Episode 1 Dirty Tricks of the Tradesmen

Our money has to work hard for us, and one of our biggest expenditures is on our property.

Last year, we spent a staggering £15 billion on repairs to our homes.

But how can any of us be certain we've not been taken for a ride?

-How much will it cost?

-It's hard to say, but I reckon 325.

300 quid.

Probably about seven and a half grand.

With audacious secret filming,

we reveal just how easy it could be for you to be duped.

You've been ripped off. He's not a bona-fide tradesman.

He's not?!

I knew there was something suspicious.

DIALOGUE BLEEPED

And we lift the lid on some of the UK's most shocking tradesmen rip-offs.

An awful leak came right through the bedroom. I was absolutely livid.

The house was a death trap.

We didn't know if he would get violent.

On today's show...

A battle of wills. How long will this Essex bouncer stand firm

against our rogue roofer?

You are joking, mate? £150? You just put a ladder up and changed a tile.

I risked my life to get up there.

The staggering story of a Surrey rogue

who conned his victims out of almost a quarter of a million pounds.

He didn't give a jot about his victims or their future,

their security, their finances or anything.

And prepare for a truly criminal scam

when a policeman's streetwise dad falls for every trick in the book.

£400, then, and 65 for the initial call out.

Is that all right?

Stand by for dirty tricks of the tradesmen.

Let's be honest, most of us know little about the trades -

plumbing, electrics, roofing -

so we put our trust in tradesmen and we expect them to play fair.

Of course, the vast majority do play fair.

It's a small minority who turn rogue

and make life a misery for thousands of us each year.

We meet people who've been ripped off by dodgy tradesmen.

Plus, with your help, we reveal how easy it is

to fall for a typical set of tradesman's tricks.

Our viewers have set up their friends and relatives

to receive a visit from our very own tradesman.

Why? To show you how to avoid being taken for a ride.

This is Roger Bisby.

He has over 40 years' experience under his builder's belt.

There's nothing he hates more than a dirty trickster,

out there to make a fast buck.

But in order to show you how not to get conned,

we've asked Roger to go against everything he believes in -

to become a rip-off merchant.

We'll create minor household problems

and send in Roger to show us all how easy it is to be ripped off.

It's all being filmed in secret

and Roger will be working with our cameraman Luke, who's posing as his apprentice.

We'll find out in just a moment

where they're springing their first scam.

No-one wants a flood in the bathroom

and qualified plumbers usually fix minor leaks in under an hour for less than £100.

But what if a cowboy turns up?

Let's meet the streetwise family where Roger is paying a visit.

Dean likes to keep trim around his Hertfordshire village.

His dad Henry is a painter and decorator who lives next door.

Dean has a special reason for wanting to set him up.

I'm a police officer

and I feel that the scams that are happening in society today need to be exposed.

I consider my father to be quite an astute person

and I wanted to show people how easy it is

for people to come into your home and scam you.

Dean's given us access to tamper with his radiator valve, creating a minor leak.

A reputable tradesman shouldn't charge more than £100 for an hour's work fixing it.

But Roger isn't feeling reputable today.

Now, there's one problem - Henry's in the trade. He's a painter and decorator.

I've got to find out how much he knows about the trade

see if he's the kind of guy I can take for a ride.

I've got Luke here, the cameraman.

I've got a camera here to do a bit of secret filming and Luke's got one.

Between the two of us, we're going to get some good pictures

and make a few quid, as well. Let's go.

Roger, you rotter. The van is packed with gadgets he'll use for his dirty tricks.

First, he'll try and convince Henry that the water is contaminated with rust

using a rigged corrosion meter.

He'll give the pipes a flush to remove the rust,

one of the most common tricks scammers use.

Finally, he'll try to scare Henry with added costs.

Roger's piping up trouble.

It's 9:00am when Roger arrives, where Henry is housesitting.

Remember, he has no idea that this is a simple job

and should cost a maximum of £100 to put it right.

