My neighbor was scammed by driveway spraying scammers

if you have a dog

Mindless paranoia.

You can make the same utterly mindless claim about those who do work at your house, or who deliver stuff, including the post monkeys.

Fraud. For starters. Down in the 'merican south? perhaps not. Up here in Canada it depends how slow a day they are having. They take a strong stand against that kind of scam in our locale.

Coal tar emulsion - makes nasty discolouration on light vinyl floors, even months after application.

Not tooo many of the "irish scum" can afford to travel to Chicago Il to ply their "trade", so the "irish traveller" is not well known over here. Not a lot of Romani (Gypsies) either - but more than enough scam artists of all stripes and colors.

. What would be a sensible thing to do in these lousy

a. wouldn't give them another dime.

b. get someone reliable to finish the job, even if I had to redo the whole mess.

c. see if my local newpaper would print an article alerting the public to the deal. ( I thought the whole WORLD was onto the paving, termite, meat-about-to-go-bad, and roofing schemes.)

With this type of job, I get the particulars in writing beforehand, see a license and insurance, and MIGHT pay enough to just buy materials. I tell them I will only pay with a cashiers check, when they say cash only. I want a record!!

Start out by asking for a business card with their contractors license number on it.

Those were some stupid scammers.

Generally, we go to Chinese restaurants once a week, to get used vegetable oil to spray. We charge the restaurant $100 to haul it away.

We tell the consumer it's a mineral-colloid-stabilized, emulsified refined coal tar suitable for use as a weather-protective.

Once we get started, we always find some wide cracks. We then tell the consumer, it's going to take an extra $125 to fill the cracks permanently. I ramble on to the consumer about this special fill used for asphalt. It's nothing more than drywall compound (Durabond 30).

When we leave the job which was originally quoted @ $150 - $200, it is always at least $500 + . The stupid ass consumer has a nice shiny driveway for about a year, and little knowledge of what was really applied to it.

Between the 4 crews each doing about 4 drives a day, you can make a pretty good $ on stupid people.

You don't get out a lot, do you? Lots and lots of rapes, murders, burglaries, and other things committed by people posing as someone they're not. Facts, not mindless paranoia. If you can't read the newspapers, there's local TV news each evening at around six. Don't own a TV? Well, I guess you are going to have to splurge $10 on a cheap AM radio. They have news on the hour every hour.

Steve

Good grief! Now, even with all the obsessive perfectionists, "honest" people, the anal, the netnannies, and grumps, we got morphing trolls.

Bye.

Steve

mowers, if you have a dog

Have you ever NOT answered your door and then observe the solicitor twist the door knob?

I always answer my door in full force: by any means I was taught to kill with, though not so noticeable to my door knocker.

The story is different here in Florida. Certain RV parks fill up with them in the winter time. In the summer, they are somewhere else. I wish to be careful to point out that not all of them are crooks, many keep legitimate jobs (have seen some in nursing) but still like the traveling lifestyle.

But if some guys with out of state tags knocked on my door and wanted to coat my driveway cheap with some material "left over from another job"...

"Oren" wrote

A number of towns around me started implementing laws that door to door salespeople had to register. You know those magazine salespeople? They are recruited in the inner cities, bussed to the suburbs and dropped off. Many of them have criminal backgrounds. Sounds like some paranoid story I'm making up. How much money are they making off these subscriptions to make this scheme worthwhile?? At any rate, they can be trouble, and a couple of years back one of them murdered an elderly lady when she let him in for a glass of water.

I don't think it's paranoia to have sales people ... or whomever ... register so they are on notice, the police know you're in the area.

nancy

Shoot the bastards. It was probably also used crank case oil.

Racking slide on shotgun sure helps keep your door closed.

You are so right. It don't happen in Las Vegas - all the time. They pass out flyers (strip) for me to have an erotic escort. Hell I'm local with no need.

The police know they are there and might even understand when I push the guy out of my space or on his ass when I walk the street.

Just like me answering the front door. The person ought to really know what he is up against. Don't get me wrong. I don't cut or shoot everyone knocking on the door.

-- Oren

"The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!"

Steve B wrote

pay more, they stared

crappy mulch, too.

Never ever could bullshit its way out of a wet paper bag.

people posing as

Yes, but its just not feasible to never ever let anyone anywhere near your house just in case its one of those. And f*ck all of those you mention above are spraying scammers or even just door to door sales fools anyway. Too easy to identify those.

Your claim that you should ensure that no one can get anywhere near your house is just completely mindless paranoia.

six. Don't own a

They have news on

And those report f*ck all spraying scammers doing anything more than con the stupid, stupid.

Oren wrote

Not even possible here, no rotating door knob, the front door is a big sliding glass patio door.

More fool you. Just another utterly mindless paranoid loon.

Pity the real crims wont bother to register with the cops.

Just another terminally stupid system that only inconveniences those who arent the problem and does nothing about those who are.

If you're that paranoid, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to have decent secure security cameras so you can give the cops the footage when something undesirable happens.