Contractor and Clients Wage War Online, and In Court

Sept. 28, 2007— -- Steve Sieber is a veteran Washington D.C. contractor who has been in the business for 25 years. He has a charming smile and a zealous sales pitch that keeps him very busy. Sieber's company boasts more than 100 home renovations a year.

Some of his customers, like Crista Cooper, gave him glowing reviews. "My experience was very, very positive," she said.

Another customer, Reverend James Webb added, "it was better than anything I could have imagined."

So why did this successful contractor, who lives in a comfortable house and drives a Jaguar from job to job, insist on introducing "20/20" to so many of his happy customers? Perhaps it's because some of his other clients are so angry.

"He's a conman extraordinaire. That's what he is," said Nick Mattera.

Watch the story tonight on "20/20" at 9 p.m. EDT

Sieber has a history of trouble. Back in 1990, an ABC News investigation found a flurry of complaints against him and asked if in fact Sieber was "the contractor from hell?"

Soon after, under pressure from Montgomery County Maryland officials, he agreed not to work there for three years. Now, 17 years later, the same contractor is facing similar complaints with different customers.

Customer Complaints

"He tells you what you want to hear. Even if it's not the truth. He lies," said customer Monica Hammock.

Sieber says he's not lying, his customers are. But in the age of the Internet, these dissatisfied homemakers have a new weapon that didn't exist almost two decades ago. Instead of just telling their neighbors about their complaints, they can post their dissatisfaction and bad reviews on the Web for all to see.

Customers took their fight to a consumer Web site called Angie's List, and after nine complaints against Sieber, the site issued what they say is an extremely rare "Consumer Alert" which indicates the company is investigating claims that Sieber "didn't finish jobs and performed very poor quality work."

What really angers Sieber are the anonymous complaints. He says Angie's List allows complainers to bad-mouth his business to its 600,000 subscribers and gives him no opportunity to respond.

'Big Trouble'

Sieber took his anger directly to the customer, leaving a voicemail threatening a lawsuit for millions of dollars on Monica Hammock's answering machine after she posted her complaint on Angie's List.

"So look up libel in the dictionary and you're gonna regret the day you ever put that on Angie's List. You're in big trouble," he said.

Sieber is very upset that people are going on the Internet and posting what he says are lies about him.

"My harassment was nothing more ... than to give them an opportunity to take it back, take it off," he said. "I said, 'You take it off Angie's List. You take the lies off Angie's List.'"

Sieber has a law suit pending against Angie's List which names five of his customers as co-conspirators, including Rich Luna who paid almost $100,000 for a major rehab that he says Sieber botched. Luna contends that his home is not livable, with "no back wall, no back door and we're still exposed to the elements."

Steve Sieber says Luna owes him more money. He also says that Luna was initially happy about the work and didn't fire him until he read about the Angie's List complaints in the Washington Post. Now, Sieber is suing the newspaper too, claiming a conspiracy to drive him out of business. And he has started his own Web site because he says, no-one else will give his full say.

Former customers of Sieber, now connected by the Internet, believe mistakes were made way too often by the man with a charming smile. Are they "clients from hell" out to ruin his business? Or is he, as they contend and "20/20" first asked decades ago, a "contractor from hell?"