But can our cowboy do better? Let's find out.

Wish me luck.

Hello there. It's the plumber.

-I've got my glamorous assistant here.

-Hello, mate. All right?

-You don't have to pay for him. He's on work experience.

-That sounds good!

Henry seems very trusting and he hasn't asked Roger for ID.

The first thing our man has to do is pretend to assess the radiator.

OK. This is it.

Leaking radiator. Quite honestly, you get loads of these.

Take me about quarter of an hour to fix.

I'm going to try and persuade him there's a bit of corrosion in the system,

tell him his system's run away, put the frighteners on him.

We could be on a good little earner here.

Roger knows that to squeeze the most money out of a job,

he has to quickly gain the confidence of the owner. This is key.

It's just a little ring. I can put one on the valve.

This water, it looks to me like it's got a bit of corrosion in it.

I've got a tester in the van. I'll bring that in.

Roger's about to use one of the oldest tricks of the trade.

OK, this is what I'm after. This is the corrosion meter.

It's a complicated bit of kit, so he won't know whether it's got corrosion or not.

But what I really want to do is persuade him that it needs a power flush.

This is where I turn a £50 job into a £400 or £500 job

and if we can get this baby working, we're going to be in the money.

Right, let's give it a little go.

Sure enough, it gives the false reading that Roger's expecting.

Ohh! It's sky high.

We've got 2,200...parts,

which means that the whole system is rusting away.

-That's what I'm going to tell him.

-Time to give Henry the bad news.

If Roger can baffle him with pseudo science,

he can hopefully turn a job that should cost £100

into a hefty £450.

This is rust, you know?

Orange rust.

What's happening, I've put the meter in...

..and it gives you a reading.

That's quite advanced corrosion.

So what that's doing is, it's rusting away the radiators.

And also the boiler.

What I would say, the best thing to do with that

is for me to flush that out.

Wait for it. Here comes the all-important question.

If I do it now, rather than come back,

there's some chemicals involved in it, so probably 400, 450.

If I did it for cash, say 400.

If I come back, it's going to be more.

I'm not pressuring you. I've got enough to do. I've got loads on.

If Roger can't convince Henry the job needs doing today,

he'll seek quotes elsewhere and realise he's being conned.

So our rogue has one of the oldest tricks in the book ready to roll.

If we left it, the chances are

you'd be forking out for a new boiler and a radiator.

That's the point. I could come back and do it, but it'll be more money.

For someone who isn't pressurising Henry, Roger sure is laying it on thick and fast.

But will Henry fall for it?

We said 400. I'm doing myself really.

400 cash. Lovely.

Yeah, I'll do it for that.

Henry hasn't even got another quote for this job,

let alone the recommended three.

So with the deal done, Roger heads off to supposedly buy some chemicals,

whilst poor old Henry heads off to the cashpoint.

So, how many more dirty tricks will Roger get away with

as he pushes Henry for cash?

I'm not even going to bother connecting it up. It's aggro.

Will Henry hand over £400 for nothing?

And the 65 for the initial call out.

Unbelievable. Now, Roger's tricks may seem extraordinary,

sadly, they're used by conmen all too often,

like the man in our next story who played some pretty dirty tricks in Surrey.

But like most rogues, thankfully, he got his comeuppance.

This is Mark Cooper,

whose ruthless antics made him richer

by almost a quarter of a million pounds.

It took two years to bring him to justice

and the combined efforts of three different police forces and Trading Standards teams.

He didn't give a jot about his victims or their future,

their security, their finances or anything.

So shocked and distressed were his 38 victims,

not one of them is prepared to discuss him on camera.

Senior Trading Standards Officer Linda Cobbett explains.

They were too embarrassed, too ashamed,

didn't want any friends or neighbours to know how much they paid this man.

Mark Cooper's history of horrors only came to light

when Linda received a call from a retired GP from Surrey, known as Doctor S.

He was cold-called by Cooper

and persuaded to let the tradesman work on his roof and driveway.

