Paved driveway, very poor job. Said he would come back and fix it. Can’t get him on the phone. Goes to his answering machine and of course that is always full. We have tried numerous times to no avail. This driveway was done late afternoon early evening on a Friday. He couldn’t wait to get his money and run.

A few days before April 1, 2025, a man named Bill from "1st Call Paving and Masonry" approached my family's home to offer driveway paving services. He mentioned that he had been working on other neighbors' driveways as well. Seeing other neighbors had agreed to those services, my father asked for a written estimate, but they never gave one. Bill and his team showed up April 1 and started immediately drilling and working on the driveway. In a few hours, they were finished and Bill refused to take a check, and demanded my father (who is 71 years old and does not speak English well) to head to the local bank immediately to get him $5000 in cash. He was extremely rude and brash and almost felt like he held my father hostage until he got his money in cash. I was afraid he would get violent. I came out to talk to him and asked for his name and company. However, he seemed hesitant to tell me. He waited where my father had parked the car and took the cash from him. Afterwards, he gave my father a fake "contract" with the fake company name at the top. He had my father sign this after he took the cash. They even left one of the asphalt rollers on the lawn and did not seem interested in taking it back.

Bill from Harrison Asphalt Company offered a great deal and a chance to help him get rid of extra asphalt by offering to use leftover asphalt to top our existing asphalt driveway. He quoted a price per foot, but when finished said I owed him per square foot. The original price was about $2,000 but then he wanted $30,000 when he finished. He talked fast and had me sign a work order but never mentioned square feet until after the job. He then began negotiating and was ready to settle at half rather quickly until I refused and told him we had a deal at linear feet. It remains unresolved and their website shows no address or names involved in the company.

Tim from Custom paving came to my door 2 days in a row offering paving services with recycled asphalt. Told me it was be covered under a 3 year warranty and would draw up an invoice it. His workers showed up a few hours later and got the job done. Originally the driveway looked great. After a week I noticed big ruts, holes and loose asphalt. I have tried connecting with Tim since and now his number doesn't work and the driveway is in bad shape.

The scammer, "Nick" came to my door and asked if I would accept a bid on my garage roof. Later the "leader" came by and tried to ask an exorbitant amount of money for the job. I "bargained" down the amount, still way too high. He then, started to psychologically harassed me in every instance, My wife and I are Senior Citizens. I don't have all my faculties at all times. I became confused and wrote checks to Lucas Bennett and one to Eric Stanfill over a few days period. They paid piece mail, to a laborer for very, minimal, little work. They haven't shown up for days. I reported this to the Police and have a case number. P.S. He showed me a Washington State driver's license (Seattle), with the name Lucas Bennett. I learned it was not him, but one of his workers. Scam leader went by the name of "Dino", I later learned

Two brothers, Charlie and Jay Joles, and a son/nephew came to our house, stating they had excess paving and road oiling materials. They did a horrible job, stated their equipment broke down and would they would need to come back. They never came back, their phone numbers do not work. They did not leave a business address. These guys are con men.

As in the prior story, we experienced the same thing. That was in Oregon, we are in Cave Creek AZ. The brothers Jay and Charlie Joles came to our road, with excess paving and oil materials. They oiled half the road, it was not good quality, said their equipment broke down, never completed the job. Promised to come back, but could never be reached. Pathetic con men!

On February 4, 2025, Robert Stevens approached the victim who is a vulnerable person directly in the victim's front yard. Stevens told the victim that he had extra limestone material on his truck that he needed to use up and therefore, he would pave the victims driveway and road for a steep discount. Both verbally agreed upon $30 a SQUARE yard. Stevens kept pushing the sale without any paper work and the victim said "so, $3,000; right?" before Stevens started the work. Stevens said he had to measure. Without further discussion, Stevens laid the 35 yards of material that was on his truck and then, left to get 80 more yards of material without discussion with the victim or approval from the victim. After Stevens completed the work, he demanded $12,000.00; 4 TIMES the verbally agreed amount! The victim protested saying that he did not have the money and that he did not agree to that price. Stevens said he had to use extra material and demanded the payment saying he had expenses and had to pay his crew. Stevens never received approval to lay more than the verbal agreed price of $3,000 for the 35 SQUARE yards of material on his truck. Stevens continued to bully the victim who is cognitively, physically and speech impaired into paying $10,000 which was the last of the victim's savings. The victim who is an honest person, felt he had no choice but to pay the extorted demand as the work was complete albeit for the extremely inflated price that was not agreed to by the victim. The victim is now bankrupt and suffers from physical illness and distress over this crime. The paving is thin without rebar and I expect that it will crack and break under the weight of the garbage truck. Please see the Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge case 60CV-20-449 C06D12 filed January 15, 2020 in Little Rock, AR against Robert Stevens for using the same verbal and physical bullying tactics to scam elderly and vulnerable people in Arkansas.

