Article July 16, 2007 Issue

ON FAIR GROUND

BY ALICE HAYNES MOSELEY

IN EARLY 2005, my husband and I found ourselves in the midst of a construction scam. We'd decided to remodel two upstairs rooms of our house to add on some additional space. After researching and meeting with several contractors, we settled on one that had a full-page ad in the yellow pages of our local phonebook.

We signed a contract and gave a third of our budget for the project to the contractor as a down payment. Then, in the days that followed, he and his crew gave us excuse after excuse as to why they couldn't begin the work.

After two or three weeks of attempting to set a start-date with the contractor, my husband and I felt that maybe the construction company was just putting us off so they could complete a larger project. Still, we wondered why they wouldn't even return our calls. We became so frustrated that we knew we needed to pray.