Unlicensed Contractor Posts Being Deleted

[dyn99]

This is not quite a rant (but I did follow the rant rules previously), but I would love the input of other contributors to the WSB on this issue.

People regularly post “raves” about contractors or tradesmen who did good work for them – they are often one-time posters who have been members for a few days or less.

I regularly pose questions about these posts to the OP, as they typically only provide the person’s first name and cell phone number. I always ask for the full company name so I can look it up.

Often they do respond with the information I ask for, and then I look in the state LNI database to see if they are LEGALLY providing the services that are being raved about.

They regularly are not, and I post if I find a discrepancy.

The WSB has deleted at least 2 of these posts in the last few months, and more in the past. I have e-mailed TR directly about this, and her response is that it is the buyer’s responsibility to look this up.

Sometimes when I don’t find the license, I post information about the company that I think may be mentioned.

In the case of the most recent plumber “rave”, I was wrong – I found a company with a similar name, and no company with the posted name.

After TR deleted my post, I looked harder, and found the business license for the company mentioned, who HAS NO LEGAL CONTRACTOR’S LICENSE.

Unregistered contracting is A CRIME in Washington State:

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=18.27.020

I think it is wrong to delete the post of someone that is calling out criminals who use others to advertise illegal services. I think the WSB should change it’s policy.

If someone posted a rave about their drug dealer or shady doctor who was giving them bogus perscriptions for opiates, would that be wrong to call out?

My approach may be one sided typically, but I have also defended those businesses who don’t require a contractor’s license when others have unfairly tried to attack them.

What do you think? Should I not be calling out the illegal businesses? Should the WSB not delete my posts when I do raise questions that the advertised services are illegal?

I would appreciate your feedback, as I feel that the WSB’s actions are unfair, but would like the opinions of others.

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[JanS]

well, yes, it’s buyer beware. It is up to all of us to background check. But, today, for instance, someone was called out, and they actually do have a license. I would suggest that if you think there is something not right, then use your best judgement and don’t employ them. It’s not up to me or anyone else to come on here, state something that may or may not be true. I know you disagree with this…but I equate it somewhat like being a “busybody”. Just my opinion, of course.

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[redblack]

i think it’s perfectly okay to point out when a contractor isn’t licensed or hasn’t paid insurance or has insufficient bond, with the understanding that sometimes the LNI database is slow to update when contractors do meet their obligations to the state.

then again, it’s WSB’s servers and WSB’s rules, which may be arbitrary at times.

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[velo_nut]

She can do whatever the hell she wants to… it’s her website.

People seem to forget that-

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[dyn99]

Jan – you are incorrect about the recent post. The plumber mentioned had a business license, but no bond, insurance or LNI registration, which means they were acting illegally.

I would be the first to admit that I have provided too much information on these companies previously, but I also believe that the public has the right to know what they are doing. And I am only providing information that is available through public records.

Velo nut…I understand that fully. But when moderating an open forum…the publisher needn’t be overly zealous about deleting posts that provide a public service.

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[velo_nut]

But she can because it’s hers. What part of that DON’T you understand?

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[dyn99]

You clearly did not read my post. I have never questioned her right to censor content. I am asking others for their opinion on whether she “should” censor content.

There are lots of things that I have the “right” to do that I choose not to because it is wrong or not in the interest of others or even myself.

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[hopey]

There’s a fine line between what one person believes is a “public service” and others might judge as being “all up in my/your business”.

Personally, the tone and frequency of the posts under discussion have struck me as the latter. It’s one thing to remind people to look up the information, perhaps even providing links for doing so. It’s another thing entirely to take up a vigilante stance and call out businesses using information you cannot and do not verify as being correct. As others point out, the L&I database can be late in updating or it can be flat-out wrong.

Unless you are willing to call each and every contractor to verify that the L&I information is correct, then the “public service” you are providing can be VERY damaging to a small business owner, and you might find yourself facing a libel lawsuit someday.

You are also completely missing Velo_nut’s point. It doesn’t matter if we think WSB “should” or “shouldn’t” censor posts. They do, and they will. As forum participants, we either accept that fact or we don’t. WSB is not a democracy. It is a PRIVATE forum with PRIVATE ownership. There’s no point in debating because it’s not going to change WSB’s policies.

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[WSB]

Here’s the deal.

