RICHLAND COUNTY (WACH) - Laura Doiron and Albert Mailly spent much of this holiday season looking for missing floor tiles. They bought a lot of the stuff for a contractor who was working on their floors. When Mailly asked the contractor to return the extra tiles, he made a horrifying discovery on Craigslist.
"We realized it was ours because when the guy took a picture of the floor installed you can see the red and yellow wall," says Mailly. "All of a sudden you could see it was the contractor's wife's cell phone number."
Richland County Sheriff's Deputy Monique Mack says there are some things you can do to protect yourself from unsavory contractors. Make sure the contractor is licensed, bonded and ask for references.
"You can try to take legal action in a civil suit or any other capacity to try and get your money back or if they neglected the work in the standard which you asked them to do it," says Mack.
Mailly says in hindsight he wished he'd done his homework.
"When you're busy at work, you come home at night you don't have the time, you're trying to take care of the kids. You trust contractors, that's what they do for a living."
Mack says the contractors in this case Craig and Missy Van Wyck are charged with petty larceny. Mailly says he got his tiles back.
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forWACH