I judge this in part based on some experience in Virginia, where I was working for a startup that just before/as I joined got a couple of "devil" investors who

I judge this in part based on some experience in Virginia, where I was working for a startup that just before/as I joined got a couple of "devil" investors who we eventually realized preferred to own all of nothing instead of something of something. Sufficiently bad we retained a law firm and one day most of the company sent in our resignation from its office, 13 people from CEO and President to all the senior engineers. These "devils" then refused to pay our salaries for the pay period up to that date, and I learned, working with the (former) company lawyer, that doing this was not just a misdemeanor, but there was a state agency staffed with humorless people (they've heard everything) tasked with extracting back pay from employers. In most other domains there's no criminal law involved nor any special units of government tasked with this. Note also that Virginia is considered by many not to be "worker friendly". Your example is an interesting one. Perhaps because stiffing builders and people who repair stuff is so easy, and most certainly because this involves real estate or other tangible personal property (e.g. a car), there's legal, but still civil law mechanisms in most/all states to make them whole, they can get what's generally called a Mechanic's Lien: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanic's_lien https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanic's_lien