This July (2007) I hired Bruce Barner of Premier Renovations & Constructions, Atlanta from an internet advertiser website for the renovation of my house. His profile said he was a member of Better Business Bureau and he offered me left over marble from another job at a very low rate and I immediately fell for the fraud. Even before we had finalized and signed the contract he talked me into giving him $ 4000.00 to order materials. He immediately started on some demolition work, before even getting a permit (resulting in stop work order from the city and a delay in getting the permit). For the next three weeks he kept making excuses on why the material had not arrived yet – then asked me for another $ 5000.00. When I asked him to deliver the previous material and meet me to sign a legal contract before I paid him further, he promptly disappeared and stopped responding to my numerous e-mails, phone calls and certified letters. In the meantime, in my absence, he dumped a huge amount of possibly hazardous construction waste from his other construction projects in my property.

Finally after complaining to his advertisers and BBB, he responded in an e-mail with several false allegations for including cooked up figures and stories that try to shift the blame on me and that I owe him more money. Of course he does not provide any evidence, because there is none. I am aghast at this shameless and lack of ethics.

It is now almost a month and a half since I paid this person for material that was never delivered. He has left my house horribly damaged with no windows, no cabinet doors, a hole in a roof, water damage from storms, a demolished wall, damaged plumbing and wiring and a dump of other people's construction waste in the backyard, while defrauding me of $ 4000.00 that I had acquired as a loan. The office number and the fax he provided me do not seem to work. I have now found that he had also lied about being a member of the Better Business Bureau. Not only was he not a member but had actually an unsatisfactory record and listed under multiple addresses and a different firm Renaissance Renovations & Construction, LLC that according to BBB, seemed to have closed business. My only recourse now is to take legal action; although I don't know how long it will be when I will finally be able to get my money back, if I can get it back at all.

I have learnt my lesson the hard way by being duped and posting my experience in the hope that other people will not be scammed by this deceitful person or his company.