Rogue contractors

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Ok, this is a pet peeve of mine. Last week there were a couple of contractors going through our neighborhood, soliciting door-to-door to see if homeowners wanted to have their driveways resurfaced. The tags on the truck were from Tennessee. We're in Maryland. The main guy approached home owners as they pulled into their driveways after getting home from work, then hit them up for business. I stood watching from across the street. One of the owners they approached, had thier driveway professional done about a week prior, and they still approached her - they didn't know enough to be able to tell! The other owner they approached, had it done a year ago.

After a tornado hit our area a couple years back, we had people driving in from West Virginia to take down trees, (very scarry - they had no clue about how to do it, they just did it) and remove debris (this part, ok...).

I guess there are contractors who are sort of akin to ambulance chasers... just a pet peeve of mine. Anyone else seen this? Got stories?

Beth

[Washaway 64]

Down here fly-by-nighters who know nothing about what they are doing are as common as aligators.

It's scary but you get used to it.

[Mike 64]

Nothing like that here yet, just the guys who are trying to sell you meat from the back of thier pickup truck.

[Big Bill 14]

That sort of thing happens alot here. Tree cutters are notorious for this. It's a pet peeve of mine also. Just a couple of months ago, a customer of mine called to get a quote to have her house cleaned. She asked if I had liab. insurance. I told her yes I do. She then asked if I could provide her w/ a cert. of insurance. I said yes I can. Before she even let me roll out a hose, she made a call to the ins. co. to make sure. It turns out that she is an ins. claims lady for an insurance co. Made me feel good. She said that she called several other co.'s, some of them had no insurance. One man told her that he had been pw'ing for 20 years, he didn't need insurance. Well, I've been driving for almost 30 years, never been in an accident, I guess I don't need insurance for driving. I was just told by a HOA that if I wanted to do work for them, I would need workman's comp, even though I am a 1 man operation. Some people around here are getting wise to the games that some of these people play.

[PLD 14]

Come to Ga. We get the fly-by-nighters AND meat salesmen.

[PLD 14]

That sort of thing happens alot here. Tree cutters are notorious for this. It's a pet peeve of mine also. Just a couple of months ago, a customer of mine called to get a quote to have her house cleaned. She asked if I had liab. insurance. I told her yes I do. She then asked if I could provide her w/ a cert. of insurance. I said yes I can. Before she even let me roll out a hose, she made a call to the ins. co. to make sure. It turns out that she is an ins. claims lady for an insurance co. Made me feel good. She said that she called several other co.'s, some of them had no insurance. One man told her that he had been pw'ing for 20 years, he didn't need insurance. Well, I've been driving for almost 30 years, never been in an accident, I guess I don't need insurance for driving. I was just told by a HOA that if I wanted to do work for them, I would need workman's comp, even though I am a 1 man operation. Some people around here are getting wise to the games that some of these people play.

Perhaps you should explain to her that WC doesn't cover an owner/operator. I had a builder demand WC certs for me, and I provided a letter stating that as a <3 person shop I was exempt and that WC didn't cover the owner anyway. Even then he vascilated and wanted to hold back 15% but eventually gave in and let it go...

[John Doherty 126]

On the W/C issue, if you are a sole prop. and have medical coverage, some customers will accept a letter from you health provider, it's called a 24 hr coverage letter.

We don't get too many 'traveler' types here in Colorado but we sure did in NJ.

JD

[Henry B. 4]

Hey Beth,

Remember when we had the hail storms here a few years ago? I have never seen so many siding replacement companies converge on one area before in my life.. Jeesh, it was like turning on the lights in a $10 a night hotel and watching the cockroaches run!!

LOL

[JFife 14]

Beth,

I am curious what you mean by driveway resurfacing. do you mean sealing asphalt or aggregate driveways??

Regarding tree guys, I have two friends in TN that own a tree biz, and they basically follow the weather. Tornado country in the spring/summer, hurricanes late summer/early fall. They mainly just work for one ins. co. in particular that sends them around the country. Unmarked vehicles, etc., you'd never know they ran a really slick operation.......until you found out they made about 5K (or more) a day. I can't fault someone for chasing the money, heck, I thought about roofing in FL last fall!!

[Don Phelps 85]

I thought about roofing in FL last fall!!

