Local News 8 investigates – “Some folks then will use ways of avoiding civil liability,” says Randy Neal

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) - A Local News 8 investigation continues, 10 people, each claiming they are owed money for construction work that was left unfinished by Re-Lived Construction and it’s owner Brandon Book.

Read their full story HERE.

Within the investigation, we spoke with the non profit organization Life a Center for Independent Living. 

They sent me bank transactions showing $200,000 paid to Cook for construction, but they say he never showed up. 

Local News 8's investigation discovered that Re-Lived Construction, which has since shut down, was never properly licensed by the state.

Local News 8 took these complaints directly to Brandon Cook, who claims, he never received money from the non-profit. He apologized to the home owners and said he wants to pay them back.  

For the full story of his apology and explanation, click HERE.

Local News 8 wants to use this situation to help make you a more savvy consumer.

Questions continue around why these type of complaints did not go through with legal action.

Following our investigation, We sat down with the Bonneville County Prosecutor, who explained the difficulties and confusion consumers have to go through when seeking legal action.

He told Local News 8 the prosecutor's office was keeping track of several contractors in the area.

Neal said a red flag they look out for are contractors who repeatedly change business names.

Neal told Local News 8 it comes down to determining if the contractor fell into bad business practices or had the initial intent to deprive the customer of what they paid for.

One is criminal activity, the other is not.

“A lot of these contractors will start a project with somebody's money," said Neal. "...but then use other parts of that money to go pay for somebody else's project.

"It's almost like a Ponzi scheme. They're just constantly trying to pay you know, take money from Peter to to pay for Paul's project. Those are bad business practices."

The business practices Neal described match nearly word for word what Brandon Cook told us he did in our interview.

"My biggest thing was we were trying to bid jobs to be competitive," Cook told Local News 8.

"It was costing us more on jobs than what we originally estimated. And trying to cover those was basically using a deposit from our next customer."

However, when a company shuts down, prosecutor Neal says you are likely out of options.

"What we're seeing is some folks then will use ways of avoiding civil liability so that the remedies under a lawsuit they can't collect on because they change the name of their companies, they bankrupt whatever it might be," said Neal.

So how can you be proactive before hiring a contractor?

The answer only creates more questions. 

Neal says smaller jurisdictions often lack the law enforcement resources to conduct a forensic investigation into a contractor's accounting records, which makes smaller cities like Idaho Falls and Pocatello vulnerable.

“As long as they stay away from a jurisdiction where they have that capability of really following the money and getting all of the the the accounting and the funds and the different accounts that they can continue to to take advantage of people," said Neal.

We asked is there no recourse for the group of 10 who reached out to Local News 8?

It's unlikely, but their story can become a warning for the rest of us.

We found seven steps everyone needs to take when vetting a contractor to avoid situations like this.

That's the focus of our next special report which will air Sunday, Feb. 4 on Local News 8 at 5.