Insulation scam in Sheffield

Hi, i was just wanting to pass some information to people regarding a previous customer of mine.

Last summer i had a phone call from a women whose parents where elderly and very vulnerable, i think both suffered from some sort of dementia. She had contacted me to asses and quote some rendering they had had done.

They had had a company (Company A) around 2 weeks prior to her contacting me who had offered to Render the full house and paint it. What they did was chop about 1 square metre off, render the 1 square metre with a DIY quick setting render. This took around 1 to 2 hours and was performed from ladders. They then tried to charge around £4000.00 for said works. With the elderly couple inside being vulnerable they were about to pay with cash until the daughter came in and stopped it.

The company in question had professional looking leaflets, websites and were limited, so could have looked like the real deal to most.

We were then contacted to render the house and did so without a problem.

I have had a call this morning from the daughter telling me another company (Company B) has been to the property yesterday, the elderly women with dementia has asked if Chris the renderer (me) has sent them as i assume we were the last people to work on their property and they have said yes. We didn’t and wouldn’t do anything like that.

They have gone into the house and performed a damp check on the property telling the elderly women that the house is damp and needs extensive work and given her a quotation of £2500.00 with discounts if she agreed there and then. with a few follow up calls today to try and get her to agree to the work.

Company A and Company B are the same company, just now with different names and directors. Company A were advertised as a roofing company who saw an opportunity to make some money from rendering. Company B are advertised as an insulation company who were trying to trick someone into having damp works performed.

The elderly women (husband died a few weeks ago) has taken cold calls & answered the door to these companies.

The companies or company are/is based in Nottingham but this has happened in S5 .

They have been reported to the police and trading standards.

Some helpful info on insulation is here on tactics and scaremongering these people use as well as other info on Spray insulations and the like.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/beware-cold-hearted-crooks-running-9412683

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/35Tq4d59vGhPF9kYs51vWnD/information-on-rogue-doorstop-sellers

My parents had some insulation conmen round a while ago, some really bad companies around specifically targeting older people.

They usually lead with claims all work is free and paid by the government, but when they've got their foot in the door it quickly becomes apparent they expect the owner to pay everything and bills inflate drastically.

Utter scum.