My parents were ready to do a full reno/addition on our house. My dad worked for a lumberyard, and was formerly a contractor so he knew plenty of contractors. Hired a guy he knew well, helped design the plans, arranged payment for each leg of the project.
About midway through the project, after putting an entire second floor on the house, but before electrical, plumbing, insulation, or sheetrock could be put in, my parents noticed the invoices are way off from where they should be. They get an itemized list of the supplies ordered. There’s a ton of stuff not needed for the project, and that my dad knew wasn’t even remotely being used in our house. He brings this up to the builder, and the guy dismisses him, telling him if his guys ordered it, it must be getting used. My dad argues with him about it, the dude pulls his team off of our project, and my parents ended up having to go to court over it. It turns out the guy’s crew would moonlight independently, and would order extra supplies for people’s projects that weren’t needed, then take them to use in their other work.
The judge ruled my parents didn’t have to pay for the materials not used in our house, but that the builder was not obligated to finish the project, beyond making sure what was done was up to code.
Building inspector came in, made a list of what needed fixing. A couple weeks later, he calls back and says everything is magically up to code. The builder paid him off, so my parents were left with about 1800 sq feet of unfinished house, with really shoddy work, and no money left to finish it.
The house is still unfinished 15 years later. The builder eventually went bankrupt from multiple lawsuits. Somehow he re-opened with a smaller crew.