Power in numbers: Customers use social media to hold contractor accountable

While juggling a full-time job and three triplets running around the house, it’s pretty easy to see why Kelsey Janak looks forward to a few quiet moments swinging on the front porch of her Acushnet home.

After building the house and moving in with the young kids in 2020, Janak and her husband saved up to build the front porch—the last thing to be completed for their project.

It was not easy getting to the finish line.

“It’s just disheartening,” Janak recalled about her experience.

The couple hired Larry Westgate of All Phases Renovations to do the concrete and masonry work. The contractor had an active presence on Facebook and it seemed like he’d completed a number of quality projects in the area.

At the time, there were no red flags. They provided a $5,000 deposit to put the wheels in motion. Janak said Westgate anticipated starting the project in two to three weeks.

“But then he didn’t show up for four weeks. And then five weeks. And then six weeks. And then seven and eight weeks, and so forth,” Janak said.

As the excuses piled up, Janak said the front entrance to the house remained an unsafe construction zone for the kids. Eventually, she and her husband lost patience and told Westgate they wanted their deposit returned.

Janak showed us a string of text message exchanges followed with several missed deadlines for Westgate to send the check.

“At that point, he had our $5,000 hostage,” Janak said. “So I sent him a text and said, ‘Larry, if we don’t have the check by such and such a date and time, I’m taking the story to social media and I’m putting you on blast.’”

After drawing that line in the sand, Janak said the date passed and there was still no money. The next step was sitting down at her computer and posting about her experience on a New Bedford community group on Facebook.

“We worked SO HARD for this and I will NOT let this guy take off with the $5,000 we need to make my favorite part of the house - that I've been waiting for all these years - come to life,” Janak wrote.

She quickly learned she was not alone. Dozens of people commented and shared the post. Her private message inbox filled up with All Phases Renovations customers who said they had been too scared to speak up publicly.

“It went pretty viral. It was all over the place,” Janak said. “It’s disgusting that someone can continue to get away with it. That’s what really kills me.

Facebook group of jilted customers is formed

Shortly after the social media post, Janak said that Westgate returned the $5,000 deposit. According to text messages she showed us, Westgate threatened a lawsuit for defamation and slander, but has not taken any legal action.

The Acushnet homeowner decided her work wasn’t done, based on all the feedback she received from other consumers.

That’s why she formed a private Facebook group called, “Scammed by All Phases Renovations.”

“I wondered, ‘Is there something we can do about this as a collective team?’ I wanted a police investigation or at least getting people their money back,” Janak said.

Search “scammed by” on Facebook and you’ll see similar groups formed all over the country.

Last year, customers of a Massachusetts paving business connected with each other over email and contacted NBC10 Boston about their shared experience. William Pusateri is now sitting in jail on a multi-count larceny indictment out of Middlesex County. He is scheduled to change his plea and be sentenced by a judge next month.

There are now nearly 60 members who have joined the group Janak created to share their experiences and swap advice. Along with homeowners, group members also include subcontractors who say they were not paid for work they completed.

James Compagnone hired Westgate in the summer of 2021 for a backyard project at his Walpole home that included a porch, cabana, outdoor kitchen and firepit.

The project manager with the military said he’d already paid the majority of the $87,000 project cost when Westgate asked for more money. At the time, Compagnone said there was plenty of work left to do.

“I asked him why he needed more money,” Compagnone recalled. “And he said, ‘Because the budget is blown.’ And I said, ‘But you can’t tell me why it’s blown.’ And that’s when he was like, ‘I’m out of here.’ And he walked away.”

Compagnone said Westgate owes him roughly $40,000 for unfinished work and material that was never ordered.

The back door to his house had to be taped off because the stairs had been demolished, leaving a five-foot drop to the ground below. Compagnone’s elderly parents had no egress to the backyard for nearly two years while he dug deep financially to finish the project.

“I got screwed,” Campagnone said. “It’s a tough situation. I sit back here and it’s a beautiful backyard. And all I see is the problems. All I see is what wasn’t finished.”

Rose Khnaizir’s project never even started. The nurse practitioner was working around the clock during the COVID pandemic and hoped for a backyard escape at her Stoughton home.

“I was looking forward to days off,” Khnaizir said. “I was looking forward to finally resting after working so hard for so long.”

She hired Westgate to install a pool and paid him a $25,000 deposit. The summer of 2021 passed with no progress. Two years later, she still doesn’t have the money.

“He stopped answering all my texts or calls and that’s when my heart sunk,” Khnaizir said.

The homeowner tried to report the incident to Stoughton police, who told her it was a civil matter. That is a frustration we’ve repeatedly heard over the course of our “To Catch a Contractor” investigative series.

Khnaizir currently has a civil lawsuit pending against Westgate in Stoughton District Court. She avoids spending time in her backyard because it only reminds her of the financial loss.

