EastIdahoNews.com investigates asphalt company after business complaints

IDAHO FALLS — A number of Idaho Falls business owners are angry at a local asphalt company for not doing the job it promised.

“They are fast-working scam artists,” commercial property owner Rick Christensen said. “What they were doing is nothing I have ever seen done to a parking lot.”

Christensen and Tim Colling, the owner of Colling Pest Solutions, say Joles Asphalt was hired to refinish parking lots at their businesses, but they claim the paving company did not use the right materials or complete the job.

They said they were scammed Joles, which used a tactic that has been used by similar paving companies around the country.

Joles Asphalt owner Charlie Joles disputes the accusations and tells EastIdahoNews.com his company offered to redo the projects to make things right.

What happened

Christensen says Joles Asphalt contacted him last week and offered to patch two holes on his lot at a bargain price. Workers with the company said they had extra asphalt left over from a job on Skyline Road.

Christensen gave Joles the go-ahead and later went to his property to inspect the work. He says he was shocked to see the workers spreading gravel across his lot. Christensen confronted them and they maintained he had agreed to the work being done and they promised to give him a good price on the entire lot.

“I felt stuck because I did agree to their work,” Christensen tells EastIdahoNews.com. “But they were doing more than I agreed to and honestly I didn’t know whose misunderstanding it was.”