re: Anyone else been victims of contractor fraud?

Unfortunately, the mortgage company did not allow that. They gave us a check up front for about $45k which we had to sign over to the contractor as per the company's policy. He completed that work. But when it came time for the additional $30k to be handed over, the work just stopped after we gave him the check. Our second contractor said we probably should have done some sort of account where we'd both have access to the money and would be able to see how much he was withdrawing from the account. Yeah we're thinking about suing the mortgage company as well.