THE POST WHICH SPARKED THIS AND WAS DELETED WAS FULL OF INCORRECT INFORMATION. The OP here decided to look up somebody who was the subject of a rave – and found a different name attached to someone who apparently had problems in their history and wondered aloud if that was the person. IT WAS NOT, AND THAT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.

We do NOT let those stand. I stated the rules. I understand if you don’t want to follow them, but they will be enforced here.

This post itself is breaking our rules because you did not bring the rant about a business – which this is – to our attention first. I will let it go for now, perhaps against my better judgment.

We don’t let incorrect information knowingly go out in site comments, either (much less in site news stories!) and will not do so here. As I said before closing the other thread, you are welcome to do all the research you want and reach all the conclusions you want – off the site.

And if anyone has a concern about a post, the FIRST thing to do is hit “report this post.” That sends us a message. We will decide what to do about it, and we don’t comment on the actions we take or don’t take, but that is the policy and that’s why we have that feature.

Tracy

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[velo_nut]

http://youtu.be/MZjAantupsA

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[miws]

WSB added this Forums feature a few years back, per reader requests, some time after the creation of the main news site.

Another thing we all need to remember, is that WSB is mostly run by just two people, who keep it running 24/7/365, with just a few occasional contributors.

With everything involved; breaking news that can tie up their limited, human, resources for sometimes several hours, such as that fire in Highland Park the other day. Significant weather events, that can result in the need to constantly monitor traffic, again, for hours. Attending court hearings/trials, community meetings, etc, that yet again tie them up for hours, not only at the event, but also back at WSB World Headquarters, editing and publishing the info from the hearing or meeting. Editing and publishing contributor’s stories.

Plus, they need to squeeze in a little real life, and some sleep somewhere.

So, they simply don’t have the time to devote to strictly monitoring the Forums, or sit there for ten or fifteen minutes at a time, poring over a particular thread, or post, trying to weigh back and forth if it’s in full compliance of their rules. Of course, if it’s glaringly obvious at one quick read that a thread/post is in violation, that’s fairly quick and simple. But still, when time is at a premium, it’s not such a simple task.

Mike

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[Huindekmi]

Personally, I’ve appreciated dyn’s input and links to government resources. They’ve been VERY handy. I agree that getting the information correct is important, but making people aware of the publicly available resources is also important.

Not that the publicly available resources can tell you the whole story. We recently contracted with a well-known, well-respected West Seattle based contractor for a remodel. All of the standard checks turned up nothing (good standing with L&I, no civil court cases, outstanding references, etc.)

Mid way through the project, things started to go awry. Progress slowed down and workers were only showing up for a couple of days per week. Billing started requesting odd and unsubstantiated values. The contractor himself became very difficult to contact. Etc.

At that point, I started checking those links again and found a civil suit had been filed against our contractor by a former electrical sub. We also had a ductwork sub show up at our home (looking for the contractor) saying that he hadn’t been paid, the contractor was giving him the run around and he may be forced to put a lien on our home. We finally contacted the contractor and confronted him about this. He told us that it was just a misunderstanding with the young ductwork guy and that he had been paid (checked, he had) and the court case was a dispute over payment for substandard work. He swore he wasn’t having financial difficulty and that he’d get more guys working on our site. Given his sterling reputation, we gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Then the quality and frequency of the work got really bad. When guys did show up, it was apprentice level staff trying to do work they weren’t qualified to perform. And the contractor really became hard to contact. We spent two weeks trying to contact him. We checked with the electrical and plumbing subs on our job – they hadn’t been paid despite us paying our invoices diligently.

Time to check dyn’s links again. We find that he lost the court case with the electrical sub, and a flooring sub had now filed suit against him. The L&I showed that his bond paid out on the first court case and then cancelled his bond (he hadn’t been paying the bond company), and the state suspended his license. We tried again to contact the contractor – this time threatening breach of contract and termination of contract. No response.

We turned his workers away when they showed up the next day. We couldn’t have guys working on site without a license or bond. One guy had already been on site working for two days unlicensed and unbonded before we caught it. We told the workers to have their boss contact us. Still nothing. Wait a week. Still nothing.

And we kept checking those links (and a couple others) every couple of days. Are the courts able to contact this guy? Is there any change? Finally, we find something definitive. Our contractor filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, listing a pittance for assets (hey! where did his company trucks, trailers and larger tools go?) against more than $280K of liabilities. He owes some $59K in taxes and big amounts to suppliers and subcontractors all over town, including some $44K to our local lumber yard.

