My wife and I bought a house about 4 years ago and it was a bit of a fixer upper. I did most of the work (laid laminate floors throughout, painted every room, built fixtures, etc.) when it comes to plumbing and electrical work, I choose to not do it and hire a contractor. My wife about 2 years ago decides we should join Angie's List. She wanted to use them for some services that I just have no desire to do, and it was working fine when we worked directly with the contractors.

Then last winter when we found out we are going to have a baby, she sees this "The Big Deal". We wanted to finish a portion of our basement for guests (living space, bedroom and full bath). So we though we would be diligent and met the contractor the Big Deal was with and talked with him. I felt he was a bit flighty and it would be difficult to deal with him despite feeling he would do good work. I told her it was up to her and she was in charge if she wanted to do it. So she purchased the deal through angies list.

He started the job by putting in studs and a few electrical outlets. Since then, haven't seen him since! That was about 5 months ago right before the baby was due. Since then he has had excuses, van broke down, blah blah blah. I refrained from stepping in.

We discovered that he has two jobs through Angie's List that are currently in "mitigation". One we just found out was a stalemate and nothing was resolved, basically he screwed the customer. So we ask Angie's List what can we do, do they do refunds or credits so we can use another contractor. The customer service lady said no because he "already started the job" (which I'm curious how they know what he did because we didn't say anything and he has nothing to prove it). So basically they paid him the full amount without any verification of the work being done.

My wife asked why won't they give us a credit if their "mitigation" process won't work, which I am sure it won't because he is a dirtbag. They tell us we were supposed to have a direct contract with him and since we don't, we are screwed.

Nobody told us we needed a direct contract, especially not him. We thought the deal purchased through Angie's List was our contract. Apparently not!

Do Not work with Angie's list! They provide no protection to you the consumer despite their claims. They are basically the Yellow Pages that charges you for a monthly fee. And their rating system for contractors, yeah.....they offered the Big Deal after they knew he was screwing over 3 clients already and received bad reviews.

Any ideas how I can get our money back because I'm pretty sure I'm out 10 grand and the one thing we thought was protecting us is saying the same thing!

(sorry, had to vent after finding out how little they care about us)