{ "title": "The Contractor Took My Money and Vanished — What Now?", "description": "The recovery order that preserves the most options: document first, then the credit card dispute that has a real deadline, then the licensing board, the bond, small claims — and the subcontractor lien that can hit your house even though you paid in full.", "category": "home", "vertical": null, "tldr": "If you paid by credit card, the clock is the first thing to check: federal rules give you 60 days from the statement to dispute a charge for services not delivered as agreed. Then document everything, file with your state licensing board, and claim against the contractor's bond. Watch for liens from subcontractors your contractor never paid — those hit your title even though you paid in full.", "who_to_call": [ { "who": "Your credit card issuer's billing dispute line — then in writing", "when": "You paid by card and the charge appeared on a statement in the last 60 days — this is the fastest money back and the only lever on a statutory clock", "not_for": "You paid cash, check, wire, or Zelle — no chargeback right exists there, so don't lose weeks waiting on one" }, { "who": "Your state contractor licensing board", "when": "The contractor was licensed — the complaint is free, it triggers investigation and discipline, and in some states mediation or arbitration", "not_for": "You need the money this month — boards discipline licenses and no board guarantees restitution" }, { "who": "The surety company that wrote the contractor's bond", "when": "The contractor was licensed and bonded — you claim directly to the surety, no judgment needed, and it usually beats court on speed", "not_for": "The contractor posted a cash deposit instead of a bond, or was unlicensed — then it's a lawsuit either way" }, { "who": "Your small claims court clerk", "when": "The loss sits under your state's limit, or close enough that waiving the excess still beats paying a lawyer", "not_for": "A lien has already been recorded on your home — that's above small claims' pay grade" }, { "who": "A construction or consumer attorney", "when": "The loss is far above the small claims limit, a mechanics lien is on your title, or your contract has an attorney-fee clause that shifts the math", "not_for": "The claim is a few thousand dollars with no fee-shifting — the fee will eat the recovery" }, { "who": "Local police, and the DA's economic crimes unit", "when": "There's a pattern — multiple victims, a fake or borrowed license, forged documents, or money taken with zero work started", "not_for": "It's one unfinished job and a contractor who still answers occasionally — police will call that civil, and mostly they're right" }, { "who": "Your state attorney general's consumer protection office", "when": "Always, eventually — your complaint is what turns six separate homeowners into one pattern somebody prosecutes", "not_for": null } ], "body_markdown": "*Deadlines, boards, lien windows, and recovery funds are state law and they vary enormously. The statutes below — California, Texas, Maryland, Illinois — show the shape of each lever, not your state's rules. Get your own numbers from your state's board, your county recorder, and your small claims clerk. This page is the map, not legal advice.*\n\n## Document everything before you confront anyone\n\nDo this before the thirty missed calls. Every lever below runs on paper, and paper gets harder to collect once the contractor knows you're building a case. Into one folder, backed up:\n\n- **The contract and every change order**, including drafts.\n- **Every text, email, and voicemail.** Export threads rather than screenshotting; screenshots lose timestamps and ordering, and carriers delete voicemail on their own schedule.\n- **Payment records showing method and date** — which card, which check number, which app, which day. This decides your fastest route.\n- **Photographs of the work as it stands**, metadata intact. Photograph what's missing as much as what's wrong: the open trench, the studs with no wire.\n- **Permit records** from your city's portal — was one applied for, in whose name, was anything inspected?\n- **Any preliminary lien notices** from subcontractors or suppliers. Most homeowners bin these; they're the most valuable paper in the folder, for reasons two sections down.\n\nThen send one written demand — email *and* certified mail, for speed and proof of delivery — stating what was paid, what was delivered, what you want, and by when. Short and unemotional: it becomes an exhibit.\n\n## Your payment method decides your best lever — and it has a deadline\n\nHow the money left your hands decides everything that follows, and the gap between methods is enormous.\n\n**Credit card is the strongest position, and the only one on a statutory clock.** Under Regulation Z, a charge for services \"not delivered to the consumer... as agreed\" is a billing error, and notice must reach the issuer \"no later than **60 days** after the creditor transmitted the first periodic statement that reflects the alleged billing error\" (12 CFR § 1026.13, via Cornell Law). That is the deadline people burn while they're still hoping he comes back. Call the issuer the day you conclude he's gone, then **follow up in writing to the billing-inquiries address**, which is usually not where you mail payments — the call preserves goodwill, the letter preserves rights. You don't have to exhaust the argument with the contractor first: Regulation Z's commentary says a consumer \"is not required to first notify the merchant... and attempt to resolve a dispute\" before filing. The issuer then owes you written acknowledgment within **30 days** and resolution within two billing cycles, \"in no event later than **90 days**.