The moral of our story… Those reference links are nice, but not the end all, be all of contractor information. They were useful in discovering the truth when things went wrong, but provided no protection before the fact. They certainly should be checked before hiring anyone, and then used to ask questions to your prospective contractors, but don’t use them alone to qualify/disqualify a candidate. The L&I site updates quickly when a license is suspended or expired, but slowly when it is re-instated.

Take it from us, owners of a half-finished, over-billed project: There is no perfect source of on-line information to protect you from a shyster.

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[dyn99]

First, to respond to TR’s post:

TR, I just forwarded you the two e-mails that I had previously sent regarding the removal of these posts. You’ll see that I did comply with the rant rules by bringing this to your attention (twice) in the last couple of years.

Second, nothing I said in my post about the plumber was wrong. I said that I ran an LNI search for the business mentioned and the only “Affordable Plumbing” that I found in the Seattle area was based in Redmond and had a suspended license for lawsuits and an unsatisfied judgment. That is all correct. I actually found 3 others, but they were not located in the Seattle area, so I assumed this business was either the one I found (in Redmond, also owned by a “Tom”), or was unlicensed.

What I did not do is run a WA business license search, which revealed the business was licensed with the state DOR, but WAS NOT licensed with LNI, which is the illegal contracting I was referring to. That also likely means that the business didn’t have an insurance policy or bond to protect their customers.

So the post was ABSOLUTELY NOT filled with inaccuracies as TR mentioned, but it was filled with an assumption that proved to be partially wrong and partially right.

Hopey, to your comment about a public service vs. damaging – I previously asked the OP in these situations about license information for the business that was being raved about, if I could not locate LNI registration information about the business.

TR decided that was not acceptable either, and deleted the entire thread that time (which I confronted her about via e-mail). So this time, I looked up the business and found no LNI registration, and made the correct assumption that the business was not registered, and therefore operating illegally.

In terms of the libel comment, that is just never going to happen. TR could get sued for libel (as you have to publish the work to be sued for libel), but I could only get sued for defamation. In order to have committed the civil offense of defamation, I would have had to say something patently false (as opposed to qualifying my statement which I always do as an opinion or by saying that it “seems like” or “may be” a certain way).

Plus, the plaintiff would have to prove actual monetary damages, and like most homeowners, I have personal liability insurance against defamation which includes coverage of legal representation, and with the policy limits I have, that means that I have absolutely zero exposure to a potential defamation suit.

Huindekmi, thank you for your post. I am glad that I could provide some assistance on this. I personally had a situation that was very similar, but the contractor actually stole my draw payments and used them for his own purposes and to pay off other jobs.

https://westseattleblog.com/forum/topic/rant-contractor-scam-dwellcraft-mark-darbous

It took over a year in court and nearly $80k in attorneys fees to get a judgment for fraud, conversion (the civil form of theft) and breach of contract. I currently have a $185,000 fraud judgment against this contactor ($160k + interest for those that will look this up), of which I’ve received less than $300. I question whether I’ll ever see any significant portion of that money.

My goal is simply to help others stay out of the situation that I found myself in. I think that is a pretty noble motive.

So for those of you who say that I shouldn’t be as confrontational in my responses, I would encourage you to tell me how I could phrase my posts that would still tell others that the business is illegal without offending anyone (other than the illegal business owner who I don’t really care that I’m offending).

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[dyn99]

And MIWS,

I am not trying to hack on TR or the WSB operation. I think the WSB is a wonderful community service and great local business. And I think TR works her ass off – she works way harder than I do or care to.

But as the patron of any local business, I think there are things that can be improved, and the aggressive removal of my posts (which at least some people find helpful) is one of them.

And I’m speaking up, because that’s what someone who wants to create change does.

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[JimmyG]

I’ve always taken dyn’s warnings on unlicensed contractors as a bit of net-nanny, especially when it seems to be your sole focus.

I say let anyone looking to hire anyone do their own checks. It’s not the function of the WSB forums to check out people your neighbors may have hired.

I fully support WSB deleting any and all threads they wish.

You asked our opinion dyn99 and mine is that you seem overly concerned with this whole topic. If it’s so near and dear to you then you are free to start your own website which rates contractors and points them to the resources on how to check.

I vote you give the whole topic here on WSB a rest.

