NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – An Iraq War veteran says he was scammed by an appliance repairman who took hundreds of dollars without doing any work. After the veteran did some digging, he realized the same repairman was the subject of a number of Fox 8 Defenders reports.
Michael Dougherty and his family had just moved to New Orleans when, one day last February, water was everywhere.
“We couldn’t stop the flow of water going to it, because there was constant water,” Dougherty said. “So we had to keep bailing it out.”
The upstairs washing machine was wreaking havoc on the ceiling below inside the more than 100-year-old home.
“This is a very old house, so that’s something that can be problematic, yes,” Dougherty said.
Dougherty’s wife did a quick online search for a repairman and found Alvin Birotte.
“My wife reached out to a number of companies and he was the first one to respond,” Dougherty said. “I thought he seemed very professional. He was very personable. I liked the estimate that he gave us. It was very detailed and listed all of the parts that we needed and so forth, and everything seemed great.”
Dougherty said Birotte asked for $600 to cover the parts up front. So, he paid up.
“We gave him cash, what cash we had at the time,” Dougherty said. “He wouldn’t take a check because we just moved from Florida, so it was an out-of-state check. And the rest, we paid him via Cash App.
“He said, ‘Give me about 10 days for the parts.’ So, after about 10…