\" Past 60 days you're outside the statute — issuers and networks do run longer windows for services never rendered, but that's discretion, not a right, so ask rather than assume.\n\n**Debit card** sits in the middle: some issuer protection, shorter windows, and your money is already gone while anyone investigates.\n\n**Zelle, wire, cash, and check make you a creditor, not a disputant.** Regulation E covers an *unauthorized* transfer, which the CFPB defines as one \"initiated by a person other than the consumer without actual authority... and from which the consumer receives no benefit.\" You authorized the payment, so it isn't an error under the rule however completely you were deceived. Your levers are the board, the bond, and the courthouse — all slower.\n\n## The licensing board complaint, honestly\n\nIf the contractor held a license, the board complaint is the cheapest filing you'll make. Boards discipline licenses. They are not collection agencies. California's CSLB says so itself: it \"makes every attempt to get restitution\" but \"cannot guarantee that you will get any money back.\"\n\nWhat a board does deliver: discipline — suspension, revocation, citation — real leverage on anyone who still wants to work; mediation, and in some states arbitration (CSLB's is mandatory for disputes of **$25,000** or less, voluntary from **$25,000–$50,000**); enforcement, since in California an unpaid final money judgment suspends the license until it's satisfied; and a public complaint record the next homeowner finds when they run [the five-minute vetting checks](/home/vet-a-contractor/).\n\n**Recovery funds exist in a minority of states and nowhere else.** Maryland's Home Improvement Guaranty Fund pays actual loss up to **$30,000** per claimant (capped at what you actually paid), **$250,000** total across all claimants against one contractor, within **three years** of discovering the loss, licensed contractors only. Whether your state has anything comparable is a question only your board answers, and for most readers the answer is no.\n\n**If the contractor was unlicensed**, there's no license to discipline, but you may hold a bigger hammer. California's Business and Professions Code § 7031(b) lets \"a person who utilizes the services of an unlicensed contractor... recover all compensation paid to the unlicensed contractor\" — all of it, not the shortfall. Several states have a version; it's the one context where unlicensed is the better problem to have.\n\n## The bond claim, which is not a lawsuit\n\nLicensed contractors in most states must post a surety bond — the route homeowners least often know exists. California requires a **$25,000** contractor's bond, \"filed for the benefit of consumers who may be damaged as a result of defective construction or other license law violations.\"\n\nThree things make it different from suing:\n\n1. **You claim to the surety, not the board.** CSLB is blunt: \"The CSLB does not process claims against surety companies,\" and \"the consumer will contact the surety directly.\" Find which surety wrote the bond in force on your contract date — California publishes bond history on each license detail page — and send the contract, payment records, and a written account of what happened.\n2. **No judgment required to start.** The surety investigates and decides. If they pay, you're finished months ahead of any court. If they deny, you've lost only time.\n3. **The bond is a shared pot, not a per-job guarantee.** CSLB's guide notes the amount \"is not per job; it is the amount available for all the jobs a contractor takes on during the life of the bond.\" A contractor who vanished on you has usually vanished on others. Being early matters.\n\nTwo cautions: some contractors post a cashier's check instead of a bond, and California can only pay from a cash deposit under a court order. And bond amounts run from a few thousand dollars to six figures by state and license class — some states require no consumer-facing bond at all.\n\n## The lien trap: paid in full and still on the hook\n\nThis blindsides people, and it usually lands weeks after the contractor stops answering. Your contractor hired subcontractors and bought materials. If he took your money and never paid them, they can record a mechanics lien against **your** title — no contract with you required. CSLB's homeowner guide names the consequence: \"double payment for the same job — if the homeowner pays the prime contractor and then has to pay the subcontractors, suppliers, or workers who weren't paid by the prime.\" A recorded lien is a security interest that, unpaid, \"allows a foreclosure action, forcing the sale of your home,\" and until cleared it blocks refinancing and sale.\n\nThe deadlines cut both ways, and they are your defense. In California:\n\n- A subcontractor or supplier must serve a **20-day** preliminary notice — the envelope you nearly threw away — or lose lien rights for anything furnished more than 20 days before it arrives.