I went and got a statement from him and had a look at the work that had been done.

He'd paid £5,000 to this gentleman for throwing a bit of gravel down in the drive,

and an appalling job, in my view, on his garage.

Cooper certainly left that doctor in distress.

But because he'd paid by cheque,

Surrey Trading Standards Financial Investigator Paul Diaper was able to trace it.

I was looking to see what was his turnover,

whether he had any assets or cash,

in the hope of trying to identify other victims.

He was repeatedly targeting certain victims

and he was receiving not only cheques, which we could trace, but large amounts of cash.

They discovered dozens of tricks

played on victims like Miss A from Surrey.

Cooper told her that her chimney needed repointing to strengthen it,

but all he did was paint it red.

Surrey Trading Standards established this useless work cost £3,000,

but over the course of nine months, Cooper charged Miss A

an unbelievable £59,000 for it.

She was in a position where she felt alone and vulnerable

and didn't know how to go about telling people what was happening

and was frightened to send him away.

If 59 grand sounds bad, wait till you hear about Mrs C from Hampshire.

Cooper spent a year pestering her.

Finally, he convinced her that she needed a new tarmac driveway.

But all he did was cover her old drive in black paint.

The value of the actual work - £690.

How much did Cooper charge? £78,000.

Her life savings.

It was clear that the victim had written at least 15 cheques to Cooper

for a considerable sum of money.

It had all the classic hallmarks of a rogue trader,

targeting an elderly lone victim, cold calling,

then charging an awful lot of money for work that probably didn't need doing at all.

Linda's team at Trading Standards wanted to put an end to Cooper's reign of intimidation.

They enlisted the help of Surrey Police to gather crucial evidence

and Trading Standards officer Ian Inglis was present when they swooped.

We obtained a warrant to enter Mark Cooper's premises.

A number of discoveries were found.

Wads of cash found in the shower, of all places,

a number of valuable items, jewellery and so on,

and further evidence

indicating that he was involved in the fraud against elderly people.

The police raid turned out to be a major turning point in the investigation.

Not only did they search the motorhome, police also checked Cooper's vehicles.

It turned out that one of them was used during the scams on victim Mrs C.

She'd noted down the registration number of the vehicle.

This was critical.

This allowed us to chase Mark Cooper as being the potential offender

involved in the fraud against Mrs C.

In addition to that, she was also able to note down two phone numbers

that had been used by Mark Cooper at various stages of his campaign against her.

Now, at last, Surrey Trading Standards felt they had enough evidence

to bring Cooper before a judge

at Guildford Magistrates' Court in April 2010.

Whilst we were at the court, I called one of those numbers.

Sure enough, Mark Cooper's phone went, in the court waiting room.

The moment that he reached for his phone, and we all heard it ringing,

was a moment of quite high excitement.

That was it. We knew we had him.

Crime doesn't pay. Mark Cooper was sentenced to five years for his offences.

So, how can we stop rogues like him in the future?

Well, homeowners everywhere who feel intimidated or ripped off by dodgy tradesmen

should contact their local Trading Standards for advice at the earliest opportunity.

We hope that it will send a message

that Surrey will not tolerate this sort of activity

and we will do our best to defend vulnerable people.

It needs to be recognised that this isn't just a period of rehabilitation for him.

It's a period of respite for his would-be victims

who he'd otherwise be out ripping off.

Later, on Dirty Tricks of the Tradesmen,

another shocking case

when a Dorset couple discover that a tricky tradesman has wrecked their roof.

Two days after the work was finished, water was pouring into our lounge.

And in our quest to show you how not to be ripped off,

Roger's dirty tricks get him into hot water with a family in Chelmsford.

DIALOGUE BLEEPED

Hello there.

First, time to find out whether Henry from Hertfordshire falls for our cowboy's dirty tricks.

Roger went to fix a leaky radiator, a job worth around £100 to put right.

But like all tricksters, Roger is using every con he knows

to inflate the charge to four times as much.

