Hello and thank you for participating in this forum. On Thursday, April 15 I gave a cash deposit to the significant other of a friend of mine that is wanting to get his construction business off the ground. The job description was to tear off the one layer of shingles on my 960 sq ft, 111 yr old little bungalow house and very small garage. He scratched a few numbers making calculations on a notebook I lent him. He didn't have any business like forms. He came up with numbers that I didn't realize were way off to the tune of he quoted me $4,300 for labor only for my little roof with 17.65 squares. I was buying the materials myself. I gave him the $2,500 deposit. No contract was signed or even discussed. On Monday April 19th I texted him asking for a receipt for the the $2,500 deposit. He responded "yup". He said he would write one up. No denying that the transaction had occurred or denying that it had been for that amount. He never has given me any kind of a receipt for the deposit. It's very frustrating as he isn't very responsive to calls or texts. I received a call from Menards on Sunday April 25th in the afternoon telling me that they were out of stock of some of the items in my order of roofing supplies. They won't have any arriving for at least 18 days as the warehouse is out of stock until they can get a shipment from their wholesaler. I texted the contractor immediately. He replied "ok". So now the job is postponed indefinitely. Today, Tuesday April 27th, I found out that while i was at work over the weekend my parents had had the "roofing guy" that they've used for their rental properties for the last 25 years come by my place to get an estimate for them from him on my reshingle the rooves job. It was much lower than the verbal estimate I'd been given. The estimate I'd been told was $4,300 for just labor. No materials of any kind. No dumpster. Just labor. The estimate that my parents contractor worked up came to $4,976. That figure includes tear off of the shingles on both the house and garage, and the dumpster to put it all in. That's already more value than what my estimate quoted. Their estimate also included all the materials and labor for all new gutters for both the house and the garage. Less than $700 difference for so much more value. And I strongly suspect much higher quality craftsmanship also. My parents know that my pockets aren't very deep. They feel at this point in their lives they want to do some good with their money for their kids. They said that they would pay for the roof job but only if I used their contactor. I feel like I don't really have any choice here. The job, if using the first contractor, has been suspended indefinitely through no fault of my own. The second guy has a much bigger crew than the first guy so he'll be able to get it all done in one day as opposed to 4-5 days with the first contractor. Since it's such a small job, the second contractor said he could squeeze me in almost immediately. I called the first contractor today but he didn't answer. I sent him a lengthy text explaining the situation that my parents have put me in and that I need my deposit back since he won't be doing my roof. I think that he doesn't know that deposit monies need to be put in an escrow account until its time to pay out. I apologize for length of this. What do I do? How can I get my money back? Especially since I feel like he's already spent it. Thank you for listening, Dee Johnson