On Thursday, December 5, 2024, my elderly, widow mother was swindled out of $6,000 by a Robert Northern (40 something male) representing Northern Asphalt. She lives out in the country in the Chapel Hill area. This Robert Northern drove onto her property without invitation after not being able to make contact with her neighbor (whose driveway is in worse condition than her own). When accessing her property, he drove onto her property past her house honking his horn to get her attention as she walked uphill from feeding her animals in the barn. He then waited in his truck until she came to him, so he could start his sales pitch. He said that he had some leftover asphalt from a previous job, that her driveway needed re-paving, that he would do the first 5-square feet for free and that upon her approval he would charge her $5 per square foot for rest of the job. She told him that she had to consult with me prior to the paving beyond the "free" portion and that I would need to approve any work being done since she was recently widowed (2023) and living alone on the property. She gave him the approval to do the "free" portion thinking that it couldn't hurt.

 

He gave her his card and told her that he had to go get the truck with the asphalt and that he would return later that day to do the initial portion. She then contacted me to tell me that she may be getting a new driveway that day. We discussed it and agreed that I would need to see it prior to any work being done. Robert then disappeared for hours until my mother called the number on his card to see when he might come back to do the introductory work (she naps often in her old age and was getting tired waiting for him to come out). A woman answered the phone and told my mother that he'd be there soon. When he finally arrived, he had his "nephew" with him to help.

 

She met them outside and she watched them get started on the "free" portion. Due to her old age and infirmities, she could only tolerate standing outside in the cold watching for a few minutes before telling them that she was going inside to wait for them to finish the "free" portion. Sometime later (she had fallen asleep on the couch waiting), my mother was awakened by them knocking on the door. They demanded payment of $6,000 for the completed job. Alarmed at this and not knowing what to do for fear of reprisal and seeing that they had done more than the "free" portion, she obligingly wrote them the check. They then wrote on the back of the business card "$6,000.00 Paid an Full" "Flat Price" " 5 year gautterd". This was the only "paperwork" for the job. Seems like trying to state that she paid a flat rate of $6000.00 paid in full with a guarantee of 5 years in attempt to put her at ease and make it "official." No contract. No agreement. (Note - I added notes to the card including "Drive way" "12/5/2024" and "Check #4126".)

 

My mother alerted me afterwards telling me that she had done a "bad thing" and so I contacted the bank the next day (due to her alerting me after bank hours on the day of the scam) in an attempt to put a hold on the check, but they had already cashed it and that until it posted to the account, we could not take any other action. After doing my own research and discussing costs and the procedures of asphalt paving with colleges that have had similar work done, we concluded that she was thoroughly ripped off and taken advantage of. Upon my inspection of the job, I found it to be approximately 9' wide by 100.75' long making the square feet 906.75 (including the "free" portion). Using his verbal quote of $5 per square foot 906.75 X $5 = $4,533.75. According my resources the thickness of the asphalt is only half as deep as it should be in order to do the job that it was supposed to do. There was no approval to do any work other than the "free" portion and no discussion was had as to how large an area would be paved. There should've been nothing done except for the initial "free 5-square feet" from the road. Instead, this Robert Northern went carte blanche paving a swath of ground expecting to be paid handsomely by a lonely widow. A few days later the "nephew" came back, waking my mother from her slumber, telling her that he was there to put the hardener on the paving.

He stood off to the side to avoid being seen by any cameras and stated something about the charge for the hardening. My mother, still in her pajamas and fearful, couldn't hear if there was a charge or if he said there is no charge. She told him, "no." He left and she hasn't seen nor heard from either of them since. If this was legitimate contracted work, Robert Northern should have then reached out to her regarding the hardener and the 5-year guarantee and/or to clarify the cost/no cost of the hardener. In my research of Northern Asphalt and Robert Northern, I could not find any references to it as a company nor his name with a local address. My opinion of the job, other than it shouldn't have been done at all, is that it was very poorly done with only the intention of making a quick buck off of someone that wouldn't fight back. It seems that she is out of luck getting anything back financially, but she has learned a hard lesson and will be more cautious in the future, including calling the local sheriff if necessary.

On Friday 1/10/25 a man pulled up while my elderly mother was on the driveway and convinced her to let him pave her driveway. He told her to go to the bank and take out $3,000 and it would be done when she gets back. He didn’t give her a receipt and he said he would come back the next day and bring one and also patch up the rest of the driveway. On Saturday 1/11/25 he came back and patched up more spots on the driveway and told her to write him a check for $2,000. She wrote the check, and he still did not give her a receipt. He said he would come back the next day with a receipt and a warranty. After he didn’t come back Sunday 1/12/25 she called him/the number on the business card on Monday 1/13/25. The woman who answered the phone said he would come by at some point in the morning. He didn’t and he called from his personal phone and said he would stop by, but still never did. My mother said that at one point he called her and said he emailed her a receipt, which she didn’t receive either. When I went to the house I saw that the driveway was not paved correctly, instead just covered over.