I found a Roofer off Google, with 30+ great reviews, it said 25+ years, and had a good website etc and seemed legitimate. They came out, gave me a good quote (I thought) for 3k for partial roof and guttering, fascia, etc. When doing the work, he identified further ‘urgent’ issues and would need an extra 2k. I believed it as I didn’t know anything about roofs and it seemed legit (after a couple google searches). Anyway, when they did the work, they broke my window in the meantime. There were 5 subcontractors in my garden from London when I came home from work and they would not leave until we paid. We paid a remaining £1.5k with £500 refused to pay. They said they were ordering a new window and would come back in a couple days when it’s arrived to fix it.
We then noticed a few things that didn’t look right, and our next door neighbour came out and said that his brother is a roofer and can come take a look. (Wish we knew this). The roofer did a full inspection and he was lost for words. Everything they had done, was wrong and had actually made the chance of water ingress worse. They installed fascia boards on top of the rotten fascia boards, the guttering and tiles weren’t secured at all. He also said this is a £3k job, not £5k. He said whole roof could’ve been done for that.
I started to do a lot of research into this company, after realising we’ve been scammed. In my research, I found they have done this with 7 other companies. They have a LTD company, scam people, then dissolve as soon as they’ve been challenged. One of the directors, was convicted of fraudulent trading and money laundering, doing this to an old couple for £42,000 (2021). I have even found their next two companies, for when they dissolve this one and start again. All the reviews are fake, it’s people they know. I’ve found their previous companies reviews and they have done the exact same thing to other people.
Their companies have no fixed address, it’s a common London shared address that thousands of companies use. If I take to small claims, after a lot of looking into relevant cases, I’d likely end up losing more money. The likelihood of recovery or partial refund is incredibly low. (Unless anyone can prove me wrong?)
I have reported this to Action Fraud, and I have a serious amount of credible evidence, but they won’t take it off me. They said the investigators need to look into it, but I don’t even know if I’ll hear from them.
It has now been 3 weeks and I am getting lie after lie from him. He said he was in A&E, sent a photo of his hand all bloody, I saved the photo and it was from 2024. Also the scaffolding is still up, so no idea what’s going to happen with that.