Former Calgary Flame Brendan Morrison said Friday he has lost all the money he paid a company called The Remodelers to rebuild his home.
Morrison is one of almost two dozen homeowners who have filed complaints with Calgary police, claiming they are the victims of fraud.
Morrison and his wife hired Bruce Hopkins of The Remodelers to renovate their entire home and paid a 50 per cent deposit.
He said the job was to be featured on Hopkins’ Remodel It television show and he was guaranteed the work would be done in time.
READ MORE: Calgary police investigate bankrupt renovation company
The interior of the Morrison home was gutted in July but nothing has been done since.
The Remodelers is now bankrupt and Morrison has had to hire another contractor.
“I know a lot of people out there are going to think everyone involved in this is crazy for putting that money down initially,” Morrison told Global News. “But we did the due diligence; we talked to people.”
“It was the promise of getting things done in a timely manner because you would be featured on the show and you would have top quality product,” he added.
Other people who hired The Remodelers are wondering if the Better Business Bureau (BBB) could have warned potential victims.
Jennifer Begley and her husband hired the company in 2011 for a $500,000 home renovation.
She said what was supposed to take six months took a year.
“We went through eight project managers, bad workmanship, redoing things all the time, just delay after delay after delay.”
Begley said some of the work had to be redone and the couple filed a complaint with the BBB.
“We started last December and went to mediation in April,” explained Begley. “Bruce agreed to fix the majority of the things wrong, signed an agreement, did a handful of things and then never returned or answered our emails.”
The couple said that information was not posted on the BBB website soon enough and they said if it had, it could have stopped others from being victimized.
But Camie Leard of the BBB said it would be irresponsible to issue a warning before an investigation into a complaint is complete.
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“What that means is not jumping the gun, not reporting things before they’re completely through our process,” explained Leard. “It would be irresponsible to do that because nothings final until it’s final.”
“We can only report what we know for sure; that’s the responsible thing to do,” added Leard. “That’s how you remain unbiased, so when there are issues with companies we really encourage consumers to come to the Better Business Bureau.”
Leard also pointed out at the time there had been no previous complaints about The Remodelers.
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