Description

Homeowner was approached by a person for concrete repair on front steps of house. Initially was just to be a repair of cracked concrete steps for $4,000. Once they came to do the work they stated the damage was more extensive and would require a new front landing and steps to be built. The entire front steps were removed and then was told price of $24,500. When homeowner gave initial check of approx half, the person requested the check to be written out to an unknown person's name and not the contracted company or LLC. That check was cashed by an out of state (IL) check cashing company. The second check with final payment was made out to a construction company with a completely different name and was flagged by the bank that they tried to deposit it in as “deposit fraud detection”. They wanted me to give a cashier’s check in lieu of final payment which was to be made out to an out of state Graphics company. My personal banker would not issue a cashier’s check and advised that this was a fraud and to not pay any other money and to report to the police which was done. The spokesperson that I was dealing with from the “company” then made threats to come and reclaim “unpaid” materials from the house. The local police were called and an officer did make contact with the person. My subsequent google searches of this “company” lead me to discover that there was a previous scam of a family in Illinois with a similar story. These homeowners went to the media and I was able to see on video that these were the same people I was dealing with. The police in Illinois state that they were part of an “international construction scam."