Not exactly vmx but the same thing is happening around my town in southwest W.A. so it's not just in the ' States. The trick around here is to quote or give an estimate to get the job, and then charge whatever figure comes into your head,usually two or three times the estimate. When you question it, it's always beyond the contractors control. I've had five cases of it since the middle of February and because some of it applied to farm work it's big dollars. I've saved over $9000 on these jobs by fighting and by paying what the job was worth but it's f*****g annoying and very time consuming. My attitude is that it's theft, just like taking payment and not delivering the goods, same as you guys are talking about.
Back to vmx. How about running two lists. First one for the guys who know their stuff ( including a reliable service ) so that they can be supported in the way the deserve to be, and the second one a form of Blacklist so that we get caught less often by the mafia.
Where do we start ? Cheers, T250.