A Fraudster Defeated

Blog#221-11/3/24

A FRAUDSTER DEFEATED
By
Richard Davis

We hear a lot of stories about people who were cheated out of their life savings or were scammed by so-called home improvement companies that collected money and never did the work. They all seem to have a sad ending. Well, I want to tell you a story with a happy ending.

My wife and I agreed to have our house painted and we found a person who had advertised himself on social media. He came to our house and he seemed very charming. From the start, my wife didn’t trust him. She kept saying she had a bad feeling about this guy, partly because he did not have any of the credentials of a businessman.

He didn’t have a contract to sign and he claimed he had insurance. Most of my wife’s distrust was steeped in her women’s intuition and a lot of years working in the business world. I tried to steer her in a different direction saying that most Vermont freelance workers do a good job but they are not good businessmen. She acquiesced.

I wrote a contract for all of us to sign and when the painter showed us his insurance proof it was clear he went to an online company the day before and paid for it. Red flag number one. We agreed on dates for the work to start and finish and he asked for half of the agreed upon price up front.

We gave him $4600.

When it came time to start the job he told us he had fractured his clavicle and that he would have to have time to heal. I told him to let us know when he was ready to work and we would give him leeway. This is when my wife said, “Bad at the beginning, bad in the middle and bad at the end.”

She said we should bag the whole deal and get our money back. I still felt that the guy was going to do the job, so we waited.

A date was set for him to start work after he said he was OK to go. He didn’t show up. Another red flag. Two more no-shows and then he finally came to paint. He stayed less than two hours and painted one 10 by 10 foot section in the middle of one side of the house and then he left.

Over the next few weeks all we got were excuses why he could not work until I finally told him to give us the money back or we were going to pursue legal channels. It was at this point that I finally started to realize that I should have listened to my wife earlier, but such is male stubbornness.

After many back and forth emails and threats by me he delivered $2000 in cash and left it in an envelope on our doorstep. He said he would pay the $2600 balance in a week. After three weeks and no response from him I filed a claim in small claims court. I also contacted the local police department and the officer I spoke to told me he thought there was a good chance that the painter could be charged with home improvement felony fraud. In other words, the painter could end up in the slammer.

The police officer contacted the painter and told him what he might be facing and he told the cop he was going to pay me the balance. No one held out any hope for that to happen but about a week after the cop spoke to the painter another envelope was delivered to my doorstep with $2600 in cash.

Case closed.