Was anyone here ever scammed by rogue tradesmen/cowboy builders?

fryup

our good'ol cousins over in the UK, giving the Oirish a good rep...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-JhEnVPFg4

Leg End Reject

Andrea B. wrote: »

Why?

They tend to be cowboys, good tradesmen are in demand and don't need to cut their prices for business.

billyhead

lintdrummer wrote: »

To the OP, was this a cold caller who arrived at your doorstep? Perhaps with a story about doing work for one of your neighbours who are delighted?

If so they are always to be avoided. They offer to do a smallish maintenance job (clean the gutters) for a reasonable price but inevitably discover another issue that needs immediate attention, but which they will happily fix for a huge sum (such as broken roof tiles or leaky lead flashing).


Any tradesmen worth getting do not have the time to go door to door looking for work.

These ****##rs scammed my OAP Mum out of 800 with gutter cleaning story.

fryup

i wish RTE would have a rogue traders type show..and doorstep these crooks

branie2

No

Aurelian

I had a fairly honest local builder with good references start building my house and then upping the price once he got on site. After a couple of new costs he came up with I parted ways with him and got another builder.

fryup

and was the other builder any better?

fritzelly

Heard a load of noise on the roof (cottage) so went out to investigate. Ladder against the house and two fellas on the roof "cleaning" the moss, other lads on another roof
Told em to get the f*** off and called the garda who escorted them all away (ladders padlocked to the fences). Lot of old folk where I live so doing the usual scam
Constantly getting the "doing work in the area" line to clean the gutters etc - it's a cottage I could nearly reach up without a ladder to start with

2lazytogetup

Joeseph Balls wrote: »

Thread title should be renamed 'ever get done by Travellers?' cos let's be honest, that's what all the posts are about.

I've got garden work done, trees cut down by travellers. Good job and didn't get ripped off.

Got driveway water blasted by cold caller, might have been a traveller was grand job.

Not all bad

jluv

My experience definitely wasn't traverel. Local guy recommend by s family member. Build my house Two years later guy knocked on my door looking for payment for columns at door. Never been paid. A few years later contacted door crowd to say doors were discoloured and they came out to fix and they said "well considering we never got paid for them"

lintdrummer

Joeseph Balls wrote: »

Thread title should be renamed 'ever get done by Travellers?' cos let's be honest, that's what all the posts are about.

I got caught once, had recently moved into our house as first time buyers. House was 20 years old and gutters did need a clean.
Between naivety and being too polite to turn them away I let them do the job. They did a shit job and of course found some loose tiles while they were up there. I ended up paying them €250 for everything and was glad to be rid of them.
Lesson learned and anyone that has called since has either been told we're renting or that we have someone organised to do the job already.

Northernlily

Leg End Reject wrote: »

And never, ever opt for the cheapest.

BAM on the children's hospital a good example of this. Low balling to get the foot in the door then add on a heap of extras.

I think collectively the whole lot of us have been scammed there! So the answer should be yes by every single person on the thread.

Gremlinertia

This thread is not for traveller bashing, posts edited/deleted

Lewis_Benson

Lynn Benfield wrote: »

A couple of years ago my elderly mother answered the door to a guy who offered to power hose the walls. She said no, and he insisted they needed it. She then said she had no money to pay him, and he left, saying he'd be back in a while.

She rang me to ask where I was (I was driving across the country to visit her at the time), because she felt he'd be back and was pretty intimidated by the experience. She's usually very assertive and takes no crap from anyone.

I was only in the door a few minutes when a van pulled up outside, and a man sauntered in the driveway, pulling a hose along. I ran out and shouted "what the fk are you doing?", to which he answered "Cleaning the wall". I yelled at him to get out, and off he went.

Older people are completely at the mercy of these guys. Even after my mother's refusal, they still came back, the p**cks.

Ah, one of those lads...

Citygirl1

In the last two years I moved house, to a nice estate, with our own front gates etc. Having previously lived in a gated development.

Very happy with my move, but was surprised over the first few months, how many times I had random callers at the door, offering to clean my gutters... - which actually did need doing. Having heard of these scams, I politely decided then all, until I saw a neighbour having some work done on their roof, and asked that chap to do my gutters.

Funny one was, one of the random callers advised that he had been doing some work, on, the other side of the estate. When I asked him what house number, he suddenly couldn't remember!

FriendlySpider

Woke up yesterday morning to banging on the roof, came outside and there were 4 lads on the adjoining house taking half the roof off. They had also decided to take some of our tiles of (3 rows over and for some reason all the times off over my elderly fathers room).

