Home improvement projects can be costly, so when a good deal comes along, it’s hard to say no, even if something doesn’t feel quite right. A La Mesa woman said she learned that lesson the hard way. She said she was intimidated into paying thousands of dollars for incomplete work done to her driveway.
It all started when a man knocked on her door on Feb. 6, Zoe said. She told NBC 7 Responds the man identified himself as Mark Young, the owner of a company called Elite Paving. She says he told her he had some leftover asphalt and could give her a good deal to repave her driveway. Zoe and her elderly father, who also lives at the home, agreed to a price of $3,500.
Less than two hours later, the deal went south when only about a third of the driveway had been repaved, Zoe said. “He said it’s going to cost you more if you’re going to want us to do the rest of the driveway,” she said. “I kind of lost it and said ‘I’m not going to give you more money!’”
Zoe said she and her elderly father didn’t want to pay but ended up doing so under pressure. “It was very intimidating. They were bullies and I told my dad to just write the check to get them out of here,” she said.
She said five of the workers waited outside her home while Young went to the bank to cash the check. She was so shaken after she left, she contacted the district attorney’s office, the Contractors State License Board (CSLB) and NBC 7 Responds.
What NBC 7 Responds Found Out
The first thing we checked was the CSLB website to see if Elite Paving is licensed, and discovered they are indeed licensed. Mark Young Jr. is listed as the sole owner and the company’s address is in Massachusetts. We found the company’s website and confirmed it had the same phone number as the CSLB license and the side of the truck that we discovered parked in Santee – the same one Zoe said they brought to her house.
NBC 7 Responds called the number and the man who answered the phone identified himself as Mark Young. He called Zoe a liar among other offensive names. He claimed that the $3,500 price they agreed to was only for the extra asphalt that he had on the truck and said he never intimidated her to pay.
We asked Young why there was no written contract for the job, and he told us that in retrospect, he should’ve drafted one. He declined our request for an interview, but it wouldn’t have been the first time a paver named Mark Young was in front of an NBC camera.
We found this 2015 story from WJAR, our sister station in Providence, Rhode Island. It was about a paving company called MTY Paving getting shut down by the state. The owner, Mark Young, was accused of preying on the elderly – knocking on their doors, saying the company had leftover asphalt, just like what was offered to Zoe.
Twelve complaints were filed with the state’s licensing board against the company, which ended up agreeing to pay back customers more than $32,000, according to the report.
Elite Paving is located just 10 miles outside of Providence. Given the owners have the same name, and the physical resemblance, we asked the Mark Young we spoke with if he knew of MTY Paving or had any association with it. He told us no. We later texted him a link to the 2015 news story asking if it was him. We never got a response.
But just a few hours after our phone call with Young, a man showed up at Zoe’s door. She said he told her, “Mark said you were making trouble. What do you want?” Zoe told him to leave, and he did. She felt so uneasy, she called the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department and filed an incident report.
People selling goods or services door-to-door in unincorporated areas of San Diego County, like where Zoe and her father live, are required to obtain a solicitor’s license from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department. We confirmed Mark Young nor Elite Paving have a solicitor’s license.
The Contractors State License Board (CSLB) confirmed Zoe’s complaint has been assigned to an investigator.
“We can make sure that more and more contractors that are following the rules are the ones out there and not the ones causing issues with consumers,” said Katherine White, Chief of Public Affairs for the CSLB Executive Division.
What You Can Do to Protect Yourself
The CSLB has the following advice for you to decrease the chances of a project going wrong:
- Check the contractor’s license.Is it active? Are there any disclosable complaints against the company?
- Make sure there is a written contract. It should contain details about the exact work that will be done and include a payment schedule.
- Don’t give a downpayment of more than 10% or $1,000, whichever is less.
- File a complaint with the CSLBif the project deviates from the contract and you can’t come to an agreement with the contractor.
“CSLB can work to resolve the complaint with the consumer and make sure to find the best possible outcome for both the contractor as well as the consumer,” White said.
Zoe has her own advice based on what she’s going through now. “Do your due diligence. Ask friends and neighbors for referrals.”
