Doctor Plumber, Unauthorized Ridiculously High repair bill Lawrence , Massachusetts

I received a no heat call from my tenant on 8 JAN 12 at 3:00pm. I drove down to the property and checked the 60 year old Niagara furnace for a pilot (it was lit) and for electricity (when I pushed the switchon the furnace from auto to man the fan started up) also checked the thermostat(was set on 70). At this point I am thinking it was maybe a thermocouple...when I returned back home, searched online for furnace repair. Found and calledDOCTOR PLUMBER online... Chris said he could be there in about 1 hour (around5:00pm). I explained to him what I did and what I thought it was. He said"yeah it could be a gas valve and if he had to have the store opened therewould be an additional $50 fee. I agreed to that. Since I live in anotherstate, I asked my tenant to pay Chris and I would reimburse her. She said okay.
So she gave Chris a check for $2,372.88.

First of all the property owner shouldbe alerted if repairs are going to be that ridiculously high, and nobody intheir right mind would put $2,372.88 into a 60 year old rust bucket furnace.Therefore, asked my tenant to cancel the check and she did so.  I have a quote to have a brand new furnaceinstalled for$3,050.00. So after doing some homework like parts pricing and thenumber of hours it should take to do the job... I sent Chris a certified lettertelling him that I asked my tenant to cancel the check and explained  what he should have been charging (includingmarkup) and that I wanted to setup a day/time when I could meet him at theproperty to take his parts back. I was so disgusted in the amount he charged mefor this service. I felt this was fraud. The receipt Chris left me that nightnot only wrote down what he was charging us for he also checked off that hereplaced the furnace burner and baseboards and radiators which he never did.

I received three nasty voice mails (which I kept of course) stating that hewasn't interested in working with me, that he was going to eat the job, andbasically #@%# off! He then called me back and told me that he was going after
my tenant for check fraud.

I called him back that day when I had a moment from work andhe was not willing to rationalize anything with me other that telling me I wasoff the hook he is going to take this as a write off but he was taking my tenantto court for check fraud.