\n- The lien must be recorded within **90 days** of completion, of your first use of the improvement, or of your acceptance of it. Miss it and the lien isn't valid.\n- A foreclosure action must follow within **90 days** of recording, and CSLB observes that \"often a lien claimant with a valid claim will fail to follow through, making the lien invalid.\"\n- Recording a Notice of Completion yourself, within **15 days**, cuts that window to **60 days** for a prime contractor and **30 days** for subs and suppliers.\n\nThose are California's numbers and other states aren't close. Texas protects a homestead by making the lien nearly impossible to create after the fact: the contract must be written, \"signed by both spouses\" if the owner is married, \"executed before the material is furnished or the labor is performed,\" and filed with the county clerk. Your rules live in your state's lien code and at your county recorder's office — check them before assuming a lien is valid.\n\nIf the job stopped mid-stream: keep every preliminary notice, ask the subs and suppliers who sent them whether they were paid, and for any money still going out use joint checks payable to the contractor *and* the sub, against signed lien releases.\n\n## Small claims court, and when it beats a lawyer\n\nSmall claims exists for exactly this and is badly underused: small filing fees, fast hearings, lawyers often barred outright. The limit is the whole question, and it's set state by state. California lets a natural person sue for up to **$12,500** (Code of Civil Procedure § 116.221); Texas justice courts hear matters \"in which the amount in controversy is not more than **$20,000**, exclusive of interest\" (Government Code § 27.031). Yours sits somewhere in that neighborhood or below, and if your loss is modestly over it, waiving the excess often beats an attorney's fee.\n\nWhere your state allows it, **name the surety as a defendant alongside the contractor** — though California caps what a small claims court can order a surety to pay across all claims against that contractor. And a **judgment is not money**: in California an unsatisfied final judgment reported to CSLB suspends the license until it's paid, and a suspended license means he can't legally work. That is frequently what produces the check.\n\nBring an attorney when the loss is well above the limit, when a lien is recorded against your home, or when your contract has an attorney-fee clause that shifts the math. Watch this clock too: California allows **four years** on a written contract (Code of Civil Procedure § 337), and oral agreements get less nearly everywhere.\n\n## When abandonment becomes a crime\n\nPolice often tell homeowners \"this is a civil matter,\" and for one unfinished job that's usually right. Not always, though, and the line is statutory. California's Penal Code § 484b makes it a public offense to take money for labor or materials and then willfully \"wrongfully divert\" it elsewhere — a fine up to **$10,000** and jail when the diverted amount exceeds **$2,350**, a misdemeanor at or below. Illinois runs a dedicated Home Repair Fraud Act, and its attorney general treats door-to-door and post-disaster home repair fraud as a pattern the office pursues.\n\nWhat moves a file from a shrug to a case: **multiple victims** (one is a dispute, six is a scheme — search county court records and the board's complaint history for the name and any DBA); **a license or insurance certificate that turns out fake or borrowed**; **money taken with no work started**; and **a habit of collecting deposits and moving on**, the [storm-chaser model](/home/storm-chaser-roofers/) in its purest form.\n\nFile with local police and get a report number even if they're unenthusiastic, with the DA's economic crimes unit if one exists, and with your state attorney general. Criminal cases rarely pay you directly, though restitution orders exist — but prosecutors get interested once a stack of identical complaints accumulates, and yours has to be in it.\n\n## The permit is your problem now\n\nIf the work was done without a permit, or with one pulled in *your* name, you inherited it. Unpermitted structural, electrical, gas, or plumbing work surfaces at the worst moment: when an appraiser or a buyer's inspector walks the house. Retroactive permitting means opening finished walls so an inspector can see behind them, then correcting whatever turns up. Disclosure duties at sale vary by state, but they run one way — you don't get to un-know it.\n\nThe worse version is a permit pulled in your name. CSLB is direct: \"When you sign a building permit application as an owner-builder, you assume full responsibility for all phases of your project and its integrity,\" including \"making sure all suppliers are paid\" and supervising subcontractors — and if you use anyone other than a licensed sub, \"you may be considered an 'employer',\" with the tax and workers' compensation exposure that carries. A contractor who asked you to pull the permit \"to save time\" moved the liability onto you before he left.\n\n## What not to do\n\n**Don't pay more to get it finished.