What that's doing is, it's rusting away the radiators.

And also the boiler.

Using a rigged meter,

Roger has persuaded Henry that the boiler pipes are corroded.

A power flush will solve it, he says and stop the boiler from seizing up.

For this, Roger wants £400!

A power flush takes about four or five hours at least to do a proper job.

We don't want to be hanging around that long, so I'm going to try and speed it up a bit,

pretend to do it in half an hour and see if he wears it.

Roger heads back, where Henry has cash fresh from the ATM.

Instead of watching them like a hawk, Henry lets them gets on with it,

which gives Roger the chance to push his tricks even harder.

I'm not even going to bother connecting it up. It's aggro.

At one point, Henry even breaks the ultimate rule and leaves them alone in the house.

It's incredible when you realise he's only known them for a couple of hours.

You should never leave people alone because you don't know what they're up to.

Ten minutes later, Henry's back.

Finally, he does something sensible by taking an interest in the job.

Have you got a sensitive smell?

Because they do stink a bit sometimes.

This is the old magic potion. Super concentrated this stuff.

So concentrated, in fact, you don't even need to break the seal or take the top of the bottle.

Surely Henry must be getting suspicious.

-Lovely job.

-And after 35 minutes of the machine doing nothing,

except making a bit of noise, Roger decides to call it a day.

But will Henry believe the job is done?

We're all right. We're OK.

Just done a test on the meter. It's fine.

Basically, that pump is so powerful...

..it runs through...

Now, remember that agreed final cost of £400?

A deal's a deal. Unless you're a cowboy, of course...

£400, then, and 65 for the initial call out.

Is that all right?

So Henry was housesitting for his son

and let in a tricky tradesman, without checking his identity.

Roger turned a simple £100 repair

into a £465 central heating rip-off.

He's used gadgets and scare tactics to persuade Henry

that the pipes were filled with rust and needed flushing out.

Will Henry pay Roger's asking price?

Is that all right?

Sorry, we had the... That was for the flush.

Power flush. That's all right.

That's lovely. Thank you. Pleasure to meet you. Cheers, mate.

With the cash safely in his pocket, our cowboy rides off with £465,

handed over without any second opinion, written quotation,

any receipt or any evidence that the work has been done

because Henry was rushed into the job.

As Roger leaves, it's time for our producer to reveal the truth.

First off, what did he make of our plumbers? Remember, he's in the trade.

I thought they was great, actually. The boiler's done.

They drained all the boilers out, because we had corrosion in the boiler and the radiators,

so they drained all that out, they done the job, I paid them and I'm quite contented.

Good news, but let's see how he reacts

when we tell him the work was completely unnecessary

and that he's handed over £465 for nothing.

Well, I don't know. I'm absolutely gutted to think that.

But I didn't know that at the time.

Everybody gets builders in, don't they?

We take their word for it.

Of course, the radiator is fine.

Just to make sure there are no hard feelings, here comes Roger with the cash.

You're a nice bloke!

If this happened again, I don't think I'd let him come in just like that.

I would've checked IDs and one thing and another.

There's the money back, all right? I'll keep 20 for myself!

There you are. Cheers. Thank you. That's brilliant.

I wouldn't have left them in the house, another thing I done wrong,

but I thought they was a couple of good guys, fair enough.

And I certainly wouldn't have paid the money.

-I'm really sorry, Dad. Do you still love me?

-No hard feelings!

I'm really sorry, mate. You're a good sport and I love you to bits!

Henry was such a good sport there.

But what should you do if you're in that situation?

First, always get at least three quotes.

Second, do your best to check tradesmen's credentials.

And finally, never leave them alone.

If Henry had stood over Roger and Luke,

they wouldn't have got away with so much.

Now, plumbing scams are very common, but statistics show the highest number of complaints

tend to be about dodgy roofing jobs.

In fact, in 2009, there were more than 1,500 reported complaints.

Cowboys use allsorts of scare tactics

to turn simple repairs into full-scale roof replacements.

