Sounds dodgy to me aswell.
A few years ago we employed the services of a home hanyman (not a licenced anything, big mistake!) to do our bathroom. Not only was he buying and charging for twice the amount of material he needed and keeping the excess eg bags of grout but it was discovered that he was using left over material from previous jobs that he had charged other people for on our job and then charging us for them.
He had insisted that we pay as he did the job in installments which he convinced us was because he needed the cash to pay for materials. He gave us lots of hard luck stories about needing the money to pay for his kids Christmas presents ect. Of course I fell for it for a while until I realised with some good advise from friends that he was just milking us for all we were worth.
It was only discovered when I asked for an itemised account of all he had purchased and he was not able to provide them. He tried to produce a receipt for some of it but most of the receipts were months old.
To top it all of I was left with a 2cm gap where the bath meets the tiles.
When I asked him what the gap was for he told me it was quite normal, that his bath at home had the same thing. I asked what if water was to get down there and he told me that would be unlikely. Obviously he never had small children who likes to put water everywhere.
As you can imagine I fired him with the job only half done but to this day I don't really know what he purchsed with the amount I had already given him.
Lessons learnt
1. Get solid quotes befor job begins.
2. Pay when job is completed not as you go.
3. Pay extra for a licenced plumber, don't use handymen.
4. Get aggrement that you can see all receipts after job is completed or as he buys materials.
