Local contractor accused of taking $50K from customer, not finishing job

ALLEGHENY COUNTY, Pa. — A local contractor is accused of taking more than $50,000 from a customer, only to never finish the job he was hired for.

Dylan Seelnacht, 30, is facing charges of theft by deception, theft by failure to make required deposit of funds, deceptive or fraudulent business practices and home improvement fraud.

According to our news partners at the Trib, Seelnacht does business as Seelnacht Iconic Interiors and was hired by a woman in mid-December to renovate her home that was damaged by a fire.

The Trib reports that the woman told investigators she was quoted a price of $51,546 for new kitchen cabinets in August and was told the order needed to be placed before Labor Day to avoid an 8% price increase.

The woman gave Seelnacht a chest for $50,000 on Sept. 1, the Trib reports. The initial check and the remainder of the bill were both deposited into Seelnacht’s account.

The Trib also said that the woman became suspicious of Seelnacht when he told her he ordered and paid for the cabinets but wouldn’t show her an invoice for the items. She checked the supplier’s website and found the price she was quoted was twice the listed cost.

The woman again asked Seelnacht to give her an invoice for the order. He refused and she asked for him to cancel it and refund her, to which he said he couldn’t because the order was placed two months earlier and some of the cabinets were special order, according to the Trib.

Seelnacht allegedly stopped communicating with the woman after she contacted the supplier and learned there wasn’t an order placed under her name or address. Instead, Seelnacht placed an order in November and they were to be delivered to his house.

The company also told the woman they could cancel the order with no problem and that none of the cabinets were custom-made, the Trib reports. Seelnacht also never made payments on the order.

The Trib said Seelnacht told investigators that he shouldn’t have “strung” the woman along and that he was willing to refund some of the money she paid for the cabinets, but not the money that would have been his profit if he had completed the job.

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