So, how convincing are these dirty tricks?

Well, Roger's on another mission to show how easy it is to be ripped off.

When Pauline isn't running a bowling alley in Kent,

she's running around her house and garden in Chelmsford in Essex.

She's invited us to send Roger round to trick her husband David, a former boxer and bouncer,

who's now training to be a psychic medium.

I think David does fall for some tricks sometimes. He can be a bit gullible.

There's been a tile missing from the front of their roof for six months now

and Dave still hasn't got round to getting it fixed.

Remember, David has no idea that he's been set up by his wife.

A gap in the roof is all Roger needs to spring his dirty tricks.

I've come to Chelmsford and it's a lovely sunny day. It's ideal for being out on a roof.

-I've got Luke. You've got a few props.

-I went to a roofers merchant and they gave us these samples.

-You've got one of each colour, which is sensible.

-Yes.

Now, here's an idea. I've got the magic spray here.

This is a foam that fixes everything. If I tell him his roof is in danger of slipping off,

then I can really push him.

So the plan is to repair the missing tile,

but convince David the roof is about to collapse,

a common trick used by cowboys.

The next trick will be to sell David an unnecessary coating of foam spray

and, finally, convince him to have the whole roof repaired at a later date,

hopefully at the cost of a few thousand pounds.

Roger's having a day on the tiles.

Including labour, replacing a single roof tile

shouldn't cost more than £40-50.

Roger doesn't trifle with small change

and his dirty trick should bring him six times that amount in cash today.

David's alone when our cowboys rock up at three o'clock.

-It's a nice day for it.

-Beautiful.

-Hello there.

-Hiya, mate.

-Mr Hanlon? We're going to look at...

-It's your roof, isn't it?

-It's only a matter of one tile.

-That shouldn't take a few minutes.

-Can you see it, Rog?

-Yes.

I'll nick one from round the side to put in there.

I'll put the new one in round the side so that it won't stand out.

Then nobody will know any difference.

He's very trusting. He hasn't asked Roger for ID.

But to be fair, he thinks his wife, Pauline, booked a reliable builder,

known to family.

Roger's doing all he can to gain his victim's trust,

crucial if he's to squeeze out the most money.

But hang on. Is our victim about to hand Roger a whole new scam idea?

-Do us a favour...

-Sorry?

-Could you see if there's anywhere squirrels could get in?

-Have you got a squirrel problem?

-I think so. In the loft.

-Really? Have you seen them in there?

-No. They're always on the roof.

-My son, who's in the front bedroom, heard scratching and dragging.

-Oh, no.

OK, I'll have a look at that, for sure.

-Watch him.

-I'll watch him.

OK, well,

I was just going to go up there and replace that tile

and just tell him a story about the sagging battens and so on,

but he's just told us that he's got a squirrel problem

and there may be somewhere up there that squirrels are getting in. So we'll have to see how it goes.

We may be changing our tactics slightly. We'll see what we can do.

Roger had planned his dirty tricks carefully.

Let's hope this last-minute change of strategy with squirrels doesn't backfire on him.

First things first, Roger will slip his new, darker tile into the side section of the roof

so that it's hidden from our street view by the chimney.

He's not wearing a hard hat.

It's reckless. The kind of thing a rogue might do.

Now he has an old yellow tile to use on the front of the roof to complete his job.

-OK, I've got the tile here.

-Good.

-This is the one we need.

-If you grab that... There you go.

-All right, mate.

David's not showing too much interest in the tradesman scampering over his property.

Roger has free reign to do what he likes.

But David would be better to stay watching him like a hawk.

When it comes to some rogue tradesmen,

don't even trust them with your teacups.

THEY LAUGH

Oh, tea!

-Oh, that's got sugar in it!

-It's the other way round, isn't it?

-Let's get the deck chairs out.

-Shall we?

I think we're going to have to carry deck chairs in future!

