Greg Wheeler Concrete took advantage of me, was threatening, and told me to pay in cash only Ada Michigan

I met Greg Wheeler in Grand Rapids when I was visiting a friend. I told him about my concrete front porch that was cracking where the overhead support pillars go into the concrete. He said he would come out to my house in Muskegon to look at it.

He showed up a few days later and mentioned that he was upfront and honest and had very reasonable prices. I told him I wanted to do a permanent fix and not just fill in the cracks temporarily. He suggested to support the overhead, remove the pillars, and cut out a 1' by 1' section on each corner that was cracked. Then fill it in with concrete, add dowels, and build it up 3 or 4 inches on the sides to strengthen the structure. I said I was first going to check with my home owner's insurance company to see if they will cover it. He said he didn’t think they would cover it, but I could try.

The insurance company did not cover it, and I called Greg back to see if he can still do the work we discussed for the price we also discussed. He said yes and gave me a date that he would come out and do the work. He called me 2 days after the date he was supposed to do the work and asked if it was a good day to come out (it did rain the previous 2 days, but he also said he was pouring concrete in the rain during that time). I said yes, then he specifically instructed me to pay him in cash and not a check, because he did not want to pay any taxes. He told me the work he was going to do had a 5 year warranty.

When he showed up, he described to me what he was going to do with the front porch, and it entailed just filling in the cracks with a couple $2 bags of Quikrete he had just bought at Lowe's (he showed me the Lowe's receipt from a distance). He also wanted to add a dowel on each corner. He said it would have a 10 year warranty (contradicting his previous warranty statement). I asked him what happened to the original agreement, and he said that he has to do it this way because the pillars have to stay in place. He was very clever at disguising his scam.

I told him that I was not liking this idea, and said I don't want the work done. He asked when did I come to this conclusion and why. I told him just before he came out to my house I started to get mixed feelings about him doing the work, and it wasn't the agreement we had. I also added that my girlfriend and I were thinking of doing something different with the front porch. He said I should have called him before coming out to my house (my response in the moment should have been that he should have called me and let me know that he changed our original agreement).

I did apologize multiple times, but the bottom line is he thought he would get away with charging me the full price for a temporary fix with a couple $2 bags of Quikrete. He got angry, and said he would “cut the f**kers out!” if that's what I wanted. I still declined, and he blew up at me, immediately called his lawyer and said he was taking me to court! He said it was a guaranteed win for him, and that I would owe him a few thousand dollars by the time he was done with me. He also flashed me a very large sum of cash that was in his back pocket, and said “don't mess with me mother f**ker.”

I was not prepared at all to deal with this, and I basically felt threatened and afraid of what he might do next. I saw his female co-worker drink from a bottle of liquor that was in their work truck, and she also had a device/pipe that filled an orange balloon with smoke and inhaled it. That scared me a lot. I offered him $40 for the trip out to my house, but this was not enough for him and he immediately called his lawyer again and said he's taking me to court. He was very intimidating. I pleaded with him not to do that, and he said if I paid him $80, that he would not take me to court. I ended up paying him the $80 to leave, and he was not angry after that.

I feel like I got scammed out of $80, violated, and taken advantage of. He preyed on the fact that I told him I didn't know anything about concrete, that I was non-confrontational, and that I was unemployed. He was not upfront and honest about changing his plan of action before he came to my house to do the work we agreed upon.

It makes me wonder how many other people he has taken advantage of, or will take advantage of in the future, and how much work he was done under the table to avoid paying taxes. Do not hire Greg Wheeler to do any work for you. I learned a valuable lesson.