My neighbor was scammed by driveway spraying scammers

Another risk with an unlicensed contractor:

If they are not licensed they may be breaking other laws such as not having insurance or workers comp. If a worker gets injured on the job you could be sued.

Reply to
George Grapman
Loading thread data ...

Personally, we never do any business from people who call or knock on our door selling stuff. This includes those guys selling meat from pick-up trucks. "You're neighbor down the street ordered too much meat...". Usually, there is not even a neighbor home when these guys stop here. If we need something fixed, painted, sealed etc. we search out reputable locally owned companies.

Melissa

Reply to
Melissa

Bill, you have nothing positive to contribute.

Bye.

Reply to
jJim McLaughlin

Kurt Ullman wrote

That expertise is required to work out the difference between deliberate criminal fraud and just plain hopeless operators that dont have enough of a clue to use the appropriate materials.

Its MUCH more complicated than that with the proof beyond reasonable doubt required to prove alleged criminal fraud as opposed to incompetance.

Reply to
Rod Speed

Maybe not, but that doesnt mean you will get a refund or the job dont properly either.

And like the worst of them will be happy to tell you, they know where you live.

Reply to
Rod Speed

Very common over here to SEAL the blacktop. 2 purposes - makes it look good, and keeps moisture out so it doesn't crumble from frost. Also helpd keep gas and oil from attacking the asphalt

Reply to
clare at snyder.on.ca

Check out this article on Traveler and Rom scammers....

formatting link
hope helps....have fun.....sno

Reply to
sno

Preventative maintenence. A good seal coat over asphalt is like a good coat of paint on your house. It reduces damage from the elements over time and looks really nice too. I seal coat our rental unit driveways every two years. And no, I don't offer to coat th' neighbors .

Snarl

Reply to
snarl

Chuckle. You must be new here. Rod keeps rotating 'from' addresses, so you have to watch for his signature writing patterns, and add the new addy every month or so.

aem sends...

Reply to
aemeijers

Nobody else said it so I will- if they just painted the drive, their truck will be in the street, and probably no way to block it in. But even if there was, still a stupid idea. A few bucks ain't worth risking a knife or a gun in your face, and many of these travelling hucksters aren't real civilized when cornered.

Never hire a door-to-door tradesman, and if you have a moment of weakness in the face of a good BSer and get screwed, well, write down the plate, call the cops, and basically write it off to experience.

aem sends....

Reply to
aemeijers

Mike Berger wrote in news:f2a30j$pe$ snipped-for-privacy@roundup.shout.net:

Yeah, I guess they are skilled and more importantly, interested.

Reply to
D Murphy

D Murphy wrote

Doesnt mean they got a conviction.

Thats all you have substantiated with that particular jurisdiction.

Reply to
Rod Speed

Hm, that's our county, and we did in fact write down their license plate number. I will ask my wife for that piece of paper where we wrote it down.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus10518

I have no intention of starting a flame war, I'm just trying to understand why one would pay to have a "seal coat" applied to an driveway.

I've driven over miles and miles of "black top" highway that has never had a "seal coat" applied. In fact it would appear at first glance that a "seal coat" would be counter productive since, as laid, asphalt cement surfaces are abrasive and have a high coefficient of friction and I would think that applying a "seal coat" would leave a slick surface.

Bruce in Bangkok (brucepaigeatgmaildotcom)

Reply to
Bruce

"Ignoramus10518" wrote

However, getting someone to "run" it for you is a different matter. You can take it to the police and give it to them, and explain the situation. If they do "run" the plate, you will probably receive none of the information. If it does get a "hit", then they will follow up on it. If you know a police officer real good, they can do it and tell you what the results were, even though they are not supposed to. (It's done all the time)

When I started dating my wife years ago, she gave my license number to her daughter, a police officer, to get me checked out. I must have passed.

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

DOJ NCIC terminals require a "sign-in log" for offices - required for audit. Only qualified folks are allowed in this terminal/secure area and they receive serious training.

When I dated my wife I looked at her teeth; kind of like what you would do when buying a horse or mule!

I was checked every five years for over 30 years, I'm surprised how far they can get a microscope that far up my ass; especially when I was sued by a Nigerian Prince, circa '83. He lost his case!

-- Oren

"I don't have anything against work. I just figure, why deprive somebody who really loves it."

Reply to
Oren

The highways on which you have driven have almost certainly been seal-coated unless they are quite new. My uncle owned a highway construction company that specialized in blacktop and I worked for him in the summer when I was in college. We did a fair amount of seal-coating.

The two most common types of blacktop (at least back then) used on roads was RC and AC. RC stays soft until it is compressed (rolled) and then doesn't get all that hard. AC hardens as it cools. RC is much easier to handle, but AC wears much better. Hence, RC is generally used for secondary roads and AC for major highways. The problem is that, when blacktop cracks, moisture seeps down through the crack and begins to leach the soil underneath which undercuts the support to the road surface which leads to more cracks, etc., which leads to a pothole. While RC has some ability to "heal" itself under the pounding of the traffic, especially on a hot day, cracks in AC are "forever." So, it is necessary to seal the surface by shooting it with an appropriate hot oil (usually a special formulation of RC). But, because people who drive on fresh oil get it spattered on their cars and get mightily upset about that, the road is generally covered with a thin layer of fine gravel. So, the process is to shoot the oil with the distributor, follow that closely with the chip spreader and then after allowing it to set for a little while, sweeping away the excess with the rotory broom. The whole process goes quickly and a good road crew can chip-seal five to ten miles of road in a shift. If you don't see them out there, you never know the job was done unless you notice the change in the color of the road surface.

Jerry

Reply to
Jerry Foster

It was a good lesson to learn with a relatively small amount of money.

These guys had cashed my check in the 10 minutes it took to call my bank and put a stop on it. The person at the bank (back when you knew people in your individual branch and didn't call a 1-800 number) told me how sorry they were and that I wasn't the first person that day who had been scammed. My neighbour's husband came home and said, "How stupid were you that you hadn't heard of mulch scammers?!?!?" Well, gee, pretty stupid I guess.

Viv

Reply to
New Leaf

Viv, I never heard of mulch scammers either. Do you know what they do specifically? Leave "free mulch" with radioactive contamination? Hide cameras in mulch? Dump mulch without asking and demand payment for removal?

i
Reply to
Ignoramus30426

"If you ring my doorbell, you MAY live to regret it; then again, you MAY NOT!" I have, on occasion, assisted button pushers to leave more rapidly. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Reply to
Gerald Miller

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.