****When a general contractor says this (and I quote this literally from his mouth) "YOU HAVE TO SPECIFY IN THE SCOPE OF WORK THAT YOU WANTED STRAIGHT WALLS", you should either run away, fire him, smack in the brains for being an freaking smarta$$ idiot, or just take away his contractor's license all together and tell him to go back to his clown school!
What kind of dumb idiot would say such a thing. Oh that's right, our contractor, Ben Rafael. I asked my fellow colleagues who are architects and interior designers, and they said that is the most ridiculous thing they have ever heard. Okay good, I'm not the crazy one. Do I really have to specify I wanted straight walls? http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/fidelity-general-contractors-encino?select=cWZcV--hQmy20xwqUAUa8g It goes WITHOUT SAY that every built or renovated wall should be straight! COMMON SENSE BEN!! http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/fidelity-general-contractors-encino?select=5WI-eS-Oeb7dmRdHgCEBXA
What's even worse is he proceed to argue with us about it. As if we were crazy for wanting all our walls straight. Are we in the twilight zone or what?! Are these the words of a licensed contractor? Scary, very scary. He should get his licensed revoked. His subcontractor, Jaime Rosales doesn't even have a license!! Ben claimed Jaime is an employee of Fidelity, but turns out, he's just an unlicensed sub (did a background check). So this whole time, this unlicensed sloppy contractor has been working on our house. If I had know that, I would've hired some idiot off the parking lot of Home Depot!! FAIL!!!
At this point, we are obviously appalled and just dumbfounded. Ben is the president and owns this company!! Frightening!! Not to mention, a procrastinating, lazy liar as well. Not only did the project run about 4 weeks over completion date, he never disclosed that there would be significant height/level difference in our bathroom and kitchen transition points. Really? He just responded to us as if there was nothing he could do and basically proceeded without any other alternative. And now, we have ugly level changes in our kitchen and bathroom. http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/fidelity-general-contractors-encino?select=gNWF0SlU4jPP0j0dR-wm1g Thanks for the heads up a$$hole!! http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/fidelity-general-contractors-encino?select=hwIjclCLPgmUjrJ09qlhbQ
The contract was signed on August 21st, 2014. The crew didn't start working at the house until August 29th, and I know because I was at the job site every other day, sometimes even every day. That's 8 days after we signed the contract! Ben also said, from the beginning, that because we were not living in the house at the time of renovation, his crew would be able to freely work on both areas at the same time, thus getting work done quicker. He said 6 weeks or mid-October they should be done. There were number of days when I went to the house and nothing was done. They didn't even show up! Infuriating! Wasting my damn time! Mid-October rolls around. Not even close to done. Not only were delayed, they didn't even apologize for delaying our move. We were supposed to move in November 1st......so when did they actually complete the project (the word "complete" is questionable). NOVEMBER 11th!!! WTF?! A mere 3-4 weeks more than what was scheduled. Not a couple days, not a week, 3 weeks delayed!! We paid close to $50,000 to get the quality and craftsmanship of a group of guys from Home Depot!
- Nickel and dimed us for the stupidest little change orders
- THREE weeks late finishing
- Basically had to hold the foreman's hand as he always did things without asking us
- Ben NEVER came to job site except to collect money
- Ben NEVER once came to check on job unless there was problem
- We had to ask several times to remove trash from our yard
- Never sent us a schedule or gave us a timeline when we needed things, everything was always, I need this tomorrow!
- Has absolutely NO clue how to restore old Craftsman homes
- Has absolutely NO sense of what "craft" is, shoddy workmanship all together http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/fidelity-general-contractors-encino?select=fd87lRoLI86EAYLQGG9Yuw
- Subs ALL his contractors
- Didn't finish a lot of things in the house or left them broken/unfixed, lots of loose ends (and now we're stuck with it!!!) http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/fidelity-general-contractors-encino?select=oNh-6tDVcvgW9xFTF92NAg, http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/fidelity-general-contractors-encino?select=Vpjc3gVL47boks5Q9VzVpQ
ABOVE ALL, VERY UNHAPPY WITH HIRING FIDELITY GENERAL CONTRACTOR (ironic because the name of the company means loyalty/faithfulness), BEN RAFAEL WAS VERY UNPROFESSIONAL, AWFUL AND RUDE, ABSOLUTELY A NIGHTMARE FROM BEGINNING TO END TO WORK WITH, NO REGARDS FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE OR QUALITY OF WORK FOR THAT MATTER.
DEFINITELY AVOID, WILL NOT RECOMMEND TO ANYONE. read more