Rogue Tradesmen - Unfortunately, there are still a number of rogue tradesmen operating in the United Kingdom.
Although steps are always being taken to reduce the number of rogue traders that are scamming people out of thousands of pounds,
there are still a significant number of complaints made every year.
According to imncontent.com, new research has revealed that Rogue Traders have cost Britain a whopping £4 billion over the last five years!
The research found that the recent economic recession has led to many people choosing the cheapest option for building and renovation work.
Unfortunately, this choice has sometimes cost them more money when maintenance and repair work is not properly carried out,
or even carried out at all.
In basic terms, there are three ways in which a rogue tradesman operates.
Firstly, they may diagnose the wrong problem.
This means that whatever work that they do (and charge you for) will not result in the problem being fixed.
Secondly, they may carry out labour and buy materials that are not necessary for carrying out the repair.
Thirdly, you may simply be overcharged for the work carried out.
Unfortunately, there are many examples of people who have been severely overcharged for maintenance and repair work on their homes.
Sometimes the work was not properly carried out or even carried out at all.
Rogue tradesmen usually offer to carry out "emergency repairs",
as it is easier for them to get work from people who need a job doing desperately.
However, they also perform maintenance and less urgent work such as roof maintenance and driveway paving.
Over the past year, there have been a number of examples of rogue traders operating within the United Kingdom.
Included in these examples are some horrifying stories of people being duped out of tens of thousands of pounds.
In late 2010, an 86-year-old man from Bagshot in Surrey was conned out of £44,000 by rogue tradesmen.
These tradesmen pretended to be part of a legitimate roofing company that operated in the area.
They carried out no work and just draped a plastic sheet over the man's roof.
These rogue traders even got the man to withdraw money from several different bank accounts so that they would not make staff at the bank suspicious.
(BBC News) Surrey Police said that people should not talk to tradesmen who turn up unannounced and try and persuade them into getting work done.
The police should be notified about the individuals and the vehicles that they drive.
In July 2011, 83-year-old disabled man Harold Stern was charged £2,880 an hour by an "Emergency Plumber",
who falsely told Mr Stern that he would have to move into temporary accommodation if he did not pay an unbelievable £14,400 to have his kitchen
drain unblocked.
There had already been a number of complaints about the company that Mr Stern used,
but he was unaware of this at the time.
A leading drain-unblocking company said that the work would have taken two hours to complete and the final charge would have
been £145 plus VAT. (Guardian) Mr Stern paid almost 83 times more than what he should have been charged.
Older and more vulnerable people are unfortunately a common target for rogue tradesmen.
Many of these people live by themselves and may not have access to the internet,
so therefore can't carry out research into the company they plan to use.
However, many different types of people fall victim to rogue tradesmen,
but it is usually only the biggest and most shocking stories that make it into the news.
In 1980 Watchdog came to our television screens.
This program aims to prevent con men from operating in the UK, and this includes Rogue Tradesmen.
Over the past thirty years, there have been a number of unfortunate examples of people being conned out of thousands of
pounds by rogue tradesmen.
In 2001, the BBC introduced a program that just targeted rogue traders, which is called "Rogue Traders".
These television shows have successfully brought a number of rogue traders to justice and caused bogus companies to be shut down due to poor trading standards.
The shows demonstrate how deep-seated and extensive the problems of rogue traders are in the UK.