Asphalt Paving Scams

by Bob Goldsmith.

I hate it when good honest folks are victims of criminals, that not only applies to burglars, muggers, thugs, pickpockets or identity thieves, but criminals of every description.

Doorstep scammers are also criminals that make victims of honest folks, I hate that too.

This article is not about your home security, your personal security or things in that vein. It is however about your financial well-being so I hope you see the relevance.

Driveway repair scams are nothing new, but sadly folks are still getting caught out by the promise of a nicely repaired drive at an unbelievably cheap price.

There are several ways in which the fraudsters operate but basically they either go from door to door, or cruise around until they find someone out the front of their house. They will claim the home owner's blacktop drive needs repair and as luck has it, they happen to have left over material from a job they have just completed a couple of blocks away.

Think of this, if they are claiming they have enough asphalt to do your drive that is left over from another contract, then they must be pretty crummy estimators, not a good sign. But of course the left over materials story is highly unlikely to be true.

They will offer to repair the driveway for just the cost of labor, at such a bargain price. After doing a shoddy job they will demand payment that is way over the amount they estimated. Often they will be intimidating and even threatening in their demands.

Sometimes they will time their work to complete just after dusk, so when they ask for payment, the home owner can't clearly see what a pig's ear they have made of it.

You will not be surprised to learn that these rip off artists love neighborhoods that are heavily populated by senior citizens.

Maybe the guy who turns up on the doorstep looks like a paving contractor and may have a pleasant manner, (that will change when he demands payment.) There may be a truck parked at the curb with a paving company name on it, (in all probability fictitious,) and carrying the equipment that you would expect.

Asphalt paving scam. Blacktop need repairing? Employ a registered and bonded contractor.

These tricksters are not professional contractors, they are often itinerant, or travelers if you like. They often move from state to state following the sun. If things get too 'hot' for them in one area, they move off to carry out their asphalt paving scams someplace else.

Sometimes these vile villains will demand a large deposit up front, or even payment in full, cash of course! They will tell you they can not do the job at the bargain price they quoted without it. They tell anyone fooled into handing over cash that they will be back in an hour or two with the rest of the paving crew, the tools and the materials.

Well, you don't need me to tell you that in an hour or two they will be far out of the area with yet another sucker's hard earned cash. Disgusting.

A variation is that the caller tells you that your drive badly needs resealing. You may not think that it does but the self-declared expert insists that it does. And guess what, they can do it for cheap because they just happen to have . . . you know the rest of that story.

One thing is for sure, they will do an awful bad job. They will not prepare your blacktop surface properly, they will not patch any holes, they will not clean and degrease. The fraudsters may make a pretense at spreading their so called sealer around, but will probably not even make a very good job of that.

As you may guess, the asphalt sealant is likely to be anything but quality stuff. Perhaps it is sealer but so thinned as to be useless, or motor oil or just blackened water!

When it comes to payment, their demands will likely be for far more than their 'reasonable' estimate. “Oh your drive was in a very bad condition and we had to use a lot more sealer than we thought we would.”

Doing business with someone who just turns up on your doorstep is rarely a good idea, it doesn't matter how good a deal they say you will get.

Don't just take a strangers word that your blacktop needs resealing or your drive needs repaving. If you think that you have work that needs doing, employ a registered and bonded contractor. Get estimates from several contractors and see examples of their work, talk to their previous customers if possible, it could save you an awful lot of grief.

Of course it is not only asphalt paving scams that these door step crooks carry out. The same confidence tricks can be carried out around almost anything, roofing, fencing, landscaping, flooring and so on, yes even home security.

When someone turns up on your doorstep unsolicited with an unbeatable offer, that is one big red flag.

Blacktop driveway scams and similar con tricks are nothing new of course, but I think we all can benefit fit from a reminder about the dangers now and then, so that we do not drop our guard and get caught out.

Even if you are too savvy to get caught, maybe there are folks you know who are more vulnerable. You could save them a lot of heartache and financial distress by warning them about asphalt paving scams. Watching who calls at their door, and what those callers are up to, will also help.

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