If you had, you could still be doing it. There are two homes getting re-roofed on my street alone today. There's still plenty of blue tarped roofs in Orlando and the surrounding areas.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Jon,

I'm talking about unlicensed, uninsured people who go door to door working for cash. In the case of the driveway guys, they are supposed to be recoating asphalt, and you are lucky if you get a coat of oil applied to your old surface. Our local news has done stories on them in the past. I have spoken face to face with the tree guys, who didn't have a business card, business license even for their state, or a certificate of insurance to show. They show up when there is storm devastation, nothing wrong with that, but what I have a problem with, is that they are basically preying on people in a time of crisis, people who may not be thinking of licensing or insurance, and who may end up with worse property damage if they are unskilled and looking for cash. I have seen these people try to finish taking down a tree, doing it wrong, and I have seen them do FURTHER damage....take out mailboxes and hit cars! Then they collect cash - and split. Poof...gone...hasta la vista!

Beth

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Henry -

Exactly! We had a couple years of that - roofing and siding craze... from hail storms. Many of them are no longer in business too.

Beth

[tropical wave 22]

Ok, this is a pet peeve of mine. Last week there were a couple of contractors going through our neighborhood, soliciting door-to-door to see if homeowners wanted to have their driveways resurfaced.

I guess there are contractors who are sort of akin to ambulance chasers... just a pet peeve of mine. Anyone else seen this? Got stories?

Beth

Up here, our problem (mostly with the full time job) is the gypsy scams. They prey on the elderly with the scam of driveway resurfacing/sealing. they give a ridiculous low price, then smear oily water all over the black top, collect cash and leave, looks shiny and the seniors just got scammed, BADLY.... they do the same thing with roofs, tree limb cutting etc, they grab a deposit on a job that really does need to be done, and scoot.... the old folks dont seek them out, these jerks drive around in their pickups looking for victims, see a home that needs some sort of work and the scam is on.......

the problem is that when I arrive to interview the victims, they make poor witnesses due to their age, dont remember what they looked like, what type or color the truck was, what state the plates were from etc etc.... its a shame and you really feel bad for the people, fixed income, and all....

now they've been doing the scam/burglary to the elderly, a 2-4 gypsy crew will do the same as above, but when one is speaking with the elderly homeowner, they'll take the victim in the back and talk about their trees, roof, garage or whatever, and the other 2 or 3 will enter the house and steal cash, jewelry etc.....they'll then tell the victim they'll return later to start the job or not and the victim wont know they've just been victimized for quite awhile.......its really hard to get these guys because the victims usually cant help with identifications....... we have really thick books with pictures of every gypsy scamer we know of, and even when we have them look thru the books, they cant ID the bad guys......... and the bad guys know this !!!!

education is the key to preventing this type of crime, neighborhood meetings and the such gets the word out....... if you have elderly family members or neighbors, PLEASE inform them of these types of crimes......

[StainlessDeal 16]

What chems would you use to clean a blue tarp roof, Don? Maybe some Tarp-A-Way or Plast-I-Clean from Ripco? (I'm a riot!) Remember to tip your waitresses, I'll be appearing here all night! The scmmers are a shame, whether they are travellers or local, in NE the locals in smaller towns have been tending to show them the door pretty quickly. In the Omaha area they get a little better play. Roll in behind hail and high winds and collect and roll. Makes it tough on the smaller guys and legitimate travelling contractors. Drives you nuts, but what do you do?

[JFife 14]

I was definitely joking, you won't see my fat butt on many roofs! Beth, I'd say behind used car sales, driveway sealcoating is probably the shady'st biz going. I just bought a house from a single girl about my age, and she received about the biggest screwing I've ever seen. Before she sold to me, she had Culligan put in a water softener (probably the only house on my street with one), she made a huge deal at closing about how I had to let her come and take it, which i had no problem with. Her realtor told me later when i was moving in, that a door-to-door salesman had sold it to her (a TINY water softener) ran the plumbing to the fridge and sink. Cost???????? About 4K. I nearly wept for her, and helped her get it to her other house. The sad thing was, I had it still hooked up for about a week, and whenever it was gone, I could tell absolutely no difference in the water. Pretty sad,

[Washaway 64]

.... I was just told by a HOA that if I wanted to do work for them, I would need workman's comp, even though I am a 1 man operation. Some people around here are getting wise to the games that some of these people play.

