AR Tile and Marble

We hired Guytano to complete a bathroom renovation due to mould. After falling prey to his sales-pitch and promises to include “free shower floor tile”, we hired him to complete the job. He was quick to include promises for daily work to be completed and for trades to be on-site by 8:30am each day until the job was done. We paid him his deposit (which he eagerly came to my house to pick up) and quickly learned we made a horrible mistake.

After delays to start the job (which we understand can happen in trades), I waited at home until 8:40am on the confirmed start date. We called him and he had multiple excuses and was rude on the phone, and when we started questioning if a crew was actually going to show up, he starting a coughing fit stating he was sick. He then promised a demolition crew would show up that same day. The crew did come at 5:40pm and were very surprised by the size of the job and were at my house until nearly 10pm! When I asked the crew when Guytano had called them to attend to my home, the crew said they had just been called that day. In other words, Guytano had not planned to send anyone to my home!

Guytano had promised (as per our contract and phone conversations) that the next crew (plumbing) would come the next day. We did communicate with Guytano and he promised a plumbing crew would come to our home on a Saturday and no one showed up. We attempted to contact Guytano - but no response.

It has now been nearly 2 weeks and we have been left with a demolished bathroom and a financial loss. We kindly asked Guytano via text to reimburse our deposit as he has clearly defaulted on his agreement and contract with us. There has not been a response.

He is very savvy and quick to share personal problems to make you feel bad for him. This is all part of the act and method to con you. We would have been okay if Guytano had the dignity and respect to give us our money back.

In my opinion this is theft and fraudulent behavior.
I strongly discourage anyone from trusting him and DO NOT HIRE him!!! You will be at a loss.

Please take caution. I had at least 4 different tilers come in to provide quotes for a large tiling project at home. Gaetano had come in to take a look at the scope of the work and was very pleasant and friendly. However I did notice that his company was the only one that did not take measurements or note anything down in terms of what needed to be worked on at my home. When we had finally received the quote, it was much higher than what was expected and was significantly more than the other 3 tiling companies - almost a $5000 dollar difference. I had asked for a price breakdown for the different projects we were planning to do with ABJM and it was definitely not clear and a little sketchy.

We also had a cousin who had used ABJM for their kitchen backsplash and it was a fairly decent job but the edging where the tile ended was not as clean as I would have liked. Because it was somewhat decent and our friend mentioned Gaetano seemed pleasant we decided to request for a quote.

I recently found out that another dear friend had recently used ABJM and their home reno project has so far been a complete disaster. The project was prolonged and all-in-all became such a huge mess things ended so badly between ABJM and my friend. I would rather not talk about how bad their project became and the kind of threats he directed towards my friend - in fear of what could potentially happen next.

I was also caught in the situation that the previous reviewer commented on. The extortion attempt is legitimate, don’t fall for it or pay him out any further. Ask for documentation and refer to the Consumer Protection Agency and report him to the fraud division of the region the work was done in.
Gaetano/Guytano of ABJM Marble, Tile and Demolition (whatever he’s going by based on the inconstant signatures), started off with a promising sales pitch, filled with freebies such as marble tiles, toilets, and handiwork but above all a commitment to timelines, quality and trust. We made the foolish mistake of paying Gaetano/Guytano a substantial down payment. In addition, Gaetano/Guytano asked for 2 advances on payments, citing a sad story about his brother being hospitalized, and how he was in dire need due to other funds being held on him (we have evidence of cheuqes being cashed and transcripts of conversations). The whole story about his brother is fictional.
We entered into a contract with him on January 3rd for a 10 day estimated completion and we’re now at February 20th, with my home is disarray. I had to fire Gaetano/Guytano after he yelled at my wife for calling him out on his unfair practices with sub-contractors. It came to our attention that he hadn’t been paying the subs for their work on our house, also to note, all 3 of which had not worked with him in the past. Even the garbage bin company has been trying to chase him down. Worst of all, after he had strung them along about payments for weeks, he changed his story and sent them after me and my wife for payments.
He’s quick with a “sir” and over the top commitments but beneath the façade there’s a very unprofessional individual.
Gaetano/Guytano, I know you’ll be reading this and will quickly go to work in denying and assigning the blame on the client or sub-contractor. Not a wise move in my opinion, own up to it. All I ask is that you make it right with the hard-working sub-contractors that you owe money to. I’m not even trying to get my money back or additional work from you, in fact, I wish to never see or hear about you again. I urge you to be an honest business person and pay out those individuals with proceeds from our deposit plus 2 additional payments I made to you. Totaling $9,000. I will not be intimidated by you. I encourage others to come forward on home stars since this is the funnel he uses to attract clients.

At first, I was very happy to have Gaetano do our kitchen tile renovation. His was the highest of three quotes I received but I liked that he would do the job quickly. He seemed very professional and passionate about his job and was very responsive to my calls/texts. However, the job took 7 days (vs promised 3) and the quality of the work was sub-par, so much so that I had to call them back out to redo sections. Other parts I had to fix myself including broken kickboards and nails sticking out of the new grout. When I called Gaetano about how the tile was being laid and my concerns, he lashed out at me and my father-in-law over the phone and told me to take it up with his sub-contractors, not him. Gaetano and I later negotiated the fee from $3,000 down to $2,500 to make up for the concerns I had, however he asked that I give him a 10/10 star rating on HomeStars and in return he would buy my backspash from Olympia (see attached invoice for written agreement). He subsequently was noticeably slow in returning my calls or texts and later stopped responding when I gave him the tile selection, although he did say at one point that my tile would be ordered the next day. After receiving no reply for several days, I called Olympia tile myself saying I was a customer of ABJM and wanted to see if they had placed an order yet for my tile - I was told they received no such order but that they had plenty of my backsplash in stock for me. At that I left Guatano a voicemail with a follow up text informing him of what Olympia said and telling him our deal was off. Only then did he reply to me, via long, rambling text messages, refusing to speak on the phone. In the texts he lashes out yet again with legal threats and told me he had called the police on me for harassing him. He threatened to make cassettes of my voicemail and distribute them around my office. He also told me he got a letter from the "Olympia boss" stating that I impersonated him, he also threatened to come to my work and post something (not legible) in the foyer about me. Out of respect for Gaetano I am not posting the disturbing text message exchange but will attach the written agreement we had. After I told him I would be updating my HomeStar review he offered me a 45% discount to not change it, to which I declined and reiterated that I did not want the deal anymore, wished him well and asked him not contact me again.

Gaetano was a good salesman and did a very good job up front, however he did not oversee the team and the result was an unsatisfactory job. In my view he handled criticism or customer complaints poorly and did not follow through on his commitment regarding the backsplash. I have tried to share the facts here and stay as objective as possible given the situation.

Gaetano is a great salesman. The work was almost perfect with the exception of one corner, which was due to miscommunication. In the future I would keep better records of our conversations.

All in all, I'm very satisfied. Gaetano even removed a lot of our construction garbage free off charge. Which was going above and beyond.

We currently have Gaetano and his team working on our kitchen backsplash. Thus far, Gaetano has been great to work with. We will have a full review when we see the final product! Fingers crossed!

Guytano’s team did a great job installing the marble backsplash in my kitchen. I wanted a more complex design over my stove and they delivered. I would absolutely recommend ABJM tile and marble.