My Boat Works – Jerr Dunlap

This guy lives on his boat in my Marina. He fixes boats for a living and apparently specializes in wiring. I hired him to take over for another guy who burned me, SEVEN SEAS ELECTRONICS. Because of my past experience, I was pretty leery, but he’s like a neighbor, so I thought he would be legit. I was very close to having my electronics packages functioning correctly after months of frustration.
I just needed some cables fished through the helm and a transducer installed. In fact, I hooked up the wires when he arrived to show him it was all working, and told him all I wanted was the wires fished, the transducer installed and the lights for my compass hooked up (the wires were already there and just need to be hooked to power). He said it would be hard to make room in the helm for the STng cable, so I agreed for him to remove the old depth and speed gauges on the helm, but asked him to leave the wires bundled and zip-​tied under the cockpit so if the next owner wanted to wire them back in somewhere as backup, he could do so.
He wanted $ 500 in cash up front to start, which I gave him. He charges $ 75/​hr. I came back the next day, and he had not finished even the autopilot hookup yet (one wire). Plus, he disconnected all the old wring for the depth and sound right back to the panel, and had taken apart and incorrectly reinstalled my compass, making my gear shift lever and throttle inoperable. In addition, my fridge was no longer working. It had been working the previous day, and in fact, I had even taken the chunks of ice from the freezer and threw them overboard while he was working in the cockpit, after he turned off the power and the freezer defrosted.
He promised to come back the following day, but he never did. I kept calling him with no answer. I went to his boat a few days later and it looked like someone was inside but there was no answer. I called, no answer. Then about 10 minutes later, I’m on my boat checking on the work he did and saw him trying to sneak past my boat and off the dock. He was ducking down like in a movie or something. I called to him and he sheepishly came to my boat. I asked him to at least look at the panel he had apart to try and get the fridge working again. He found a wire that had been disconnected from when he took the panel apart to remove the old instrument wiring (he had no need to touch the panel!!). He reconnected it, but the fridge still won’t work. Then said he would be right back with a meter and never came back. 45 minutes later he finally returned a text saying he would come back the following morning, but never did. I’m concerned that the wire shorted out and ruined the electronics of the fridge/​freezer.
He refuses to fix what he broke, or finish started, and left a bunch of wires apart and I have no idea what they are for. I’m further behind now than when I started with him. My wallet is $ 500 lighter and now have to face an expensive fridge repair or replacement, get my controls fixed, figure out what the mess of wires he took apart are for and still get the original work done too.
This guys is an even bigger joke than Seven Seas. At least that guy (Robert) gave me an invoice for the cash I paid upfront. This guy didn’t even give me that, and I am reporting him to the IRS. Thankfully I had a witness see me give him the money.
The marina is full of dock fleas scamming people out of money. I intend to make a whole website on the people that have bled me dry out of Marina Del Rey in the hopes that people like me don’t end up with an anchor for a boat while these people rip them off. Avoid Jerr Dunlap and his company MY Boat Works like the plague.