Get Gephardt helps man who says contractor turned his payment guarantee into a double payment

MILLCREEK —Traffic, weather and sun all can be harsh on parking lots. So, the El Cholo Restaurant hired a crew to reseal their parking lot. The total cost for the job came to $4,600.

“They charged my card,” said El Cholo’s Manuel Jacquez, who says he agreed to let them run his credit card a hold until the restaurant cut a check. But he says when that check got cashed five days later, the credit card charge wasn’t backed out.

“I said, ‘Hey, you guys charged my card and you cashed the checks,’” Jacquez said. “’Can you guys do a refund? What can we do about this?’”

He says the promises of a refund stretched on for days then weeks.

“I kept reaching out saying, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’”

As weeks stretched into months, the interest on Jacquez’s card kept accruing. The total charge grew to $5,500.

“I’m paying like $140 or more payments every month since,” he said.

But by then, the credit card company put the kibosh on a dispute.

“They said too much time had gone by, so they can’t get involved,” Jacquez said.

So, he contacted the KSL Investigators.

We reached out to Black Magic Asphalt. The owner said he couldn’t talk to us on camera, but over the phone he told us Jacquez’s credit card payment was never intended as a hold. It was a straight-up payment. When pressed about how cashing the checks effectively doubled the amount paid for the same work as well the refund promises Jacquez said were made to him, the owner told us, “It was all a paperwork mistake, and we’re going to fix it.”

Fix it they did. Jacquez said he got his full refund the next day, plus interest.

While Jacquez didn’t intend to, paying a contractor with your credit card can provide you with some enhanced consumer protections. That includes the ability to dispute charges if the quality of work isn’t acceptable or the job is incomplete. The catch is you usually have to file a dispute within 60 days.