Is this a thing? Landscaping gardeners lying about family crisis then ghosting you. ‘Cos it’s happened twice

[bellinisurge]

We have a small overgrown back garden that needs new fencing and decking removed and replaced with paving. We went through “Check a trade” and matched it with local Facebook recommendations. Start Date and price agreed (about £5k) then silence. When he didn’t turn up, I contacted him and he explained he’d had a family crisis. I accepted that, wished him well, then started looking again. Found another. Same thing happened. Start date and price agreed (about £6k). Then , after a no show, another family crisis and a promise to get back to me after I chased. Again utter silence.
Is “agreeing a £5k job then going silent and, when chased, faking a family emergency to get out of it” a thing?

The two tradespeople from Checkatrade who let us down were white locals but "effnic minorities" get the blame.

I did mean they were white and local-ish. They tend to travel around a bit if you catch my drift.

We get you were referring to the Traveller community, but local cowboys don't have their incompetence blamed on their heritage.

But I was talking about MY experiences as the owner of a scaffolding company.

We've had this and even getting window quotes seems to be impossible and we live in a bungalow, so logistically easy! It is why we've,over the course of our four homes, learnt to do most everything and luckily have friends who can do the bits that need legal sign off. We've had gardeners that failed to turn up when they realised we want labour and real gardening and not just someone to push a lawnmower and do a bit of hedge cutting.

@jellycombpretty confident none of these lads were from the traveller community