I will try to be brief, but it's a long story.

Mid-Feb. 2009 - We had a windstorm which ripped some shingles off the roof. We didn't even know until our neighbor called because you can't see that part of the roof unless you are down on the street looking up.

DH started calling roofers. One (roofer #1) said he was too busy to come out and look, but that he's been doing a lot of these and it would be between $150 - $300. DH said thanks, hung up and proceeded to call other companies who would actually come out and look at the job in person.

March 2009 - I got an invoice from roofer #1 for $225.00 for repairs made on 2/25/09. I was like ! I went down to the street and looked up and sure enough the roof was fixed. I was totally ticked at that point and turned this over to DH to handle. I couldn't believe a roofer would come out with no contract, unannounced, climb up on my roof and fix it when no one was even home. I mean, that is bizarre.

DH called said roofer and left a voice mail message which was never returned. I tossed the bill in a pile of papers and promptly forgot about it because I was trying to run back and forth to the hospital to take care of Grandma. I honestly never remembered about it again until this guy started calling. He never sent a reminder invoice or anything. I asked DH to call him back, but he said he never could get him on the phone, so he just kept hanging up on his voice mail.

Earlier this week, he left a very nasty toned message for us to pay him and at least have enough respect to call him back. I called back and got the infamous voice mail and left him a long message regarding the fact that we never agreed to the work, he never called to tell us he was coming to do the work, etc. I never said I wasn't going to pay him, just that I was annoyed at his lack of professionalism.

He called back and got very nasty on my voice mail saying that DH authorized him on the phone to do the work that first phone call and he expects to get paid.

I called back again and talked to his voice mail and told him that I could prove that DH never authorized it because we were still soliciting bids from several other contractors because we really wanted someone to come out and physically look at it and also to look at a condition at our skylite. I apologized for the fact that it took so long for us to talk about the situation, but that my grandmother was dying of cancer at the time and this was on the back burner.

He called back and left me another message stating that I am a liar and DH is a liar and he is going to write it off to bad debt and don't ever call him again. Then he says "we have a name for people like you who get more than 3 bids for a job but I can't say it over the phone".

At that point, I just started crying. I was really going to pay this man, but I wanted some apology from him for how he went about doing the work. I took it personally what he said. He had such a nasty tone of voice and acted like I was the scum of the earth.

I never ever let a contractor do any kind of major work to my house without obtaining their insurance certificates, etc. I got to wondering if he just does little jobs this way. I wonder how many times he just shows up at someone's house and they say go ahead since you are here. I have never had any kind of contractor do a job on a verbal over the phone. If I had been home when he just showed up to do the work, I would have told him to leave.

I think I really feel bad that it went 3 months before this was addressed, but I was just a tad preoccupied taking care of Grandma before she died. I know that, legally, he can't make us pay because he can't document anything and we can prove we were still seeking quotes. I still want to pay him, though, and maybe write him a letter explaining my side of the story. Then, maybe follow up with a complaint to the BBB. What do you all think?