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Contact7 digs into claims a Colorado contractor walked off a $30K job half finished

Posted at 3:32 PM, Sep 17, 2018
and last updated 2018-09-17 19:28:53-04

Editor's note: Contact7 seeks out audience tips and feedback to help people in need, resolve problems and hold the powerful accountable. If you know of a community need our call center could address, or have a story idea for our investigative team to pursue, please email us at contact7@thedenverchannel.com or call (720) 462-7777. Find more Contact7 stories here.

ERIE, Colo. — When an Erie man hired a contractor to build him a detached garage, he never thought that after the concrete slab was poured, that contractor would walk away from the job.

“I have a garage without any walls or a roof. I can’t use it for anything,” Tony Vella said.

Vella says he paid All American Contractors out of Aurora a total of $10,000 toward the $29,000 total cost for the two-car garage. He says the company drew up the plans, got the permits, excavated the site, and prepped it for concrete pouring. Vella paid the subcontractor to pour the concrete himself. Then he says AAC never came back.

“As of right now, the only thing I have is concrete. I don’t have a contractor. I don’t have any framing. I don’t have anything else,” Vella told Contact7.

The homeowner says he didn’t sign a full contract for the full price since the paperwork was never right. He says one version forgot to include the electric work in the garage. But there was a tipping point when he knew something was up.

“When I saw the port-a-potty being hauled away I figured 'OK, that means there are no workers coming back,'” he said.

Vella tried to get ahold of the company via phone and text. He finally got an email response back that ended with the line: “we would lose money to come back up there another day.”

Contact7’s Jason Gruenauer called the number listed on the All American Contractors Facebook page and spoke to owner Tom Stocks.

When asked about Vella’s project and the claims that he walked away from it, Stocks replied: “Are you kidding me?”

Several more questions went unanswered until Stocks finally hung up.

The website address for AAC on their Facebook page says it is “suspended.”

The Better Business Bureau has no record of an All American Contractors out of Aurora.