Nearly always the Trader will charge extortionate prices for the services, including charging for unnecessary work and on occasions deliberately damaging property in order to obtain the work. The work may be substandard and poor quality, they will claim to have done work which has not been done, especially to roofs, where the householder cannot see. They will leave work unfinished and make false statements about numerous things including membership of trade associations. It is common for a price of £50 to be mentioned to complete new tarmac on your driveway, only for this price to escalate to £50 per square yard! Ten square yards “£500 cash please, NOW”. 

Unfortunately, it will not end there. Once a payment has been made in cash the fraudsters will be back with other ruses or they will trade the persons details on to the next team.

In one such incident in Lincolnshire it was known that five different teams had their claws into an elderly victim, with monies being paid over on a regular basis for alleged roof work and garden maintenance. It culminated in a violent attack with five balaclava wearing offenders demanding to know where he kept his money before leaving with numerous antique items. It is not unknown for traders to accompany victims to local banks to withdraw money to pay them. Whilst banks have become more proactive with most now engaging with police in the Banking Protocol, ATM machine’s do not offer this face to face protection and some now allow withdrawal of several thousand pounds at one time. Information uncovered during the research by Brian Steele, verified the long believed idea that indeed these teams do trade victims between each other. They may take a monetary cut from proceeds of the next job or simply exchange victims. Either way a new trader will suddenly appear at the home of an already established victim, looking at a different item that needs repair. Unfortunately, it is rare that a person who has paid cash to criminal traders be targeted only once.