Contractor accused of cheating customers out of thousands

  A man working as a contractor for more than 10 years has been hired in King County, Spokane, all over the state, but his most recent jobs have been in Snohomish County, where the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries says Curtis Lee has continued his pattern of collecting complaints.

            One of those customers who filed with L&I contacted KIRO 7’s Amy Clancy, who started digging, and found much more than just L&I tickets in Lee’s background.

            The KIRO investigation started with JJ Kingsley of Everett, who recently showed Clancy what he calls Lee’s shoddy, incomplete work:  “The gate is still not fixed.  The carpet is not installed.”

            Both he and Jim Stork of Marysville hired Lee of “A Quality Construction Service” late last year to repair water damage and install a fence and gate at Kingsley's home, and repair a retaining wall at Stork's home.

            Stork tells Clancy he paid Lee approximately $8,200 in advance.  “Then he needed some more money, and then he needed some more money,” Stork says.  “He was going to be out of here by the end of July.  And first week of November, he still wasn’t completed.  But I was at that point.”

            Kingsley’s experience was similar.  He too paid Lee much of the $7,000 total fee up front, much of it in cash.

            Clancy:  “So you paid a total of how much?”

            Kingsley: “$6,100.”

            Clancy:  “And how much work do you think he did total?”

            Kingsley:  “A thousand dollars-worth.”

Stork and Kingsley claim the quality of the work Lee did finish was simply not acceptable. 

 “This is the gate that Mr. Lee promised to put in, but it’s not complete,” Kingsley says while showing Clancy Lee’s work.  “And it fell down the same day that he made it.”

Both Kingsley and Stork say, with Lee's appearances sporadic and work below standard, they asked for much of their money back.  But since both paid Lee either in cash or check, neither has so far recovered any expenses.

 According to the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, any time a contractor asks for cash or for a check to be made out to him or her personally, it's a huge red flag.  Another red flag: Lee's more than a dozen L&I infractions since 1999, according to Shari Purves-Reiter. 

 “It seems that he’ll start a project and take some advances and then not come back and complete the job,” Purves-Reiter tells Clancy.

Sharon Caldwell of Des Moines had a similar experience with Curtis Lee in 2008.  She says she paid Lee in cash to redo her bathrooms, and claims he left her home with no working toilets, shower or bathtub.

Caldwell:  “He got better than $2,000.”

Clancy:  “Once he got the $2,000 what happened?”

Caldwell:  “There was no more Lee.  No more.”

When Caldwell says Lee demanded $1,500 more to finish the job, she refused and sued.  Caldwell won, and according to court documents obtained by KIRO 7, Lee agreed to pay Caldwell $2,000.  To this day, Lee still has not paid.  And to this day, a warrant for his arrest still stands in King County. 

 “Curtis Lee needs to be arrested and put in jail,” Caldwell tells Clancy.  “He is committing fraud and nobody seems to stop him.  I mean, it’s sad.”

KIRO 7 Consumer Investigators invited Lee to explain his version of events on camera.  He declined, but did say he's hoping to resolve the issues and is “making arrangements.” 

Then Lee gave Clancy excuses about why he hadn't refunded any money yet.  He also claims he is no longer working as a contractor, which is good according to L&I, because Lee is not licensed, bonded nor insured, and won’t be in the state of Washington until he pays over $30,000 in outstanding fines.

            Shari Purves-Reiter of L&I says all of this money-loss could have been prevented “if somebody would have put Curtis Lee’s name into our website they would have seen that he’d been written 14 tickets.”

            Clancy:  “And that’s not a good sign.”

            Purves-Reiter:  “No, that’s not a good sign.”

            Despite the multiple complaints Lee had filed against him when Kingsley, Stork and Caldwell all hired him, Lee still advertised, still accepted jobs, even still worked with a license under a former co-worker’s name.

            Purves-Reiter of L&I tells Clancy, the state agency is doing all it can to police contractors and protect the public by issuing tickets and fines, and posting infractions on L&I’s website.  However, according to Purves-Reiter, the bulk of the responsibility falls to consumers who should do their homework before hiring anyone.

For L&I’s Step-by-Step guide to hiring a contractor visit:  www.lni.wa.gov/TradesLicensing/Contractors/HireCon/ 

                Clancy has some additional ideas on how to protect yourself in this video filled with tips and warnings below: