Protect Yourself and Report the Latest Frauds, Scams, Spams, Fakes, Identify Theft Hacks and Hoaxes
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Unnecessary electrical, plumbing, heating, cooling and structural repairs by scammers
Scammers have a new target: your
home. Fraud repairmen now take out ads in telephone directories in major
metropolitan areas. The ads are made to look like legitimate electricians,
plumbers, heating/air conditioning repairmen, roofers and other house repair
services. And their target is often the elderly, who tend to use the
yellow pages more often than other age groups to find repairmen.
Once they have inspected the problem, the repairman pressures the customer to
authorize repairs that aren't needed or even bills for work that isn't done,
knowing that the customer isn't knowledgeable enough to know otherwise.
These scams exist almost everywhere but here are some examples of companies that either are fake business running this scam or are real business that have been convicted of running a scam of this type:
California - According to an article in the Sacramento Bee these companies have face disciplinary action:
59 Minute Service, license number 837697;
ASAP Electric, 833296;
USA Services, license number 775863; and
American Plumbing and Electric, 834206.
And these are under investigation:
Citywide Electric, with license number 873106
ask friends, family and neighbors for recommendations of contractors they've used,
Try well-known online service review websites, like Angies List and Kudzu .com and
confirm the contractor's license online at your state government website (eg, California: www.cslb.ca.gov or by calling (800) 321-2752). See this page (coming!) for a state-by-state list of government contacts.
Call your state contractor's board (see this page)
Contact you state's consumer affairs department
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Names used by scammers in the examples on this
page and others often belong to real people and businesses who often have no
knowledge of nor connection to the scammer's use of their name and
information. Sample scam emails and other documents presented on this
website are real copies of the scam to help potential victims recognize and
avoid it. You should presume that any names used and presented here in a
scam are either fictitious or used without their legitimate owner's
permission and have no relationship to any person or business that also
shares that name, address, phone number or other identifying information.
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