I know you're trying to brazen it out to charge for extra time,

but come on, guys, the roof has a hole that needs filling!

With the jigsaw neatly finished, the roof is repaired.

Roger's almost ready to spring the first of his dirty tricks.

But what story will he spin David?

-We're going squirrel hunting now. It's that chimney, isn't it?

-Sorry?

-I reckon it's got to be that chimney.

-Right.

Are the rafters rotting from damp, or have the squirrels had them for breakfast?

I'm on the edge of my seat here.

I think what I'm going to do is,

I'm going to say that we can fix the squirrel problem,

and, erm, then I'll talk to him about the ridge tiles coming off

and say we'll do all the bits and pieces altogether, er,

and that'll be... we'll take £1,000 for that.

But I'll get this squirrel problem out the way for about £300.

Squirrel infestation and ridge tiles?

Roger could now be looking at £1,300 for a job he's invented from nothing.

Time to spring the trick on the trusting David,

probably with a load of Roger's trademark highfalutin flannel thrown in.

David? All right.

There's a few places round the back where it could be getting in,

on the flat roof where it joins up to the pitched roof.

What I could do is squirt some foam in there all the way along.

-Have you seen that fixer foam, that expanding foam?

-Yes.

I could put that all the way along the gap.

They can chew their way through that and they'd probably get bored with it.

The tile wasn't too much of a problem.

There's a bit of water got in there.

The rest of the roof is a little bit...

The hips look like they might blow off if you get a strong storm or something.

I could do that, but that'd be a later date.

If you want me to fill the back where the squirrels are coming in...

How much is that going to cost?

With the tile I've already done, say £350 for the lot?

-£350?!

-Yes.

-You're joking?

Watch out, Roger, he's a big lad.

So, will David hand over the £350 for nothing?

You are joking, mate?

How far will Roger push him to grab that cash?

There's cowboy builders out there, but there's also cowboy customers.

Brilliant. I love it when the public fight back.

Now, Roger's tricks are based on real life,

but when you compare them to some of the genuine roofing catastrophes we've heard about,

he seems almost restrained.

As you watch our next story unfold,

once again, you'll see that crime doesn't pay.

Take a look at this.

And this. And this.

It's the work of roofing scammer Aaron Barnes.

Not only is this job shockingly awful,

it cost an eye-watering £7,810.

Mr Barnes would always start off

doing a small amount of work for a few hundred pounds, say,

and then he'd always notice that roofing work was needed

and the price would escalate.

Before consumers knew it,

they were agreeing to thousands of pounds of roofing work.

Barnes operated around the Ringwood area of Dorset.

In April 2009, he knocked at the door

of retired engineer Paul Dickson and his wife Roberta.

He said, "I can see you need work on your gutterings and fascia boards."

I said, "Yes, I do.

"But I don't take work from builders who just call at the door."

I thought that was that, but he was very persistent.

He said, "I'll just give you a price if you'd like."

He gave me a price of £1,800, which was quite reasonable.

Mr Dickson felt £1,800 to replace fascias, soffits and guttering sounded like a bargain.

Barnes said this work would take three to four days.

They came along, it was a very wet day,

it rained half the day,

but they carried on, they took all the fascia boards, the soffits off, the guttering all came down.

An awful lot of trust is put in a business like a roofer

because it's hard for the individual to judge for themselves

whether or not roofing work needs doing.

Barnes was about to severely breach that trust

and play some really rotten tricks.

He came to me and said,

"You've got problems with the timber in the roof.

"A lot of it's rotten. The verges are all crumbling away."

Barnes told Paul some of his rafters needed replacing urgently.

His original quote had been £1,800.

Now Barnes quoted £7,810,

a whopping 400 percent increase on his original estimate.

I felt very trapped because the price had gone up so much - nearly four times the original.

I felt over a barrel. I couldn't get other builders to give me quotes

because he said he would leave the job if I didn't carry on.

As Barnes and his men worked, the Dicksons grew increasingly uneasy.

