Lifting the Lid on Rogue Roofers
Portsmouth Lib Dems are warning local residents to be vigilant after an increase in the number of rogue roofers targeting the city’s vulnerable.
Scammers operating in the city have been using the name and details of trusted traders to trick local residents into paying up to £35,000 for potentially unnecessary and unsafe work, which a reputable roofer could have done for a fraction of the cost.
Two Portsmouth sisters were charged an eyewatering £35,000 for a job that a local roofing professional has since quoted at £2,500 – although experts warn that the cost of correcting the “work” done by rogue roofers could exceed the cost of getting a trusted company in first time.
Getting work done on your house is a big deal and it can be easy to feel pressured into agreeing to pay for expensive work by door-to-door salespeople. These rogue roofers might not know much about roofing, but they’re experts in manipulating people to get money out of them.
Cllr Nick Dorrington, Lib Dem councillor for Eastney and Craneswater, runs a successful family-owned property business
Action Fraud, the UK’s national fraud and cyber crime reporting centre, tracks the impact of fraud and reported a huge increase in losses caused by fraud in the city. In Portsmouth alone, the amount of money paid to fraudsters jumped from £500 in December to £80,000 in February.
One Portsmouth resident told the BBC he was tricked into spending £9,000 to replace nine tiles:
A guy knocked on the door; he had a piece of roof tile in his hand, and he said ‘This has dropped off your roof. Luckily, I work for a company that does stuff with roofs, and we can fix it for you’.
Local Resident
The work was done to an incredibly poor standard, resulting in a leak in the roof soon after.
Hampshire Police are investigating numerous reports of rogue roofers in Portsmouth but no arrests have been made.
If you would like to find out more about how to combat fraud, Action Fraud’s website is a one-stop-shop for tips from the experts.
If you need to find a reputable roofer, or other professional, you can find a Trading Standards approved contractor on the government’s Buy With Confidence website. ()
If you or someone you know has fallen victim to one of these charlatan contractors you can report it to Portsmouth Trading Standards, Action Fraud, or the police.