Victim Location 52401
Total money lost $30,000
Type of a scam Home Improvement
As a previous poster stated this scam is run by one Michael Lee Cortez of Cedar Rapids who variously goes by Michael Cortez, Mike Cortez, Michael Lee, Mike Lee, etc. His home remodeling, home roofing schemes have been operating under multiple legitimate and fake LLC names since he was released from federal prison in 2015 after serving over 4yrs for a student loan fraud scheme wherein he and accomplices paid non-students to apply for community college admission and student loans, the checks for which were sent to a PO Box he had sole access to. I don’t know who was cashing these checks for him in multiple other people’s names but they should have done prison time too.
As for his latest contractor scheme, the various businesses he has used in the past few years that I was able to find (there may be more) are as follows:
RightWay Enterprises
Sky’s Edge Roofing
All Day Roofing
fixallcompany.com aka “Fix-All Home & Garden LLC” (no contact info on WHOIS)
The Complete Contracting Company aka “Complete Contracting” (completecontractingia.com, domain inactive)
Various reviews and other scam alerts I have read about his practices lead me to believe that he runs this scheme by doing one or two jobs properly, taking photos of the work (before, in progress, and after photos) and then uses those photos of decent work to get multiple other jobs which he and his accomplice workers either just do a hack, sloppy job of at the least expense to themselves, or worse, never even show up for the job after collecting a sizeable deposit from the homeowner which can run into the thousands of dollars depending on the size and complexity of your job.
Another angle: This scammer will bid your job, and if you accept his bid, will take your deposit and then place an ad on Craigslist to have a complete stranger show up at your home to do the work without ever paying him a dime, so you get stuck paying the poor shmuck who showed up and did the work because Scammer Michael Cortez is nowhere to be found, will not respond to phone calls or emails and has already moved on to his next victim. You’ll also get stuck paying for the materials (even though you already paid a fat deposit for materials) so random Craigslist guy who showed up can do the job.
I spoke with the Northern District of Iowa Federal Probation Office about Michael Lee Cortez and found out that he was just released from supervised probation (essentially federal parole) in late 2017, so I’m guessing he has been emboldened by the fact that he can’t now violate his probation and be sent back to prison. After spending over 4 years in prison, I guess it’s an easy decision to rip off homeowners and expose yourself to civil lawsuits and collections, but I have no doubt his past will once again catch up with him and he’ll be back in "involuntary subsidized housing" soon enough.
Watch out for this scammer [censored]!