LIBERTY, Mo. — As soon as handyman Jamie Seib saw FOX4 Problem Solvers waiting for him outside the courthouse, he started to run.
That surprised us since we were only there to learn his side in disputes with multiple customers all of whom accuse him of defrauding them.
Among those customers was Deborah Mason who has sued Seib for the $1,500 she paid him as a deposit to paint her Pleasant Valley home. The work was supposed to be completed in a week, but that was months ago.
Mason said as soon as she gave Seib money, she started having trouble getting hold of him.
“He was missing in action for about a week,” Mason said.
But then Seib texted her saying he’d need $400 more before he could start the job. When she refused, Seib promised to start painting to prove to her he was trustworthy.
That Saturday he showed up with a ladder and spent an hour caulking boards outside her home. He even dropped off a contractor-size bucket of paint. Then, Mason said, he disappeared again.
For days they exchanged increasingly heated text messages, until Mason received a final text from Seib letting her know he wasn’t coming back.
“Ok I’m done with all of your disrespectful and negative thoughts toward me. Please put my ladder in the driveway and I’ll be there to pick it up,” Seib texted.
Mason then demanded her money back, but Seib has never given her a dime. That’s when she filed suit and called FOX4 Problem Solvers.
“I feel somebody needs to stop this from happening to other people,” Mason said.
Problem Solvers wanted Seib’s side. So we tracked him down at the Clay County Justice Center where he’s facing stealing charges for taking $4,800 to install carpet from another customer and never doing the job.
Although that customer was not in court, Mason was and so was Rachel Cox, another angry Seib customer.
Both women watched from the gallery as Seib, who appeared without an attorney, told the judge he was innocent. The judge ordered him to have a court-appointed attorney at his next court date on July 19.
“I hired Jamie Seib to build a deck for me,” Cox said, after the court proceeding. Cox said she paid him $5,000, but the workmanship was so bad that the deck started collapsing just weeks after he finished the job.
“I asked him several times to come out and fix what was wrong, but he never did,” Cox said.
Included in the what-was-wrong list were footings that had no concrete support and split wood. Cox was granted a $2,000 judgment against Seib in small claims court. That was nine months ago. She said she hasn’t seen a dime.
Meanwhile, Seib’s already bad day was about to get even worse. Problem Solvers was recording everything on camera.
“I’m not going to talk to you,” he told FOX4.
But Seib will have to talk to the judge.
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