Women say contractor scammed them out of thousands

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Two women are coming forward and demanding their money back after they say they paid their contractor thousands but ended up with zero results.

One woman is set to build a literacy academy and the other a nail tech school.

WREG has been digging into this for weeks and found out this contractor not only doesn’t have a license, but has been reportedly forging documents to get contracts.

Dr. Shayna Wilson showed us the work left undone by her contractor, Audrea Gilliom of AVE Concrete Contractors.

“I paid for doors there are no doors,” Wilson said. “I paid for the walls to be skim coated, painted primed, they’re not done.”

Wilson says right now, she is at her wits’ end.

The long-time educator is trying to undo and rebuild the work left unfinished by Gilliom. She is set to build the Little Learner’s Literacy Academy for pre-k-aged children off Mount Moriah.

With her opening looming and work unfinished, she sent her contractor a demand letter telling Gilliom to return $72,000. That’s just a portion of the $100,000 Wilson says she’s paid.

Dr. Wilson said, “I wanted a place where children can come, be safe, learn, grow, and be ready for kindergarten, and here I have this person who just decided I’m going to take all of that away in this period of time… it hurts.”

Wilson says even for the work that was done, it wasn’t up to Tennesee’s fire code for schools.

“They’re fire doors, so they’re supposed to close on their own and then they don’t close,” said Wilson.

Wilson says she has been dealing with Gilliom for a year, and the work was scheduled to be completed in two months.

Right now she says she just wants her money back, but Gilliom hasn’t offered to return payment.

“All of his messages are like, ‘If you dispute it with the bank, then they’ll give you your money back,'” she said.

It’s unclear why Gilliom couldn’t issue a refund himself, but she claims she did take it up with the bank.

Wilson says she was told that, since she signed a check and contract, it couldn’t be claimed as fraud. However, she was able to get $24,000 back by reversing a transaction on her credit card she used in one of the transactions for supplies.

At this time Wilson is still out $49,000.

WREG started digging deeper by first contacting the Tennessee State Board of Contractors.

The board shows at least one citation for unlicensed activity.

It doesn’t stop there — WREG took a look at the contract between Gilliom and Dr. Wilson and then looked up his license number. That’s when we found out through the state that it belonged to another company.

That company ended up sending this letter to Wilson saying they are not associated with Gilliom or AVE Concrete Contractors.

During WREG’s investigation, we also found out this wasn’t the first time Gilliom used a license number that wasn’t his.

He did the same thing with the Black Pearl Nail Academy.

At that location we found another contract from Gilliom, but this time with an expired license number from, yet another company.

In an email from the TN Board of Contractors, a spokesperson said, “I did not find any records in our database for Audrea Gilliom nor for AVE Contractors while the license number #65911 belongs to GS Contractors LLC in Collierville while #26638 belonged to Monroe, N.C. Construction in Greensboro, N.C. which failed to renew their license number.”

Duryia Caldwell, who owns the Black Pearl Nail Academy, also says her work was never completed.

Caldwell showed examples of work that is still not finished at her shop.

“The top of it is supposed to be sealed and done. You can see in the corners they just put it up there. At first it wasn’t even nailed down,” she said.

Caldwell says right now she is $110,000 in the hole and, while that stings, what hurts more is that she was the one to recommend Gilliom to Dr. Wilson.

“Only because Mr. Gilliom had done work for me before and has done a beautiful job on two different buildings that I own, were homes that I owned, which those were residential,” said Caldwell.

She said she first started noticing something was wrong in June of last year, when he gave her the bill.

“When he said, ‘Okay, you can go ahead and have your grand opening’ — well, during the grand opening, I said, ‘Well, we don’t have an occupancy license,'” Caldwell said. “He was like, ‘We’re going to get that done, no problem.'”

Caldwell showed us pictures to prove that didn’t happen.

The long-time licensed nail instructor also showed WREG her contract, where she pointed out Gilliom was, at one point, even responsible for securing an occupational license for her.

The occupational license is a government-issued permit that allows someone to work in a specific field for compensation.

“He was supposed to secure it,” Caldwell said. “That’s what’s in the contract. The contractor is supposed to secure the occupancy license, supposed to secure all inspections. That’s the plumbing, mechanical, electrical engineering, all of those.”

Caldwell has since gotten the certificate of occupancy by working with other contractors, but she says that means dishing out more money.

WREG tried to reach out to Gilliom by using the number and address listed on Wilson’s and Caldwell’s contracts, but we received no answer to a callback request.

We also checked with the Better Business Bureau and saw AVE Concrete Contractors had an ‘F’ on its report with multiple complaints, and wasn’t accredited.

“I help people to grow their business,” said Caldwell. “So not only did you affect my business, you affected that of so many other people that I’m trying to help.”

Caldwell says this experience has left a sour taste, saying she is trying to make a difference for entrepreneurs.

The same goes for Dr. Wilson as she tries to complete some of the work herself, saying she still has hope her school will fill the gaps in childcare and literacy as well.

“Teach one, reach one.” said Wilson. “I always say that and I think he’s kind of broken that for me.”

Both women have filed police reports against Gilliom.

Caldwell said, “As far as I’m concerned, he’s a fraud. He’s a fraud.”

The state has said since Gilliom is not a licensed contractor, all they can do is send him a citation and a letter.

However, they say with the allegations and documents presented he could be charged under Tennessee code, which states any contractor taking money without performing work may be prosecuted by law enforcement as theft.

The Tennessee Board of Contractors suggests when dealing with any contractor to make sure and check out its “license verification page.”

They also advise never paying the full amount “up front.”

We will continue to follow up on this situation as it continues to develop.

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