Three home repair lawsuits, three stories

If there's a lesson Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan wants the public to learn from three consumer fraud lawsuits filed this week, it's to use caution and check references when hiring any kind of home improvement firm.

The suits filed Monday involve companies in the swimming pool, sunroom and garage door industries -- all of which the state says still owe clients thousands of dollars for work never done.

Home repair and remodeling complaints top the list of issues most commonly reported to the attorney general's office, spokeswoman Natalie Bauer said. There have been approximately 16,000 such complaints filed with the office since 2002.

The companies named in this week's suits are For My Garage Inc. of Wauconda, Affordable Sunrooms of Lake Villa, and Aquaharmony Inc. of Villa Park and Forest Park.

The victims of these companies' malpractice stretch from Chicago to the Northwest suburbs, from Lake County to DuPage County, the suits say.

The victims, however, suspect different motivations among these three companies they say wronged them.

Norman Pflomm of Prospect Heights, for instance, said he never saw any evidence that For My Garage Inc. and its owner, Jeffery Maki, ever intended to do any work at his home.

But everything looked promising at the start.

"I found these people at a home show at Harper College," Pflomm said. "They had a legitimate booth. They looked like a reputable company."

After Pflomm paid Maki the 50 percent down payment for the $1,626 garage door he wanted last March, he never heard from Maki again, he said.

"He might have been a legitimate business at one time, but I think he may have gone through some financial problems and just took off," Pflomm said.

The phone number for For My Garage has been disconnected and Maki couldn't be reached for comment.

Other victims named in the lawsuit live in Barrington, Buffalo Grove, Grayslake, LaGrange, Mount Prospect, Palatine, Prospect Heights and Vernon Hills.

Fe Pascual of Elk Grove Village said she has been waiting since May 2005 for Affordable Sunrooms to build the $21,000 addition they promised her.

All the company ever gave her was a blueprint and a building permit.

She's reached the point where all she really wants is the $12,764 she's already paid so she can hire someone else to do the job.

When she demanded her money back a year ago, company owner Ace Tilson again promised to do the job in the spring of 2007.

"I really believed he was going to do the job because he'd always call back and he was always so nice on the phone," Pascual said.

She's since found many criticisms of Tilson's business practices on the Internet after doing a Google search.

Calls to Affordable Sunrooms Tuesday were not returned.

Other victims named in the lawsuit live in Hanover Park and Chicago.

A different story is behind problems at Aquaharmony Inc., as at least one of the victims said she has sympathy for company owner DeLondon Hawthorne.

"They had been doing work for us for a long period of time," Carole Pechi of Glen Ellyn said. "They had been very reliable."

Things turned around last June when Pechi and her husband paid $2,300 for a liner for their indoor pool that they haven't yet seen.

Hawthorne said the mistake he made was trying to grow his one-man business too fast and drowning in the overhead costs of employees who didn't work efficiently.

He said he will pay everyone he owes back, but needs a summer to do it as his business is pool repairs.

"Once I opened that pool store up, it took me underwater," Hawthorne said. "All I need is a summer to go back to being me. I know how to make enough money for one person."

While Pechi said she has sympathy for his situation, she hasn't forgotten the money he owes is hers.

"The bottom line is, we're not a charity," Pechi said. "When you do something like that with people's money, it's called stealing. He's a good person -- I believe that in my heart -- but he just got in over his head."

What to do

• If you think you have been a victim of fraud, the Illinois attorney general's office recommends you call its Consumer Fraud Hotline at (800) 386-5438, or check out information and resources at www.IllinoisAttorneyGeneral.gov.