Contractor, at Center of 9 Complaints, Talks With WRAL

WRAL's 5 on Your Side has received nine complaints against Phil Piurkoski and his company, Dimensional Decking. The contractor does accept some responsibility, but said he feels that for the most part, the problems are not his fault.

Posted 1:23 a.m. Feb 7, 2008 — Updated 1:51 a.m. Feb 7, 2008

CARY, N.C. — WRAL's 5 on Your Side has received nine complaints against contractor Phil Piurkoski and his company, Dimensional Decking. Six are from customers, and three come from former employees.

Some complaints were resolved, but Piurkoski admittedly owes thousands of dollars to some of the other complainants. He told 5 on Your Side that he accepts some responsibility, but feels for the most part that the problems are not his fault.

“It was just the principle of him having our money and not calling us back,” complainant Paige Briggs said.

Briggs paid Piurkoski a down payment of $2,000 to build a deck. It was never constructed.

“Do you wonder what his problem is?" WRAL asked another complainant, Monty Monteith. "No, I don't. I don't. I don't care. We all have issues. We don't have to steal money," he said.

The Better Business Bureau has 12 complaints against Piurkoski on file. Court records show five judgments totaling more than $19,300 have been entered against him over the last 18 months. Six more judgments were found dating to 1989.

Piurkoski said he has not cheated anyone and blames the problems on unreliable workers.

"We had a lot of problems with crews. Couldn't keep good crews on-site," he said.

Some crew workers told WRAL that Piurkoski wouldn't pay them.

"Well, when you have someone who goes you know, halfway through a job and then leaves, I mean, what do you do?" Piurkoski asked. "I used to always get my jobs done. This is really the first time this has happened to me, in a long time."

Customers who complained to WRAL said their real problem was Piurkoski's failure to communicate. The complainants said Piurkoski wouldn't even return phone calls.

"I was calling them. ... (And) probably didn't communicate as good as I could have with some people, and I'll own that," he said.

Piurkoski also promised to pay back three customers this week, including Briggs and Monteith.

"It's my business. I'm gonna make it good," he said.

Piurkoski claims one of our complainants broke the contract, so he will not refund that person's money even though the customer won a court judgment.

Piurkoski also told WRAL he plans to change the way he operates his business.

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