Wisely, Mr Dickson decided to keep a photographic record of the work in progress.

After six days of work, Barnes left and the Dicksons' fears proved well founded.

Just two days after the work was finished,

just up there at the end of the gulley,

water was pouring into our lounge.

To see all the mess,

and also to have this awful leak

that came right through the bedroom down into the lounge,

I was absolutely livid.

The Dicksons were uncertain of what to do next. But it was a neighbour who brought things to a head.

They'd reported Barnes to Trading Standards for cold calling in the area.

Acting on complaints they'd received about Barnes,

they sent a surveyor to investigate the Dicksons' new roof in May 2009.

His findings turned out to be worse than first imagined.

What our evidence showed

was that the additional work that took the job up to £7,800

was totally unnecessary.

So the escalation of price and the work done

was actually fraudulent and dishonest.

With evidence like the surveyor's report,

Trading Standards now initiated legal proceedings.

Knowing he was likely to face prosecution,

Barnes returned to Mr Dickson's house.

He did try and placate Mr Dickson and put certain things right,

but he didn't address the main problem,

and that was that the £6,000 of work

that was added to the initial bill

was for work that wasn't necessary.

At Bournemouth Crown Court, Barnes pleaded guilty to fraud

and was given 250 hours of community work and a 12-month suspended sentence.

By March 2011, he was back in court,

when a financial investigation showed he'd pocketed

a whopping £50,000 from all that unnecessary work.

He was ordered to pay, by the court, £17,000

as a confiscation order under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

What a result. So two long years after Barnes first called at their house,

the Dicksons received £6,000 of their money back.

They've certainly learned from this experience.

Basically, I never take cold callers knocking on the door any more.

That's a policy now.

I check online and get quotes.

Really go into it in great detail before I make any decisions.

It's great to see justice being done.

Now, what about our family in Chelmsford?

Considering the roofing tricks Roger's been playing there,

I wonder if David Hanlon will bite back.

-Hello there.

-Hiya, mate.

-Mr Hanlon?

The initial plan was to make out that a cracked tile let in so much water

that David's roof was about to collapse.

Roger's replaced a tile, a job that normally costs around £50.

Now he's angling for more than six times that to seal up the roof

against, of all things, squirrels.

In fact, there's nothing wrong with the roof.

If you want me to fill the back where the squirrels are coming in...

How much is that going to cost?

With the tile I've already done, say £350 for the lot?

-£350?!

-Yes.

-You're joking?

Well, it's going to take us a little while to do it.

-How much just for the tile?

-Just for that one tile?

-Well, you can call it £150 cash.

-For one tile?

£150 just to put one tile on?

Yeah!

Do you know how much a gallon of petrol is now?

I'll ring my missus, because she's the one who organised all this. She should be here in a minute.

I would've given you a quote. I've done the job now.

-You let me go up there without -

-Give me ten minutes. I'll try and get hold of her.

-OK.

Ever resourceful, let's see how the artful Roger

digs himself out of this little setback.

He's not biting.

He's not very happy. I'm only charging £150. I was going to go for 300,

so it's a bit of a shame that he's baulked on that.

But what he didn't do, of course, is to ask me for a quote before I went up to do the job.

He just assumed it would be reasonable.

We'll see what we can do. Bit of leverage.

But he's far from happy.

Mr Hanlon?

She's on her way.

What did you think was a reasonable figure for doing that job?

I'd have given you £40-50. You just put a ladder up and changed a tile.

-I risked my life to get up there.

-Be real!

-Seriously.

-We risk our life every day when we drive a motor, don't we?

-Yes.

-But, you know... I mean, you could've done it.

-Huh?

-You could've got up there.

-If I had a ladder, I would.

There you are! So, where do you get a free ladder from?

-If you hire a ladder -

-I could borrow the neighbour's.

-You didn't, though, did you?

Roger's following a classic rogue tradesman technique.

He wants his money, and gradually increases his levels of intimidation.

How long before he tries driving David to the nearest cashpoint?

