He's a scam artist looking to make more on the project than we had agreed by over-improving and over-charging.Either way, I would have had him off my project in about 10 seconds.Did you have a written contract?

After doing some research, I found that the return address was actually the Post Office and that this was a common housing scam.

I've spent a lot of money on real estate courses from real estate "guru's" and some of those courses seemed like scams that haven't helped me at all no matter how hard I worked at it so hopefully with the information on this website and the real world advice from all of you I can finally take those first steps into real estate investing!

The quake insurance is a bit of a scam.

Or suggest a method to help me find one - and please don't say to look on a review site, which all seem to be scams, or to ask people I know who they use - because most of the people I know either do their own taxes or go to a place like H&R Block.And, as a final note, I am curious - how much does it typically cost to have a CPA do your taxes (either annually or quarterly if you are in the situation of having to file quarterly?)

But a website that's obviously a do-it-yourself job can undermine credibility since it makes you look either cheap or broke, neither of which makes a good impression.A professional-looking site gives the impression that you're actually in business and are not some sort of fly-by-night scam.  

I ask them to show me the email and what I gather, from the little Spanish I understand, is some scam artist is trying to get them to mail a deposit.

A majority of list brokers are scams, the only reputable service that I see time and time again is www.srds.com, more specific this link: http://www.srds.com/frontMatter/ips/category/directmktg.htmlThese folks seem to have their stuff together.

thanks...i called the local police about my options, and they said it was my call--I dont even think they were listening to me...but yeah, I did put a call into my lawyer and he is going to get back to me....for now I just moved there stuff in the basement/storage area---Come to find out with a little research they scammed me pretty good.

Sorry to here about this ,Sounds like attorney time ,this wont get your money back but you could always put the word out that he is a scam artist and make it real hard for him to find new investors-it really is a small community and once word gets out!!