NEW YORK (WABC) — Anyone who’s paid to have a tree cut down knows it’s not cheap, but a Brooklyn homeowner got the shock of his life, when he got stuck with a bill, for 53-thousand dollars.
It’s the mother of all gouging stories we heard after sandy. A big bill came from a tree company from Seattle working in our area ever since Superstorm Sandy, but we gave these out-of-towners a 7 On Your Side welcome to take some hot air out of an inflated bill.
“The tree went that way you can see from the pictures and it fell against this shed over here,” Dick Tortora said.
It was a big job, no denying that. Sandy’s fierce winds downed these two hulking trees ripping the back off a building, but the real jaw-dropper was the bill.
U.S. Timber Cutters charged $53,000 to homeowner Dick Tortora to cut down the trees and haul them away.
“They came from the other side of the country to take advantage of us here,” Tortora said.
For starters, U.S. Timber Cutters never gave Dick a proper estimate on how much the work would cost – a violation of city consumer law. Tortora said he never received an invoice either.
“What he did was bill the insurance company,” he said.
But Dick’s insurance company denied the claim. And a day later – the cherry on top – the tree company got a mechanic’s lien placed on the family property.
“Never sent us a bill. We didn’t even know what it was,” Tortora said.
Furious, Dick got another local tree company to give an estimate based on these photos of the job. They estimated $5,000, he said.
It was time for us to operate on this tree surgeon. We contacted the company’s owner who justified the big bill, saying he normally “shoots high” when billing insurance companies. But after we informed him he was working without a valid home improvement license he took a chain saw to the invoice.
First, Timber Cutters’ owner dropped the mechanics lien saying he made a billing mistake, adding an extra zero to end of the invoice total. Dick’s bill went from 53 to 6-thousand – a savings of more than 46-thousand dollars.
Currently, the New York Attorney General is investigating U.S. Timber Cutters for alleged price gouging. Consumer Affairs is looking into possible fines for operating without a home improvement license. Before hiring any contractor, check if they’re licensed.
– See more at: http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/7_on_your_side&id=9008013#sthash.pKI4RNOD.dpuf
Can’t trust those West Coasters! lol
( except Henry and # 1 NWO Hatr)
And Cathleen, don’t forget Cathleen.
My bad.
And Sean in Seattle, too. 🙂
Wait until Obamacare, when the doctors bill the insurance companies $650,000 for a simple hospital visit. No insurance? We’ll just repo your car, attache your wages, take your tax return and foreclose your house.
If they’d had a license, they might have been able to keep the $53,000 bill. The issue that made them reduce it to 6000 was the lack of a license. Can’t a licensed operator still trick you and send an inflated bill to your insurance company?
6000 still sounds high btw. But after Sandy, there was a shortage of crews and equipment..
For $53,000 I can find someone to eat that tree.
Throw the crooks in jail where they belong. They’re not tree-cutters, they’re con artists.