“Someone has robbed me,” Khnaizir said. “And the legal system is not there to protect me.”

Court records point to big debts

Those are just a couple of the stories from more than a dozen customers who spoke with us.

A review of court records also points to big debts and financial problems.

Two small business lending companies have placed liens on the Fall River home that Westgate purchased in 2020 that total more than $150,000.

An East Bridgewater masonry business owner sued Westgate and All Phases Renovations, claiming he stopped paying for a list of projects completed in 2022. The business recently won a judgment of $104,000 in Plymouth Superior Court.

A Freetown homeowner pursued civil action when she said Westgate left a back deck project unfinished and not up to code. She won a judgment of more than $20,000.

The court ordered a payment plan of $750 per month to satisfy the judgment, but Westgate bounced the first two checks.

In August, a New Bedford District Court judge held the contractor in civil contempt for failing to make a payment or provide his personal and corporate financial records and tax returns.

Several other customers and subcontractors have also pursued action in small claims court.

While chasing money, members of the private Facebook group fume about Westgate’s posts on social media.

In one post, he showcased a Boston Bruins-themed man cave decked out with framed jerseys, recliners and a projector TV.  In another post last May, he checked in from a beach vacation in the Riviera Maya in Mexico.

Court records show a number of homeowners have struggled to serve him with lawsuits and judgments at the contractor’s Fall River property because mail gets returned as “undeliverable.”

“The court would just send the papers back to me saying, ‘We can’t reach this person.’ I was just spinning my wheels,” said Shawn Edge, a New Bedford homeowner.

Edge hired Westgate for a front steps project in the summer of 2022 and paid a $2,500 deposit.

Weeks stretched into months and Edge said the project had not begun. He asked for his deposit back and showed us the text messages with Westgate, featuring a string of excuses and broken promises.

“It will be in your mailbox at 10:30 tomorrow morning,” one text read.

Edge went online to see if other customers were having similar experiences and that is when he discovered the Facebook group.

“That’s when I knew this was going to go south very, very quickly,” Edge recalled.

‘Not a big deal,’ contractor responds when questioned by NBC10

After speaking with customers and reviewing court records, we contacted Westgate by phone to let him know we were working on a story and wanted to get an on-camera response about the problems with his business.

We told him we would be outside New Bedford District Court earlier this month, where he had a status review scheduled for the matter where he was previously found in civil contempt.

When he emerged from the courthouse, Westgate told us that he had been advised not to comment. We brought up the Facebook group and asked him to explain how more than 50 people had come together online over their negative experiences.

“I could make a post tomorrow about channel 10 news and have 50 people overnight,” Westgate said. “It’s not a big deal.”

If that’s not a big deal, here is something that could be problematic: Records we reviewed show Westgate is not registered as a home improvement contractor in Massachusetts.

A HIC registration is clearly required by state law for anyone who signs contracts and accepts payments for home construction projects.

Contracts that customers shared with us also lacked statutory-required language like a planned completion date, description of work and materials, and a time schedule of payments.

It is important for consumers to hire registered contractors because they can search for any previous complaints and it also makes them eligible to recoup up to $10,000 from the state’s Guaranty Fund.

Westgate did not answer our question about why he wasn’t registered as a contractor, shutting the door to his truck and exiting the courthouse parking lot.

A bankruptcy filing and interest from law enforcement

The same day we approached him outside court, Westgate filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

That is a scenario we explored earlier this year when a home builder filed for bankruptcy shortly after cashing large deposits from homeowners.

According to the initial petition, Westgate owes somewhere between one to 49 creditors and estimates his liabilities between $1 million to $10 million.

More detailed financial records will be forthcoming via the bankruptcy process and customers will get an opportunity to challenge whether their debts should be discharged.

Seven people have filed consumer complaints with the Massachusetts Attorney General. When asked if the agency is looking into the situation, a spokesperson said they do not comment on, confirm or deny investigations.

Meantime, we’ve learned a police detective in Freetown has connected with at least a dozen former customers from that town and surrounding communities. He plans to present his findings to prosecutors for potential criminal charges.

Edge, the New Bedford homeowner, pursued his own larceny case when the $2,500 deposit was not returned. The clerk magistrate gave Westgate 60 days to return the money or said the criminal complaint would go forward.

Edge said he received the check this month. But just like Janak, the Facebook group organizer, Edge said he wants to see action even though he is no longer owed money.

He wonders why consumers should need to band together on social media to get someone’s attention.

“It really kind of puts a magnifying glass on how broken the system is,” Edge said. “It’s very difficult to hold people accountable. They’re finding new loopholes that give them time to figure out their escape or their next prey.”

Ryan Kath can be reached at ryan.kath@nbcuni.com. You can follow him on Twitter, Instagram or connect on Facebook.