Please, Don’t Let This be You
I’ve preached for years about thoroughly checking out anyone or business thoroughly before committing to a large investment.
Here is how to check out pole building suppliers: https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2015/01/pole-building-suppliers/
And builders: https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2013/07/contractor-6/
Apparently not everyone who is looking for a building contacts us, or at the least follows my advice.
Jason Pederson reported on KATV.COM from Little Rock, Arkansas:
“Don’t pay a lot of money up front and do be sure to check references before you hire someone.
That simple advice might have kept a Judsonia man out of a big mess.
When Jason Newberry wanted to build a pole barn he looked online and found Cardinal Building Group.
Cardinal Building Group says that “Matching customers with the best builder in the area, while assuring reasonable prices, has given us the success that only God can provide.”
Cardinal Building Group matched Jason Newberry up with Bill Thompson, an unlicensed builder from Benton who says he has built a few barns around Louann in south Arkansas.
“So yeah I jumped,” admits Thompson. “I made a mistake. I jumped and did this without a license. And that was my mistake.”
“There was no finishing date on this…according to his contract,” says Newberry. “But, I mean, he told me by the 11th of August that it would have been done. And…sh…the nightmare ain’t ended.”
Newberry paid Thompson $26,500.00 up front, mostly for materials.
Now a new contractor…RDR Builders out of McCrory…is working to finish the project that Newberry says he couldn’t get Thompson to do.
“Blowed out tires,” says Newberry as he lists all of the excuses he heard from Thompson. “Chicken pox in his family. Sick. Labor won’t show up. Fired his labor. Everything underneath the sun.”
“If Mr. Newberry had allowed me to do my job and stayed off my back, he would have had a beautiful building,” insists Thompson. “But, at this point, now here we are fixin’ to go to court. He’s gonna file his suits. I’ll file mine.”
Thompson was questioned about the project by a state investigator with the Arkansas Contractors Licensing Board.
“He told him he was going to finish the project,” says Greg Crow, the ACLB’s executive director. “And he promised him that he would have it substantially completed by October the 18th. And that date came and went and it did not happen.”
Thompson is scheduled to appear before the Contractors Licensing Board on November 11th.”
Of course after reading the story, I am left puzzled by how Cardinal Building Group appears to not have some culpability. The information on their website just does not seem to align with this story.
The real point is – vet any pole building kit supplier or builder thoroughly.
