Post by valleyrose on Nov 21, 2007 9:40:56 GMT
I want to make a complaint on this forum against Kenneth McCarter and his company Interrenovators, in the hope that other unsuspecting folk will not be ripped off as we were by this person.
In April of this year, we made contact with Kenneth McCarter with a view to renovating a house we had bought in the village of Daskot, near Pavlikeni. We sent him specific plans of the renovations we wanted and received a quote from him which we were happy with. We asked him to start the work on the house, on the understanding that it would be ready by the time we arrived in Bulgaria at the beginning of July.
2 or 3 days later I received a phone call from Kenneth, telling me to reconsider living in the house in Daskot, since he knew that it was a dangerous and insecure place, due to gypsies, etc. He advised us to 'tart up' the house and then to sell it on. He mentioned that he had a friend who was an estate agent, who could sell us a better-placed house. We decided to continue with our original plan and asked him again to work on the Daskot house.
All went well for a while and we then received an invoice for 1800 euros for works completed. As the money needed to be transferred from Holland, we explained to him that this would take a few days. he responded by sending a further invoice for 4000 euros and threatening legal action if we did not send the money immediately. We had sent off 6000 euros via a bank transfer from Holland, but under threat of legal action, authorised a person in Holland to send off a further 6000 euros.
We heard intermittently from Kenneth McCarter, via email and phone calls. Mainly, the problems seemed to be about the water and electricity not being turned on in the property, despite our having authorised the estate agents to do this.
We set off from the Uk at the end of June, not having heard anything from this builder for some 4 weeks. Upon arrival we found that exterior decorating had been done, plus interior decoration. Drainage channel to the septic tank had also been installed, and a bathroom extension build (3 days later the roof of the bathroom extension was pouring water inside in a thunderstorm!), some interior wood floors had been laid (badly!), an opening had been made in the side of the house for a French window (leaving the house insecure and open to any incomers/burglars), and there were no locks on any outside doors.
When I contacted Kenneth to ask for an explanation for the state of the house, I received a barrage of abuse and anger. When he finally calmed down, he explained to me that the situation in the village had been so bad that he had had to leave the work ... gypsies had stolen both his tools and materials, also diesel from his van.
he came to see us a week later, promising either to return the money he owed for work not done, or to arrange for a local builder to complete our house. he told us that he had 'crawled on his hands and knees' to our house in order to finish it.
To date, we have received NONE of the money back which was promised, despite contacting him frequently by phone/email and SMS. In our estimation, the price for the works done by Interrnovators is no more thatn 2000 euros. We had to pull down the bathroom extension roof and rebuild with Bulgarian builders, and also pull up the wood floor laid in a passageway it was so badly laid.
We wish to warn people about this so-called builder. We hired him to do our rennovations as we thought a British builder would be more trustworthy and fair than a Bulgarian builder. In fact, it turned out exactly the opposite. Our Bulgarian builder was expert, economical and hard-working, whilst Interrenovators proved themselves to be deceitful, robbing, inexpert, inept and downright rip-off artists. BE WARNED!!!! HAVE NO DEALINGS WITH THIS COWBOY!!!
In April of this year, we made contact with Kenneth McCarter with a view to renovating a house we had bought in the village of Daskot, near Pavlikeni. We sent him specific plans of the renovations we wanted and received a quote from him which we were happy with. We asked him to start the work on the house, on the understanding that it would be ready by the time we arrived in Bulgaria at the beginning of July.
2 or 3 days later I received a phone call from Kenneth, telling me to reconsider living in the house in Daskot, since he knew that it was a dangerous and insecure place, due to gypsies, etc. He advised us to 'tart up' the house and then to sell it on. He mentioned that he had a friend who was an estate agent, who could sell us a better-placed house. We decided to continue with our original plan and asked him again to work on the Daskot house.
All went well for a while and we then received an invoice for 1800 euros for works completed. As the money needed to be transferred from Holland, we explained to him that this would take a few days. he responded by sending a further invoice for 4000 euros and threatening legal action if we did not send the money immediately. We had sent off 6000 euros via a bank transfer from Holland, but under threat of legal action, authorised a person in Holland to send off a further 6000 euros.
We heard intermittently from Kenneth McCarter, via email and phone calls. Mainly, the problems seemed to be about the water and electricity not being turned on in the property, despite our having authorised the estate agents to do this.
We set off from the Uk at the end of June, not having heard anything from this builder for some 4 weeks. Upon arrival we found that exterior decorating had been done, plus interior decoration. Drainage channel to the septic tank had also been installed, and a bathroom extension build (3 days later the roof of the bathroom extension was pouring water inside in a thunderstorm!), some interior wood floors had been laid (badly!), an opening had been made in the side of the house for a French window (leaving the house insecure and open to any incomers/burglars), and there were no locks on any outside doors.
When I contacted Kenneth to ask for an explanation for the state of the house, I received a barrage of abuse and anger. When he finally calmed down, he explained to me that the situation in the village had been so bad that he had had to leave the work ... gypsies had stolen both his tools and materials, also diesel from his van.
he came to see us a week later, promising either to return the money he owed for work not done, or to arrange for a local builder to complete our house. he told us that he had 'crawled on his hands and knees' to our house in order to finish it.
To date, we have received NONE of the money back which was promised, despite contacting him frequently by phone/email and SMS. In our estimation, the price for the works done by Interrnovators is no more thatn 2000 euros. We had to pull down the bathroom extension roof and rebuild with Bulgarian builders, and also pull up the wood floor laid in a passageway it was so badly laid.
We wish to warn people about this so-called builder. We hired him to do our rennovations as we thought a British builder would be more trustworthy and fair than a Bulgarian builder. In fact, it turned out exactly the opposite. Our Bulgarian builder was expert, economical and hard-working, whilst Interrenovators proved themselves to be deceitful, robbing, inexpert, inept and downright rip-off artists. BE WARNED!!!! HAVE NO DEALINGS WITH THIS COWBOY!!!