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[Huindekmi]

Dyn, I read that post and your situation (as well as the others in the thread) sounds very familiar. In the aftermath, it’s pretty easy to see that the money we paid was being used to pay off back debts rather than to pay the subcontractors on our job, thereby leaving us open to the subs putting liens against our home.

Given that the bankruptcy filing shows some $45K of unpaid sales taxes, it’s pretty clear that the money we and others paid him for taxes was also being used to clear back debts.

It was very much like a ponzi scheme. As long as he could keep bringing in new customers, he could satisfy just enough past debts to keep going. Each new customer was paying for the work a job or two or more before. We just happened to get on board just before his house of cards collapsed.

We have overpaid and will likely have to pay a couple of the subs directly to get their part of the work finished, despite having already paid the contractor for the rough-in work. I just love paying double. :(

The only satisfaction we have is knowing that this guy has gone bankrupt and won’t be able to sucker anyone else into his scheme. Or at least I hope so. In the days after learning that he had lost his license and turning away his staff, we saw his workers in one of the company work trucks heading off towards another of his active projects in Bellevue. I’d like to think that he stopped work on all his projects and notified the owners immediately after his license was suspended (although we had workers on site after that point) or at least after he filed for bankruptcy. But for all I know, he could still be invoicing customers who haven’t caught on yet.

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[dyn99]

Huidekmi,

The most important thing about your story is that you knew where to look and found out what was actually going on (albeit with a little delay), and stopped writing checks.

One item to note – you should definitely consult with a construction attorney about your situation. I doubt from your post that you have any realistic chance of recovery, but you need to make sure you follow your contract’s termination clause and with a pending creditor battle, if someone else ended up worse off than you did, you may well find someone coming after you to put even more money into the ponzi scheme…it all depends on the circumstances. You’ll at least want to have a consultation to make sure that you navigate this maze appropriately so it doesn’t cost you even more.

And one thing that will hopefully make you feel better…tax debt is non-dischargeable in a bankruptcy, so he’ll end up paying at least the government back some day.

JimmyG – I appreciate your input, but also feel that there is a place for someone to act in this role, which is why I’m doing it. If the WSB staff vetted all these posts, then I wouldn’t need to, but I don’t see that being realistic given the resources they have. Nor do I think that is a reasonable expectation for them to do.

One last point – I know full well that the forum contents are the WSB’s private property that they can do whatever they want with, and totally respect that. I simply think TR should change her stance, as it’s really not clearly explained in the rules, and doesn’t make good sense. I understand that she wants to keep her sponsors/advertisers happy, but honestly, counter-posting to remove their illegal competition should do that. The guys who pay the big bucks to sponsor this site don’t mess with these guys that won’t follow state licensing requirements.

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[WSB]

Dyn, that’s an insult, and I really don’t need to allow our website to be used as a vehicle any longer to insult us, so I am closing this discussion and am making one last request for you to stop breaking the rules.

If we wanted to keep our (not “my”) sponsors/advertisers “happy,” we wouldn’t have Rants/Raves in the first place, for one thing. As I have written before, that section tends to provide no end of grief, as is the case with this discussion. We set it up by reader request, as with so many other things that are offered on WSB. One recent week, most of the rants were about sponsors. Most of the raves are about sponsors’ competitors. But since we have a STRONG CODE OF ETHICS – voluntary ethics which are stronger than any “old media” organization you can point to – we always disclose when we so much as mention a sponsor’s name, and we do not EVER patrol content with a view to how it will or will not affect sponsors – it stays. We have been asked, by both sponsors and nonsponsors, to delete threads that have not broken the rules – so they stay. We have been threatened with lawsuits because of what people have posted. We stand for open discussion, but under the rules we have set. And one more time, those rules do not include free rein for people to try to be the authorities. If you think someone is in business and not licensed, report them. This is not the place to do that. I’m sorry that you believe it is. It is not.

P.S. “Big bucks to sponsor this site” is also, frankly, an insulting phrase. We charge dirt-cheap rates that we have not raised since we launched advertising almost five years ago, though what the advertisers get for those prices – eyes on their ads – has multiplied eightfold. It’s probably a stupid business practice but the economy is still struggling and we have made the choice to continue to offer affordable advertising (not to mention the services we offer to businesses for free, such as free job listings, free postings for sales, free event-calendar listings, etc.) We also reject national ads, which could likely bring in money if we were just in this for money. We keep the space for small local independent businesses/organizations.

Tracy

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