Difficult to say, but if he's not careful, the ex-boxer may hit him

with more than stiff words.

We're standing here, arguing the toss, losing money.

-We're not arguing at all. You're asking questions and I'm telling you.

-OK.

-My missus is coming now.

Well, time's ticking. As far as we're concerned,

we're losing dosh standing here talking about it.

-OK, we'll wait for your wife.

-She'll be here in five minutes.

That's fair enough. I don't want to cause a ruck with you.

Try to do an honest job for you and, er...

There's cowboy builders out there, but there's also cowboy customers.

We'll see what she says. But the time is ticking.

It'll be another £25 before... before we've gone.

Definitely not a happy medium.

David's wife Pauline is parked around the corner, helping us spring this trick.

As Roger waits for her decision about his money, Pauline receives over 20 calls from her husband,

who's getting more and more irate.

Finally, she picks up.

-Hi, hun.

-"Paul?"

-Yes?

-Where the

-BLEEP

-are you?

I'll be home shortly.

-"Where are you?"

-Just coming off the A12. I should be about five minutes.

"You'd better be because I ain't paying them."

-All right. See you in a minute.

-BOTH: Bye.

Dave sounded like he had the hump!

For Roger to stand a chance of collecting any money today,

there's no choice but for Pauline to speed back and help resolve the situation.

-I've done a lovely job for you!

-Hiya.

-I've put it back.

-Thank you.

-And now your husband doesn't want to pay me.

I thought it was quite a reasonable job, you know, £150.

We had to come out, put diesel in the van. We've got another job to go to.

DIALOGUE BLEEPED

Hun, the man's done the job. We've got to give him something.

Things are not looking great for our cowboy builder.

Has he come up against a consumer who knows the value of a job

and won't be led astray by a cowboy?

What do you want to give me?

-£40.

-£40?! How about 80?

-DIALOGUE BLEEPED

-All right, I'll tell you what. Er...

75, how about that? I'll give you a discount.

If looks could kill, Roger would be dead on the driveway.

Today, David Hanlon has let a tricky tradesman onto his roof

without asking for a quote or checking his ID.

Roger's replaced a tile and dreamt up several dirty tricks

to squirrel away £300 of David's money.

The red mist came down for our homeowner,

but will he finally pay up?

If you need another apprentice, I'm your man.

-Good man! Do you want a receipt?

-No.

-You don't?

-My wife might.

So upset, he doesn't even want a receipt.

David took a tough stance against the conman and won a battle for consumer rights.

It's not looking good for our tricky tradesman.

£70 is just £20 more than the going rate for a tile repair,

so it's hardly been worth his while.

With Roger safely round the corner, it's time for our producer to pay David a visit

and reveal the truth of the scam.

We're doing some filming in the area,

just asking people whether they've had tradesmen calling at all.

It's funny you should say that, mate. There was one nearly killed on the doorstep a minute ago.

-Right.

-Yes.

-Right.

-A roofer.

-OK.

He moved one tile for me and he wanted £150 for doing it.

-Did he come through you, then, this guy?

-Well, yes.

Can I have my money back, then, for the one tile he put up?

He's coming. He's coming. Roger!

Give us my money back, Roger.

-How do you get up in the morning?

-I just spent it.

I'm shocked, actually, but I can see the point of it now, you know, people do get ripped off.

And if it helps anyone, I'm glad.

-Sorry to do that to you, mate.

-That's all right. I could be your apprentice!

-Easy money!

-I could do with you as the muscle.

If it ever happened again, I would ask for the quote first.

And if they're pensioners or someone that is physically vulnerable,

I would make sure I had someone with me to deal with it.

Because they can obviously be very intimidating, can't they?

Thanks for taking it so well, David.

Isn't it terrific to see people trusting their instincts

and standing their ground?

You can rely on the majority of tradesmen being honest and hardworking.

It's only a very few who play dirty tricks.

If there's one things to remember - if in doubt, keep them out.

Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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