** The most common way a $9,000 loss becomes a $22,000 loss is the call where materials went up and he needs one more draw first. Payment must never run ahead of completed work — that rule is in [the vetting checklist](/home/vet-a-contractor/) for a reason, and it applies double once he's broken it.\n\n**Don't let him back on site without a new written agreement** — revised scope, dated schedule, payment released only against completed and inspected stages, lien releases at each stage. A verbal \"he's coming Tuesday\" resets nothing and blurs the abandonment date every other claim relies on.\n\n**Don't post the review yet.** Post it after the card dispute, the board complaint, and the bond claim are filed; publishing first tips him off to move money and re-register under a new name. Gag clauses can't stop you later — 15 U.S.C. § 45b voids form-contract provisions restricting a customer's ability to review a business — so write what the folder proves.\n\n**Don't sign anything he sends to make it go away**, and don't demolish the unfinished work. A settlement or a \"final invoice acknowledgment\" is cheap for him and permanent for you; the half-built work is evidence, and its condition on a given date is what every claim argues about.\n\n**Don't hire the next one in a hurry.** Whoever finishes this inherits someone else's half-built work, the least popular job in the trades — [why nobody will take the job](/home/nobody-will-take-the-job/) covers getting it picked up, and [the real price ranges](/home/is-this-quote-a-scam/) keep the rescue quote honest.", "costs": [], "faq": [ { "q": "I paid three months ago. Is it too late to dispute the credit card charge?", "a": "The statutory window is 60 days from the first statement showing the charge (12 CFR § 1026.13), so past that you've lost the right to force an investigation. You haven't necessarily lost the money: issuers and card networks run longer discretionary windows for services never rendered. Call, ask, and follow up in writing with the contract and dates attached. Meanwhile file the board complaint and the bond claim — those deadlines are usually measured in years, not weeks." }, { "q": "I paid by Zelle. Is that money just gone?", "a": "The chargeback route is gone; the money may not be. Regulation E's protections cover an unauthorized transfer, which the CFPB defines as one 'initiated by a person other than the consumer without actual authority to initiate the transfer and from which the consumer receives no benefit.' A payment you sent yourself doesn't qualify, however thoroughly you were deceived. Report it to your bank anyway — it costs nothing and creates a record — then go straight to the licensing board, the bond, and small claims, none of which care how you paid." }, { "q": "A subcontractor put a lien on my house. I already paid the contractor in full. How is that legal?", "a": "Because the claim runs against the property, not against you. CSLB's homeowner guide names the outcome plainly: 'Double payment for the same job — if the homeowner pays the prime contractor and then has to pay the subcontractors, suppliers, or workers who weren't paid by the prime.' Your defense is the deadline calendar, not the fairness argument. In California a sub must serve a 20-day preliminary notice, record within 90 days, and file a foreclosure action within 90 days of recording — and CSLB notes claimants often fail to follow through. Every one of those numbers differs in your state. Get the recording date from the county recorder and check it against your state's windows before paying anyone." }, { "q": "Will the licensing board get my money back?", "a": "Usually not directly, and CSLB says so itself: 'we cannot guarantee that you will get any money back.' What a board reliably delivers is investigation, discipline, mediation or arbitration in some states, a public complaint record, and — in California — suspension of the license over an unpaid judgment, which is genuine leverage on anyone who still wants to work. A minority of states add a homeowner recovery fund: Maryland's pays actual loss up to $30,000 per claimant, licensed contractors only. File the complaint, but run the card dispute, bond claim, and court route in parallel rather than waiting on it." }, { "q": "The contractor turned out to be unlicensed. Am I worse off?", "a": "Legally, often better off. There's no license to discipline and no bond to claim, but several licensing states let you recover everything: California's Business and Professions Code § 7031(b) allows a person who used an unlicensed contractor 'to recover all compensation paid to the unlicensed contractor' — the full amount, not the shortfall. Check whether your state has an equivalent before you settle for a partial refund. The trade-off: recovery funds like Maryland's exclude unlicensed contractors entirely." }, { "q": "Can I get him arrested for taking my deposit?", "a": "Sometimes, and the threshold is statutory. California's Penal Code § 484b makes willfully diverting construction funds a public offense, punishable by a fine up to $10,000 and jail when the diverted amount exceeds $2,350, a misdemeanor at or below it. Illinois runs a standalone Home Repair Fraud Act. What actually gets a case opened is a pattern: several victims, a fake or borrowed license, forged paperwork, money taken with no work started. One incomplete job reads as breach of contract. File the report anyway — the report number is what complaint number six