rain (the rain helped wash the material that was still wet away). Then I tried talking to him about my original problem, and that was worthless, he said my stairs were like that before they worked on them even though he never saw the job. He claimed he only put 1/16" layer of overlay on our stairs, when they actually replaced chunks of concrete, my steps were crumbling. I actually thought we would have to remove and repour them that's how much damage there was.
He stopped yelling but was still a dickhead and agreed to come over on Sat. like scheduled to take a look. The conversation last 20 minutes and I left a lot out but it was absolutely disgusting, unwarranted and appalling, I have never been talked to like that, the guy just SNAPPED. My message might have been a little pissy, but give me a break, they SCREWED up royally and I believe I had every right to be a little pissy.
Needless to say he didn't show up on Sat. My hubby called at 11:15am after we waited an hour for the owner and a different girl answered the phone and said there was no appointment on the books for us.
Shame on me for not checking the BBB website, I didn't even know you could do that, but I looked and they have 42 complaints... see here:
http://www.chicago.bbb.org/commonreport.html?bid=14010211
I'm not expecting a phone call back from this guy ever and we now are out $650 and our stairs all collect water and the warranty work done is damaged because we had to walk on them prematurely. We have to hire someone else to fix this.
BTW the name of the company is Carmen's Concrete in Chicago, they suck ass don't use them.
sorry this is so long.
I'm not going to lawyer up for $650 but was wondering if small claims court would be my best option and something I could do on my own.
Here's the story... I had our concrete steps re-paired and re-capped in Oct. 2006 with a 1 year warranty. A few months after they did the work we noticed they pitched the stair steps back and they now collect about an inch of water when it rains and the water has to be swept off or takes a week to evaporate. These stairs lead to our basement and are rarely used so it took us a while to notice the problem.
I finally called June 29 to have someone come take a look at the problem and see if we can resolve it, I left a voicemail. No one returned my call and I made a mental note that when I got back to work from vacation on July 10 I would call again. On July 9 we got a call from John, who is remodeling our basement, that there was someone at my house working on our stairs. We were in northern WI and getting ready to come home, and I couldn't for the life of me remember the name of the company to try and call them to stop them.
That evening we had planned on removing our washer, dryer, hot water heater and a 400lb utility tub out of the basement up the stairs so that the flooring guy could do contracted work the next morning.
No one ever called me to find our WHY I had called them in the first place and no one called me to SCHEDULE the work to be done. They just showed up and re-capped the stairs, not knowing that we had people working on the basement all week and couldn't make the stairs unaccessable.
So I left a message on Mon. night July 9. I had just driven home 7 hours, it was pouring rain and now we has to disassemble our utility room at 8pm AND walk on the wet stairs. So my message was not pleasant, however I was not rude, I didn't swear or call them idiots... I was disgusted and it came across in my tone as I told them they wasted their time, we had no choice but to walk on the stairs and I was upset that no one took the time to return my call and schedule the work to be done.
The next morning I didn't wait for a call back, I called on my way to work and talked to the secretary she said she would have the owner come take a look on Sat. 7/14 between 10-11am.
Then about 45 mins later the owner called after he heard my message and accused me of mocking him and laughing at them and then proceded to SCREAM at me. He immediately told me he would tell his secretary to not answer my phone calls or return messages and that I should file with the BBB. I decided I would kill him with kindness and explained my message was not intended that way and I apologized if that's how it sounded and tried to explain my frustration and that his company had no business being at my house the day before without calling me. While I was on the phone he confirmed with his secretary that she did not return my call on June 29, that no one scheduled the work, and that the job was completed at 4pm just before it started pouring rain (the rain helped wash the material that was still wet away). Then I tried talking to him about my original problem, and that was worthless, he said my stairs were like that before they worked on them even though he never saw the job. He claimed he only put 1/16" layer of overlay on our stairs, when they actually replaced chunks of concrete, my steps were crumbling. I actually thought we would have to remove and repour them that's how much damage there was.
He stopped yelling but was still a dickhead and agreed to come over on Sat. like scheduled to take a look. The conversation last 20 minutes and I left a lot out but it was absolutely disgusting, unwarranted and appalling, I have never been talked to like that, the guy just SNAPPED. My message might have been a little pissy, but give me a break, they SCREWED up royally and I believe I had every right to be a little pissy.
Needless to say he didn't show up on Sat. My hubby called at 11:15am after we waited an hour for the owner and a different girl answered the phone and said there was no appointment on the books for us.
Shame on me for not checking the BBB website, I didn't even know you could do that, but I looked and they have 42 complaints... see here:
http://www.chicago.bbb.org/commonreport.html?bid=14010211
I'm not expecting a phone call back from this guy ever and we now are out $650 and our stairs all collect water and the warranty work done is damaged because we had to walk on them prematurely. We have to hire someone else to fix this.
BTW the name of the company is Carmen's Concrete in Chicago, they suck ass don't use them.
sorry this is so long.
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