Newcastle Construction

Newcastle was brought in by *** (a water mitigation company) with our permission to do demo in order to prepare our 250 sq ft finished basement area for drying. Newcastle sent 2 workers to perform the demo on Jun 10, 2019 and 1 worker to complete the job on June 11. The demo work involved placing plastic on some stairs, installing a plastic wall along a 10 ft beam to separate the wet part of the room, removal of approx 20 linear ft of baseboard which was not salvageable, removal of 15 sq ft of sheet vinyl flooring, removal of some built-in shoe shelves (which were not salvageable) and some trim pieces around the shelves, a cut along drywall of appox 20 linear ft 2 ft up from the floor, transfer of demo'd items to our backyard where *** had already staged the wet carpet. Demo required 5.5 hrs per worker on June 10 and 3 hrs for the single worker on Jun 11, thus 14 total hours. *** told us we would be billed for those hours by Newcastle. On Jun 12, the owner of Newcastle approached us and asked us if we wanted his company to do repair work to refinish the basement. We agreed and Newcastle wrote an estimate for additional demo and refinishing required to bring the basement back to previous condition. The estimate was submitted to our home owners insurance company on July 13, 2019 and approved on Aug 5, 2019. After that date we tried to communicate with Newcastle to iron out details and schedule and we got nowhere and stopped receiving any communications from Newcastle Construction in early September 2019. We asked Newcastle in writing in late Aug and early Sept if they were going to work for us? We got no response. We contacted Newcastle in writing on Sept 9, 2019 announcing that we took their lack of communication to mean that they had chosen to disconnect from our job. On Oct 23, 2019 my son received what appeared to be an email generated by an accounting program stating that we owed Newcastle an amount, but the amount, approx. $8400, was taken from the estimate dated July 13, 2019 not from an invoice of work completed. On Oct 28, 2019 I notified Newcastle in writing that their accounting program seemed to be autogenerating said email and requested that such emails be stopped and asked for an invoice of actual work completed. I also stated that if we did not hear from Newcastle by Nov 28, 2019 we would take that to mean that there were no outstanding bills and that we would guess the rationale for there being no outstanding bills to be that Newcastle felt so bad about it's lack of communication, which of course had required us to find another contractor. On Feb 8, 2020, I received the very same email that my son had received on Oct 23, 2019 (with the same amount taken from an estimate), this time with a note from Newcastle requesting prompt payment. On Feb 13, 2020 I responded, once again pointing out that the amount was from an estimate and once again requested a true invoice for actual work performed. On Mar 3, 2020 I received an email with the same estimate with a note requesting prompt payment. I called the Attorney General's Office and was advised to file a complaint with them and also with the Revdex.com.