Cowboy builders

[Ch. Rajinder Nijjhar Jatt]

Hi,

A friend of mine hired builders who were working for another friend of his but this friend of mine did not satisfy himself with the quality of work they are doing and hired them to build a porch and fit kitchen just on hearsay. He gave the builders £8000 advance and sent these builders to me to build my porch and toilet.

I also did not see what they have done at my friend's place and thinking that they are reliable and good builders gave them the advance of £3500 against a contract worth £6500.

Then these builders did not appear to be reliable and after digging the foundation of my friend's porch, they left the muck lying around with no skip to take it away.

After the builders left my friend in lurch, then he was worried as to be the genuineness of the builders. My friend visited the Builder's address in Gloucester to talk to the builders why they are delaying his project? Then, the builders brought in some blocks and material for him and that was it.

These builders have put two others known to my friend in the same situation and they have paid the builders sums of £40,000 each.

Hearing all these stories, I became suspicious of the builders and when they sent a team of three on Saturday, 6th August to dig my foundation without any skip to put the dug out material, I told the workers that I do not want a mess in front of my house and they should bring the construction material and the skip before starting the job as the advance was paid against the materials, skip, etc.

They promised to bring in material last Monday/Tuesday 15/16 August but nothing so far and they promised to finish my job within 5 weeks of 27 July.

Now, the builders have disconnected their telephone line that used to have a fax as well and there is no way we can contact them and it seems the address is of a rented house. Mobile phones are not answered. I sent them a Special Delivery Letter on 04 August, 05 demanding my money back but no reply or telephone call.

Now, the facts of the case in a nutshell are:-

The Company is a sole trader and is owned by a person who never visits the sites or signs the contracts but sends workers. The persons representing his company do not have any business cards that they are authorised to sign the contracts and these two representatives are taking money in the name of a private person who claims to be an employee of the company. The signatures of the person signing the contract are also dubious. For example, our cheque was taken in his name on 27 July and presented the very day to be cashed next day from my Abbey National Bank. I did contact this person on his mobile and asked him when would he bring the materials but he made false promises and refused to give his private address saying that he is just an employee of the company/sole trader.

To me the whole thing is a scam and I would like your advise what course of action should I take to recover my money please? How could I find the private address of this private person to sue him for the money please? I have written to the Police of Gloucester but so far I have not heard from them.

This Builder has done no work at my place but in the other cases, he just dug his teeth in to argue his case. Total money involved is around £91,500. The other three being in a deeper waters rang some solicitors in Gloucester for assistance but they claim to be already acting for this Builder.

Trading Standards Officer of Gloucester has been informed for assistance but he says, we should forget about recovering our money. The employees of the Builder who have collected the money already stress that they have not committed any crime and Police cannot touch them.

Rajinder Nijjhar

[Andrew Gabriel]

Try uk.legal or uk.legal.moderated

[John Schmitt]

As Andrew Gabriel has pointed out uk.legal is probably your first stop. Unfortunately, I suspect that the company may suddenly go into administration. I do hope that you did not provide all the money up front.

John Schmitt

[Owain]

So not actually a company, and that is a crucial difference in terms of liability.

You can probably sue in the courts. If the court notice cannot be served on him at his last known address it is possible to advertise the fact that an action has been raised in the newspapers so the defender can collect his copy of the court papers from the court. You need a solicitor to do this.

If the defender doesn't attend the court hearing you should get judgement in default. However, you are then left with the problem of locating the defendant and getting your money out of him. If he doesn't have any assets it's not worth sueing him.

Owain

[Stuart Noble]

Is there any other field of human endeavour where people so readily hand total strangers large sums of money? You pay for work that has *been* done and materials that are *on* site. If a builder can't finance the rest, then you would expect trouble down the line. Even with this arrangement some of them will do the easy bits, take half the money, and never be seen again. Keep owing *them* money and you can't go far wrong.

[Dave Jones]

If he was renting the house get in touch with the landlord/letting agent, to see if they know anything. Also watchdog may be worth a try, they love a doggy builder!

[AlexW]

You could try to cancel your cheque. "Clearing" is not always what it seems, cheques can sometimes be canceled well after they have cleared I believe.

Alex.

[david lang]

It would seem that the Cowboys have exploited the Indians yet again.

:-)

Dave

[Ch. Rajinder Nijjhar Jatt]

Hi,

Two Indians and two Englishmen.

Raj>

[ocidental]

You may have to chalk this one down to experience. Were they Irish tinkers? Is there a camp of travelers near by? You might be able to get some redress if your prepared to get your hands dirty.

[chris_doran]

The average person in the street simply isn't used to dealing with such accomplished and convincing liars. Until you've been done by such con-men, you don't appreciate how persuasive they can be. Even after the event, you can't work out how they took you in. They exploit typical human weaknesses. Classically it's the elderly who are more trusting, but people who are simply too busy to shop around and wait in for genuine builders who don't turn up to give a quote are equally vulnerable. And just about everybody is frightened by assurances that "your house is in a dangerous state and such-and-such must be done immediately", especially if the caller has given the impression they're from the Council. Once they've got you into the habit of handing over large sums of money you get resigned to it.

They most likely did (or started to do) a good job at a good price for the first person in Rajinder's chain, then relied on the recommendations. Rajinder: warn everyone that they're probably now an a circulating "mugs list" and to have absolutely nothing to do with any builders who appear uninvited on their doorsteps, no matter what they say; "Yes, we know about X, we're always picking up after him, but we're not like that." will be the opening ploy.

Sadly, the chances of your getting your money back, even with a court order, are vanishingly slim. Our local Trading Standards has managed to get some convictions for not allowing the doorstep sales cooling-off period, rather than quality of work or conmanship.

Chris

[Huge]

[30 lines snipped]

We were visited by one of these "We're doing some work in the area and would you like your drive mended?" types a few years ago, and it wasn't until he left, promising to return the following day (*) that I realised what he actually was.

Now we don't buy *anything* at the door. At all. Ever.

(* He was enough like a real builder that he *didn't* come back the following day, though.)

[Ch. Rajinder Nijjhar Jatt]

Hi Chris,

You have rightly hit the nail over the head. I totally agree with you and believe the Government should do some thing to stop this conmanship.

Rajinder

Stuart Noble wrote:

The average person in the street simply isn't used to dealing with such accomplished and convincing liars. Until you've been done by such con-men, you don't appreciate how persuasive they can be. Even after the event, you can't work out how they took you in. They exploit typical human weaknesses. Classically it's the elderly who are more trusting, but people who are simply too busy to shop around and wait in for genuine builders who don't turn up to give a quote are equally vulnerable. And just about everybody is frightened by assurances that "your house is in a dangerous state and such-and-such must be done immediately", especially if the caller has given the impression they're from the Council. Once they've got you into the habit of handing over large sums of money you get resigned to it.

They most likely did (or started to do) a good job at a good price for the first person in Rajinder's chain, then relied on the recommendations. Rajinder: warn everyone that they're probably now an a circulating "mugs list" and to have absolutely nothing to do with any builders who appear uninvited on their doorsteps, no matter what they say; "Yes, we know about X, we're always picking up after him, but we're not like that." will be the opening ploy.

Sadly, the chances of your getting your money back, even with a court order, are vanishingly slim. Our local Trading Standards has managed to get some convictions for not allowing the doorstep sales cooling-off period, rather than quality of work or conmanship.

Chris