Seen a van heading off and stopped the driver to ask what was going on? In his distinctive accent he informed me that the next doors roof was leaking and they had to replace the whole back half, I asked why nobody asked us and why they were removing tiles from our roof. He denied we would be effected and by the time I walked back around they had put some back on.

Anyway the owners turned up 2 hours later ( an elderly woman who is renting the house), where I expressed my concern about who they had hired, what they were doing and did they realise they were talking the back roof off. She was had no idea who she had hired as the woman renting had found them online. The woman renting had said her room was leaking over the weekend and these lads came and whipped the whole roof off, claiming the wood was all rotted (which it wasn't, I seen it all dumped and) and was going to fall in at any point (a load of bull!!).

She called son to come and the lads fecked off for a bit, saying they had to get some replacement tiles. So they all left and it took to rain, part of our roof was exposed (as mentioned above), so I called the man and asked him to come back and make sure our side was covered as water would be getting in. He kept trying to tell me my side wasn't effected but when I said we have never had any issues with our roof and if it leaks in future I would be holding him responsible the mood changed. He told me I was being a awkward ****. I then asked if he had a company number and insurance, he said he didn't have to tell me f all. He said he would knock me door when he came back to have a word with me, I was really looking forward to 4 big lads with just me there. He had calmed down by the time they came back and he gave me some knock off flyer that had "all his details" on it, if you call three numbers and a few pictures that.

So as not to drag the story out any longer they put the roof back on, I didn't see any felt going back on but plenty of bags of broken tiles coming out. Got the elderly woman to sign a check for them and fecked off. Now I'm worried about my own roof and I have no idea what to look out for? I don't even know where I would stand if our own roof did start to leak or was broken?

YFlyer

Sgt Hartman wrote: »

I got away with being hit for €150 for a very poor guttering job a few weeks back. Apparently the guy said that there was big problems up in the attic and he wanted €3k to sort out the issues. I told him where to go and he left disgruntled. My Dad checked the attic the following weekend and found no issues. The survey also found no issues with the attic during pre purchase survey so I reckon the guy was trying to pull a fast one.

Anyone here had any chancers like this try to sting them?

Plumping company tried to get me to get a new shower unit. Problem was the power switch to the unit was burnt. Got an electrician to do a minor job.

Got advise here on the electrical board.

Any problems you have. Throw up a post here or similar sites. You will get advise that save you a fortune.

Shout out to Washman for getting me a washing machine for less than €100. Sister was delighted.

fryup

@FriendlySpider

so who hired these roofers? the landlord or the elderly woman renting?

and how much did they charge? and who paid the landlord or the OAP?

YFlyer

lawred2 wrote: »

Got the hard sell from the power washers myself.. doorstep you, talk really fast, some nonsense about a demo. No thanks. He keeps talking. All the while, his other two lads are still prepping the 'demo'. No thanks. No need. "Sure let's do the demo anyway". Nice square in the middle of the driveway. Thanks for that. Closed the door. The the f**cker keeps ringing the doorbell. Open it to tell him to kindly move on. Tells me the lads have started already and sure they might as well finish now. And he's doing a "special offer" today as well. Nah you're grand. Just leave it as it is. Closed the door. He keeps ringing the doorbell. Had to eventually tell him to kindly f**k off. They would get no money from me. And eventually they left. Left me feeling rather uncomfortable to be honest. Half expecting them to come back in the dead of night.

I'd hate to think of someone elderly living alone having to deal with f*ckers like that.

That is mad. Culture, I guess.

YFlyer

fryup wrote: »

@FriendlySpider

so who hired these roofers? the landlord or the elderly woman renting?

and how much did they charge? and who paid the landlord or the OAP?

Elderly women own their gaffes. It's the younger generation that can't get a mortgage.

FriendlySpider

fryup wrote: »

@FriendlySpider

so who hired these roofers? the landlord or the elderly woman renting?

and how much did they charge? and who paid the landlord or the OAP?

The elderly woman is the owner and she is renting it to Indian woman and her child (I'm only mentioning her nationality as I believe she wouldn't be wise to these lads).

The woman renting found them but the landlady/owner went ahead with after speaking on the phone and she paid them (I believe it was in excess of €15k but she wouldn't say the final figure and I didn't want to push her on it).

fryup

^^^^^^^^^^

sorry i read it wrong, so what was the finished job like?

and how about yourself any leaks in your roof?

branie2

YFlyer wrote: »

Elderly women own their gaffes. It's the younger generation that can't get a mortgage.

She should go to the guards