7 On Your Side: Helping a plow driver who says he got a snow job

FIVE TOWNS (WABC) -- Plowing snow during the winter can mean big bucks, and this winter kept drivers around the Tri-State Area busy. One man was owed tens of thousands of dollars for cleanup he did months ago, and despite a signed contract, the company wasn't paying up.

Rocco Mazzeo's snow removal equipment took a beating this brutal winter, but the plow driver and landscaper said fixing his equipment is even a bigger challenge because a customer owes his company, Bocci Landscaping, big time.

"It was very tough," he said. "We put in 30 hours straight, 40 hours."

He was hired to plow the massive parking lots at the Dayton Beach Park apartment complex in Rockaway Beach.

"It's a difficult place as well," he said. "There's nowhere to put the snow."

The work kept him from seeing his 1-year-old son for days at a time, but the new dad wasn't complaining, because the money was good.

"They owe me a little less than $30,000," he said.

Corporate customer FirstService Residential, with headquarters on Park Avenue, left the Five Towns small businessman out in the cold for months.

"They were just nasty, throwing me around to next phone number," he said. "I go to the office, they say they're not in."

His signed agreement clearly states payment "in 30 days," yet Rocco went four months without seeing a dime.

After 7 On Your Side contacted FirstService Residential by phone, Rocco's lawyer got a check for almost $6,000. But he was still owed $21,000 for digging them out of a bundle of big snowfalls.

So Nina Pineda paid a visit to the account manager at the Midtown office to inquire about the holdup.

Nina: Do you know why the delay?

Denise Clark/FirstService Residential: "There's been no delay. We are a corporation and can take 90 to 120 days."

Nina: "But his contract says 30 days."

Denise: "There is no delay."

Nina: "But it's been more than 30 days. It's 120 (days) for some of these."

Denise: "It was paid. Goodbye."

The FirstService Residential rep assured us Rocco's checks were in the mail, and just days later, Rocco finally got the balance. In total, he received more than $27,000.

He says that FirstService Residential told him he won't be re-hired to plow next winter. But that's OK with him, given how tough he says it was to get paid this time around.