attaches to." }, { "q": "He wants to come back and finish. Should I let him?", "a": "Only under a new written contract: revised scope, dated schedule, payment released only against completed and inspected stages, and signed lien releases from every subcontractor at each stage. Understand what an informal restart costs you — it muddies the abandonment date every other claim depends on, and can quietly restart clocks you were counting on. If the relationship has already produced one vanishing act, paper is the only thing that changes the odds." }, { "q": "There's no permit on file for work that obviously needed one. What now?", "a": "You own that problem, and it surfaces at resale. Retroactive permitting generally means opening finished work so an inspector can see it, plus correcting whatever gets found. Check your city's permit portal now — and check whose name is on any permit that was pulled. If it's yours as an owner-builder, CSLB's warning applies: you assumed 'full responsibility for all phases of your project and its integrity,' including making sure all suppliers are paid and supervising subcontractors, and you may count as an 'employer' for tax and workers' compensation purposes. Better to raise this with your building department early than with a buyer's inspector later." } ], "sources": [ { "label": "Cornell Law: 12 CFR § 1026.13 (billing error resolution, 60-day notice)", "url": "https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/12/1026.13", "accessed": "2026-08-19" }, { "label": "CFPB: How can I get a refund on a product or service I purchased with my credit card?", "url": "https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-can-i-get-a-refund-on-a-product-or-service-i-purchased-with-my-credit-card-en-1969/", "accessed": "2026-08-19" }, { "label": "CFPB: Electronic Fund Transfers FAQs (definition of an unauthorized EFT)", "url": "https://www.consumerfinance.gov/compliance/compliance-resources/deposit-accounts-resources/electronic-fund-transfers/electronic-fund-transfers-faqs/", "accessed": "2026-08-19" }, { "label": "CSLB: Complaint process against licensed contractors (restitution, arbitration limits)", "url": "https://www.cslb.ca.gov/consumers/filing_a_complaint/Complaint_Against_Licensed_Contractors.aspx", "accessed": "2026-08-19" }, { "label": "CSLB: Bond basics (claims go to the surety, not the board)", "url": "https://www.cslb.ca.gov/contractors/bond_basics.aspx", "accessed": "2026-08-19" }, { "label": "CSLB: Contractor bond requirements ($25,000, effective January 1, 2023)", "url": "https://www.cslb.ca.gov/contractors/maintain_license/bond_information/bond_requirements.aspx", "accessed": "2026-08-19" }, { "label": "CSLB: A homeowner's guide to preventing mechanics liens (double payment, foreclosure)", "url": "https://www.cslb.ca.gov/Resources/GuidesAndPublications/HomeownersGuideToPreventingMechanicsLiens.pdf", "accessed": "2026-08-19" }, { "label": "CSLB: What if a mechanics lien is filed on your property? (20/90/90 day windows)", "url": "https://www.cslb.ca.gov/consumers/legal_issues_for_consumers/mechanics_lien/If_A_Mechanics_Lien_Is_Filed_Against_You.aspx", "accessed": "2026-08-19" }, { "label": "CSLB: Owner-builder responsibilities (signing the permit application)", "url": "https://www.cslb.ca.gov/consumers/know_risks_of_owner_-_builder/The_Responsibilities_Of_An_Owner_-_Builder.aspx", "accessed": "2026-08-19" }, { "label": "California Business and Professions Code § 7031 (recovering all compensation paid to an unlicensed contractor)", "url": "https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=BPC§ionNum=7031.", "accessed": "2026-08-19" }, { "label": "California Penal Code § 484b (diversion of construction funds)", "url": "https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=PEN§ionNum=484b.", "accessed": "2026-08-19" }, { "label": "California Code of Civil Procedure § 116.221 (small claims limit for natural persons)", "url": "https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CCP§ionNum=116.221.", "accessed": "2026-08-19" }, { "label": "California Code of Civil Procedure § 337 (four years on a written contract)", "url": "https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CCP§ionNum=337.", "accessed": "2026-08-19" }, { "label": "Texas Government Code § 27.031 (justice court jurisdiction, $20,000)", "url": "https://texas.public.law/statutes/tex._gov%27t_code_section_27.031", "accessed": "2026-08-19" }, { "label": "Texas Property Code § 53.254 (mechanic's lien on a homestead)", "url": "https://texas.public.law/statutes/tex._prop._code_section_53.254", "accessed": "2026-08-19" }, { "label": "Maryland Home Improvement Commission: Guaranty Fund FAQs", "url": "https://labor.maryland.gov/license/mhic/mhicfaqgf.shtml", "accessed": "2026-08-19" }, { "label": "Cornell Law: 15 U.S.C. § 45b (Consumer Review Fairness Act)", "url": "https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/45b", "accessed": "2026-08-19" }, { "label": "Illinois Attorney General: Home repair fraud", "url": "https://illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/consumer-protection/home-repair/", "accessed": "2026-08-19" } ], "updated": "2026-08-19", "url": "https://whodoicallfor.com/home/contractor-took-my-money/", "json_url": "https://whodoicallfor.com/home/contractor-took-my-money.json", "recommended_call": null }