1 Stop Maintenance is by far the worst company we’ve ever worked for. They are based out of New York and subbed out a large commercial building to us last winter for window cleaning and pressure washing and some interior work. We agreed on a price for each service and everything on the list of things needed completed and we were good to go. We worked with a local pressure washing company to complete the job back in March. It’s now middle of May and they will not pay us. I should have googled them first. It’s review after review of the same story, they will not pay companies for the work they have completed. They have given us the run around so many times. One week the checks in the mail, the next week someone’s in the hospital, it’s a joke. I even spoke to the window cleaning company today that had the account before us and he said the same thing happened to him, only he was owed $40,000. With our service and the pressure washing that’s a $10,000 service we will probably not get paid for, based on what everyone else has said. I put this out there because these guys do sub work all over the U.S. and Europe I believe. I wish we would have known and hopefully this saves someone the trouble of dealing with these guys.
Did they contact you? If so, how did they contact you?
Contact a lawyer. They may say to send another bill by certified mail or something to that effect. For that kind of money it’s worth going after. There’s laws for these kinds of things. Contact the magisterial district office where the company is based out of. I’d become a thorn in their side real fast…
They actually contacted a local window cleaner, who is just a one man show and he didn’t think he could take care of the entire scope of work so he called us and gave them our number. We have numerous emails, them agreeing on the price, them agreeing to the service schedule just a crap ton of “evidence” I guess, so we are currently contacting a lawyer and reaching out to the actually business we serviced and they let us know today that 1 stop maintenance would be fired because of all the complaints.
Really sad to hear this guys. Hopefully your money will be paid. Don’t beat yourselves up and thank you for sharing this info about that company. Wow. Truly.
Put a lein on the building that the work was performed.
I like these situations, there’s is usually a recourse.
Unfortunately the small claims limit in New York is only $5,000 (or $3,000 outside a big city). That is pretty pathetic.
Hopefully they will pay with letter from a lawyer.
Wow! I really feel for you. We just went through a nightmare with some work as subcontractors. We finally got paid in full for the work we did. It took several months though. Now we’re dealing with getting a refund from the lawyer who actually did nothing to help; just collected his fee. Feel free to PM me. I might have things to share that could help.
Mechanics lein. Heard of that recently
So sorry to hear that happened to you. Hope you get paid sometime soon.
I’m mostly putting this out there because how stupid it was on my part. I am the Google queen. I Google and look into everything. Local window cleaners, people who message us on Facebook, whoever, yet we get one of the largest accounts we’ve had and I didn’t think to look into it?! It’s not hidden either. You Google them and boom you see they are scammers.
Sorry this is happening to you guys! That sucks.
Take action against them and the building owners.
Good luck!!
Mechanics lein is always an option , hopefully we have it settled. We shall see, Reanna thought we should share our experience with 1 stop maintence to try and save others the trouble. Run …as fast as you can from this company.
I saw your story on here a while back and we were actually going through something similar with subbed work but we ended up being paid months later for that job and told ourselves we wouldn’t fall into that trap again, yet here we are lol
It’s great that you posted this so others can learn
Events like this make us realize the easy part is washing windows, being the business owner can have challenges.
Also don’t ignore your gut feeling about things like this. I was uneasy from the beginning but The dollar signs in my eyes got in the way lol
Big jobs are great but the loses can also be big.
Sorry this happened to you guys. Thanks for sharing your experience.
As @Luke mentioned I would immediately put a mechanic’s lien on them STAT. Beyond that as has been mentioned, I’d hire an attorney and get that rolling as well. Time is of the essence and you need to leverage everything at your disposal.
I would also possibly contact the Attorney General in the state they are located and look into filing a complaint.
Your example is one of the reasons we require a deposit on large jobs. This is a non-negotiable item for us and if they don’t agree, it’s not worth our time due to the exposure.
