TOLEDO, Ohio — Having construction done on your home can be stressful even when it goes right.
But one Toledo couple dealt with a project that went very wrong: a bumpy, uneven, and in some spots completely removed, driveway.
The homeowners of the nightmare construction project say it's part of a big scam by the contractors who worked on it. They say it all started when the couple wanted to expand their driveway by several feet on each side.
The couple found Tom Cline Construction LLC. through word-of-mouth. They said Cline agreed to the work for only $2,000, but Cline said he needed half the money upfront in cash.
"He took half of our payment up front, which we were already hesitant to do, but we did. We agreed to pay half up front," the wife said.
The couple asked to have their names withheld and faces hidden to protect their identities.
After work started, that's when they say things went downhill.
The first attempt at laying new concrete resulted in a bumpy, uneven and unsafe driveway. Cline then allegedly tore up sections of the accompanying sidewalk and ultimately was delayed several times in getting the project completed.
The couple says Cline initially admitted to wrongdoing and would try to fix the driveway, but never did. The two say Cline would give multiple excuses as to why the project couldn't be restored. These excuses allegedly range from Cline claiming concrete suppliers canceled his orders, to an extreme example in which Cline claimed his daughter was in a car accident and had to attend to her.
"We got excuse after excuse of why he couldn't come and work on our job, or finish the job, or replace the property that he more or less stole and robbed us of," the wife said.
The homeowners made calls to the various concrete suppliers, who told the couple that Cline himself had actually canceled the orders. The couple also says they found Cline's truck at his office during the time he claimed to be in Columbus attending to his allegedly injured daughter.
After weeks of their nightmare, the two did some digging and found Cline Construction was not accredited with the Better Business Bureau as originally thought, with a D+ rating on the BBB website.
They say a quick web search shows Tom Cline Construction isn't even a real LLC.
"It just all surfaced right there. There was no denying it. He is a professional at scamming people," the wife said.
The couple asked around and found similar stories of clients paying Cline thousands of dollars upfront, seeing lackluster work, and the contractor ignoring any pleas to fix it.
"He was probably thinking he was going to get over on us long enough that we were going to get irritated and say 'forget it' and walk away,'" the wife said.
The couple eventually had to pay $13,000 to replace the driveway and sidewalk and fix the other damage. But they're not done with Cline yet.
The two are suing Cline to recoup some of the money lost and are hoping other people don't make the same mistake they did.
"We just want our money back. That's it," the husband said. "I don't want a dime more than that. I just want exactly what we had to pay to get it properly fixed."
WTOL 11 called Cline Construction's phone number listed on the BBB website hoping to get a comment, but the number does not work.