Business ProfileforEmpire Water Main & Sewer Inc.

The Empire Water Main & Sewer *** (in the bronx) was assigned a job for our company for a plumbing job on May 16th 2022 that they were supposed to start the following week. Our company paid 50% of the payment, which was $6,750 to them as an advanced payment. When we called them a few days later, they said that we are waiting for the permits. When we checked, they had NOT applied for the permits. We called them again and after several calls they said "you have to pay for the permits" whereas the permit amount was ***luded in the 50% advancements. Still, due to the demand, we gave them an extra $700 for permits on June 14th. We kept checking with DOT but there was no submission of permits. We wrote countless emails and calls to which the first few were answered but rudely. This was surprising because of the change in attitude. We had no time to keep going back and forth after the long delay they did and the state job was already started so we hired another plumber. This was damaging for our project. We informed them that due to their delay and unprofessionalism and dishonesty, we hired another plumbing company. We told them to return our advanced payments and the permit amount we payed ($7,450 in total). This was when they fully disappeared and never responded to one email or phone call. After a long and stressful wait, they responded to an email on October 24th 2022 where we stated that legal action would have to be taken against them if the payments weren't returned within one week. Surprisingly, just a minute after our email was sent, they responded saying "We had some issues with the permit and we will refund your money ($7,450) as soon as possible within this week (friday)". We gave them the benefit of doubt and believed them yet again but s***e then, not only have we not received an email or a call to update us, but we also haven't received the payment.