Cowboy builders

Love this post from our Epsom franchisee, Steve Williams, who was himself approached by cowboy builder offering to "repair" his roof. Hilarious. I so wish that had happened to me. I'd have had the guy in, let him look around, quietly flicked on the video camera, spent a while discussing the state of the tiles, called my own voicemail to record the conversation just in case the vid camera didn't work, see if he says something which would actually be a criminal offence, take up a good hour or so of his time, see if he'll offer to "repair" our gas boiler, tempt him with a "mislaid" cubic zirconia earring on the floor of the loo, and the then call our good friends at Trading Standards and /or the cops (depending on whether he went for the earring or not).

My grandparents were the victim of such a scam a few years ago. A "passing builder" offered to fix their soffits etc ("in need of urgent repair"). They did all the right things, got a written quote, confirming what was to be done, total amount wasn't huge and maybe the soffits were in need of a lick of paint. But then it all went horribly wrong. "Builders" started deliberately breaking stuff they were supposed to be fixing, price for the "work" went up every few minutes, grandparents realised they were being fleeced, tried to call a halt, brought out the bit of paper on which was written what was supposed to be done (and for what price) and found that the fraudsters had switched the bit of paper.

They had placed it on the kitchen windowsill (I can imagine in now: "There you go, Mr Tolliday, I'll leave that there, that says exactly what we'll be doing, you've nothing to worry about, it's all there in writing") and then, in the confusion, switched it for a blank piece of paper. Scoundrels. People like that aren't cowboy builders, they are just criminals using "building" to perpetrate their particular brand of fraud.