I'm not sure things work the same as they do here, in FL, but talk to your state licensing department. You just may be eligible for WC Excemption. If so, the HOA's will accept it.

[Jon 533]

Man you Southerner's and Easterner's are just all up in the hils when it comes to truth in lying.

What Beth witnesses was a clan of Gypies that are based in TN and a couple other states, almost all are related and come spring/summer they hit the road to points, North, South, East and WEST.

Yes they hit the Western States hardest and almost always start jobs then disappear half way through them. They get paid by asking for half up front and the other half in when the job is half done regardless of what the job is.

Once paid PESTO their gone.

The Feds have been onto them for years but seldom does anyone ever call them when they hit an area.

Had Beth called they would have been swarming her neighborhood arresting them.

First sign was TN license plate, second no bus. license or insurance.

[Henry B. 4]

Had Beth called they would have been swarming her neighborhood arresting them.

First sign was TN license plate, second no bus. license or insurance.

Shame on you Beth!!..LOL I'm just kidding.

I went out to a house yesterday to give them an estimate for doing their deck. Unfortuanetly someone else had got there first, cleaned the deck and stained it.. I'll post the pics of the job they recieved....

Apparently they were experts at cleaning concrete also...

[Henry B. 4]

Isn't it amazing what turbo tips can do to a stained deck? That's what they used to remove the exhisting stain... I think f-18 or hd-80 would have worked better.

I'm already working with the owner, consumer affairs, Maryland Home Improvement commssion and BBB to see if they can get their money back. I gave them an estimate to repair the damages to this deck and another. My original price for doing this job would have been 2,000 which was less than they paid!! Now it's going to cost them considerably more.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Amazing. But I thought you didn't like headache jobs?

Beth

[Henry B. 4]

I don't, but I'd rather deal with stripping the job instead of seeing some hack destroy it.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Did you propose full sanding?

Beth

[CCPC 26]

Had a lady today who thought it was very important that to clean roofs you have to have roofing experience (like the last guy she hired who blew off half the granules on the shingles). Needless to say, I eventually told her that I was going to have to decline putting a bid in on the job. Frankly, I just got a bad vibe from the lady and knew this was one that I would be better off passing on. Does anyone else ever pass on jobs simply because the customer gave you a bad vibe?

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

From time to time, yes.

Last year we had a gentleman call wanting an estimate to get a house wash, and his deck done. I was out with Rod that particular day, so we were both there. On our way up the walk to the door, we noticed it looked like someone had blasted the aluminum siding. Note to self...someone has been here. A man comes to the door and after talking to him, says the man who we asked for was not home, say swe should look around. We do, and then as we are discussing the puzzling siding, we decide we really want to speak to the person who called. So, we head back to the door to excuse ourselves. The man who was home had no problem at that point, but the conversation was odd. He was looking at the house across the street, and asking if we could see the damage. Asked if power washing could cause damage, and would it mean you could get your siding replaced? Rod and I looked at each other. We told him we saw damage on his siding from a prior wash. He changed the subject. We told him we would be in touch, and left. We got back to the office (he was the last stop) and the phone was rining and it was the same man, and he was livid that we didn't leave the estimate. Confused, we reminded him we wanted to speak to the owner, the man we had asked for. Then he tells us he was the owner, not the man we had asked for. He was demanding the price. We told him we saw evidence that someone had tried to wash the siding ( no idea who), and that there was damage, and that we were of the opinion that it was better not to wash his home. He didn't like that....we suspect it blew his chances of coming after which ever company he would hire next ( thankfully NOT us), of getting pinned for new siding, which we think he wanted to do.

Sometimes, intuition is very important.

Beth

[Henry B. 4]

I've run across quite a few jobs that I wanted nothing to do with in the past. I actually found two more yesterday, one was a 3 brand solid stained cedar deck with lattice, enclosed porch and all kinds of detailed trim work. LOTS of stripping and sanding but due to the trim work it would have to be hand sanded, not with a sander...

[Ernie Greese 14]

Beth and Rod,

I think you could be talking about the infamous "Irish Travelers" who surface this time of year around the country and travel from TN, GA, KY and Oh. There is a good article at this website: http://www.fraudtech.bizland.com/travelers.htm - It's long but well worth a read.