Porch.com Porch Do Not Trust Porch Seattle Washington

I went online to find house painters - search engine brought up porch.com - I registered to receive referrals of pre-screened painters - interviewed a total of 6 outfits (not all from Porch) - ended up selecting a Porch subcontractor who was confident that he could address the problem of serious paint bubbling found on 3 sides of my house - per Porch's policy I paid $4700 (half down) before the work started.  When the sub-contractor started work, after a positive start for a few weeks, it became clear that he was not organized (1. he rebuilt my back stairs but rather than finish them he propped the base on a brick and left it for later for no clear reason; 2. after completing the painting of my front porch, he left the area with paint scrapings until I reminded him that he needed to clean up his work site), that he ignored feedback (1. when he painted my shed, he failed to patch several drill holes; over about 5 weeks I had to remind him to correct this 4 times; he filled the holes and painted them only after I told him that I was developing serious trust issues re depending on him; 2. when he applied a gritty substance on one half of my front porch, I told him that he needed to make sure that the porch surface was uniform, which he completely failed to do) and that he had misrepresented his business (when I interviewed him and asked about his crew, he named 3 people; only one showed up, a 70 y/o man who injured his back after about 3 hours work and had to go to the hospital for evaluation; otherwise he worked alone, showed up between 10AM and Noon, worked hard when he was there but did not work full days).  

The biggest and most upsetting thing he did, however, was to leave lapboards scored and hacked when he was prepping the south side of my house; when I asked him to account for this, he became anxious and could not give a reasonable rationale for this (when I had to fire the above painter, the crew supervisor that I hired to complete the job said he had never seen such unprofessional work.  When I emailed Porch re the issues with the painter, they responded with a request for more info (contract, payment, etc.).  After several days I thought maybe the painter and I could get back on track - ended up meeting and doing a walk around, until he began to smirk - when I asked him what the smirk was about, he somewhat guiltily admitted that he'd been recording our conversation on his cell phone earpiece, adding that he'd been directed to do so by Porch staff.  I confronted him re the illegal nature of this and demanded that he leave my property which he did.  That same day I reported the illegal taping of my conversation to the Washington State Attorney General's website; I also reported this incident to the Porch CEO, Matt Ehrlichman.  Subsequently, I asked for a return of $1500 (out of $4700 paid up front) even though the total amount of work completed totalled approx. 30-35%.  Porch refused any refund.  And so I conclude with this advice to others:  DO NOT TRUST PORCH!