Scammed out of $1082 by a cleaning company that didn't perform the services they agreed to perform

I posted a long, detailed message on r/legaladvice but going to do my best to TLDR it here.

I called a highly recommended company that's been cleaning homes for 30 years to come out and deep clean my house. Someone showed up and checked it out and I showed him all what I wanted done. The owner texted me a full list of what would be included and how much it would cost and took down my credit card details.

When they showed up to clean, it was the guy who showed up a few days pervious, who was bilingual, and two Hispanic men who didn't speak English. He was paying them $100 a day as generic workers (what he told them on my Ring camera outside). They've apparently never cleaned before and didn't know how to work any of the equipment the guy had so I watched an awkward training session in my living room.

They did a terrible job, didn't deep clean any of the items that I asked for, and broke items in my house along with scratching up my stainless steel fridge. I had a long text conversation with the owner of the company who was a total d-bag and a complete slime ball. I realized he overcharged me by $32 which he said was a "processing fee" he told me about over the phone (lie). He first offered a $250 partial refund, then $300.

After a lot of fighting and condescending messages, he finally got on a 3 way phone call with me and the English speaking guy who was at my house. The owner then agreed to refund me $532 putting the job at a cost of $550 and I agreed just to end the nightmare.

It's been a week since that phone call and no refund came. I've been texting him asking for status updates. Today he said he was going to send me an agreement I'd have to sign and after that he'd give me the partial refund. I haven't responded to him yet but I'm not going to sign anything he sends me.

I called my credit card company, and they said they could file a partial or full dispute. This guy is such a terrible person, he'll likely take me to small claims court if I did that. Also, the dispute wouldn't cover the damage he did to my fridge. It's probably going to have to be replaced.

What do I do?

Posted Jul 10, 2026, 7:34 PM UTC

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