[tdiggity]

A similar thing happened to me where a contractor bait and switched me. Put down a 50% deposit and he said it was non refundable. I wrote it off thinking I’d never get it back. I got extremely lucky though in that a detective in a nearby city emailed me and said this contractor had ripped off a lot of people and he was investigating. A few weeks later, they refunded my deposit.

It seems like once the police got involved, they were willing to play ball. Somehow, you’ve got to find the contractor and get the police on your side. You’ve got his business addresses and even insurances, maybe the insurance company is your way in?

Good luck.

[factsarelolz]

Sorry I forgot to mention the insurance part and I can no longer edit my post.

When I looked at the insurance and took a picture the policy dates were valid.

When I attempted to call the insurance company the policy was started then canceled due to lack of payment so he probably only made the first payment.

Lesson learned is to call to verify on the spot. Never thought of it. The police just look at my slip of paper from the glovebox.

[flutas]

> The police just look at my slip of paper from the glovebox.

They already know if you have insurance typically. Their in-car computers can typically reference insurance accounts (or at least in my technologically backwards state they can).

[factsarelolz]

I still get asked for it…

[MerelyMortal]

Because it's an easy thing to ticket if you don't have proof of insurance (even if you do have insurance).

[robswc]

While that’s true, it absolutely sucks that you have to do this much background research for a service like this.