Nicolas Diego ripoff landscape contractor Riverside California

I hired this non-licensed contractor to build a retaining wall and cement walkway in my backyard. That was stupid, I know. However, I know that many people use the services of such individuals in southern California. Many non-licensed contractors are honest, hard-working people. Nicolas Diego is not and I am posting this in the hope that nobody else gets ripped off by this con man.

Against my better judgement, I trusted this guy. He had done some decent work on the same house for my father, who had passed away the year before. He gave me a long story about how they were friends and how nice my father was to him (I'm sure he was - he was to everyone) and that he would do good work for me at a good price because of it.

When I hired him, we wrote up an invoice - a list of things to be done, and the cost of each item. The total price was to be $3500 for the wall and walkway. He wanted $1000 up front for "supplies", gas, and lunch for his men. He agreed that I could pay the rest when the work was done and we wrote this into the invoice. He told me that he had a team of five men and that they could finish all of the work in a week.

He showed me pictures of block walls that he had done in the past, all with him standing next to them. I pointed out one that I like and said I wanted mine done with the same type of block. He agreed - yes, very nice.

He started the next morning as he said he would. But, then showed me two types of blocks, neither of which was the one we had agreed to. Then, of the two, he told me he wouldn't use the one I liked. He said that it would make the wall too weak! The only choice was the other one - the cheapest grey cinder block on the market. I had already given him $1000.00 which he had cashed at my bank in the morning before coming over. He promised that the wall would be covered with stucco (at ne extra charge) and painted to my choice of colors. I had seen other walls in the nighborhood like this and they looked good, so I agreed.

Instead of the team he promised, he brought over one man who worked for a few hours that morning, then left. Same thing the next day. The next day, nobody came, and on it went like this. None of the workers spoke English, so I couldn't communicate very well with them, and they didn't seem willing to talk to me anyway. Diego showed up occassionally to tell me that they were going to finish the work, always within the next two days. This went on for more than three weeks!

Each time they finished a portion of the job, like digging the trench for the wall, he pressured me for more of the balance, even though we had agreed and it was written on his invoice, that he would be paid the remainder at the end of the job. He complained constantly about the need to purchase more supplies and rent expensive equipment - that never appeared! The only equipment they used was a cement mixer that they owned and some shovels and pick axes.

About a week into the job, before I realized what a scam artist and crook he was, I agreed to another small job - removal of a wall on my patio. He was to remove the wall, repair and paint any damaged stucco, and replace two four by four supporting beams with larger, stylish posts. He insisted on payment up front because as he said, he was giving me such a good deal and he needed money for "supplies" ($600). I thought it was a good deal. He promised to finish the job by the next day and even do it himself. It was all a lie. He had his assistant tear out the wall, but then refused to fix the stucco or put in the new posts, saying that he never agreed to it, even when I showed him the invoice for it that he had signed. That job took more than a week.

This should have been enough for me and I should have fired him on the spot, but by then, he already had over half the money for the project and I knew that it would cost a lot more to have someone new come in and finish.

For three weeks, they stored their cement mixer and bags of cement in my garage. They also piled up a huge mound of dry cement in my front yard and left it sitting there. All the while, they were doing other jobs in the neighborhood, using my yard and garage as a staging area and coming and going as they pleased. Diego lied to me constantly about what they were doing, when they would be on the job, and how long it was going to take. He also badgered me relentlessly for more work. That was obviously the ploy - to hold up the work promised in order to get an agreement for additional work. In the meantime, doing a little bit here and there and insisting on large payments up front.

When I finally told him that there would be no more work until the wall and walkway were done and no more payments, he got furious and went to work quickly to finish them. By this time, it had been more than three weeks, and I just wanted him out of my life. Late on the last day, he was pouring the cement for the walkway, his men were putting stucco on the wall, and a truck was parked in front, ready to take away the debris. It was a Friday afternoon and I had an important appointment with my veterinarian. Diego insisted that he needed the rest of the payment that day, that they would have everything done. It looked to me like they would and I was so sick and tired of dealing with him that I paid him and left for my appointment. Low and behold, they were gone when I got back. But they left huge piles of unused cement, broken bricks, and other waste in my yard. They never even returned to take the wood form off the cement walkway.

A couple of days, I realized that the wall only had one layer of stucco instead of two (I remembered Diego complaining about how expensive stucco was - BS!), and that started flaking off a couple of days later. I was promised that any damage to the stucco on my house caused by removal of the patio wall would be repaired and it wasn't. The stucco on the wall was never painted. I was strung along about the the whole time about how nice it was going to look, but they disappeared without a word about it. I never got the new posts on the patio. And I have a retaining wall that I have to patch already. Even worse, I realized after he left that he had covered over with cement, part of a drainage system that he had installed earlier for my father. I know he did it on purpose because he had pointed it out to me earlier and explained (falsely) how he was going to deal with it (at no extra charge). Now, I have to spend more money to fix it!

By the way, he snuck back to my house a couple of weeks later, during a time when I was away for three days, and removed the cement (which I assume they needed for another job), but left the bricks and other debris.

This so called friend of my father just took advantage of me and ripped me off. He lied and mislead me throughout the whole job, and stuck me with a damaged house, and a ton of debris to dispose of. Don't hire this man. He is a liar and a crook, and if I could find him, I would sue him for damages and breach of contract. But I can't find him and you won't be able to either.

Rose
Riverside, California
U.S.A.