Tradesman fucked off with my money

[Blublubblubbing]

I need advice, I found a tradesman through mybuilder to do some garden work for me. He had 100% positive feedback and so I hired him. He turned up when he was expected and did a good job. I left positive feedback saying this.
Whilst on the job we agreed that he would replace our patio as well as he had been good with the first job. He asked for money for materials upfront which I was fine with as he had been very reliable so far. You can see where this is going.. 3 times he has cancelled now and last week I sent a message saying I would like a refund as it had been a month since I transferred money so I got an immediate response saying he would come today. Well guess what... he is not here and he is not answering the phone so have I lost my money? I don't have his address only a phone number.
I know people will say don't transfer money upfront but a lot of trades people ask for that as they could lose out from customers cancelling etc. What do I do now?

We are experiencing this with a guy called Jay /James.

Managed to get hold of him through someone who knew someone who knew someone etc and have had to threaten police action.

Our stories are nearly word to word the sameZ

Can you report him via mybuilder?

at pop round the local traveller sites. Do NOT do this.

Sadly at one point the excuses we had on one job were so far fetched we had to warn new trades before starting that it was very likely their grandparents/parents would die (more than once), every tool they ever owned would be stolen, their house would be flooded/burgled and their vans would inexplicably suffer more punctures in a week than you ever thought possible. I particularly liked the chap who couldn’t get to site for the umpteenth time in a fortnight as he had to get an MOT urgently on his van. I did point out It wasn’t even 12 months old . So yes, it is possible your chap has been unlucky but more likely that he’s trotted out an excuse he thinks will mean you won’t be chasing him.

When I first read your post I was going to say to cut him some slack, because my husband owns a building company, so I know from what he tells me that all supplies are delayed at the moment

I think if there were problems getting materials, he'd have mentioned it, surely? But having said that, all the builders I know are mad busy at the moment. My BIL has his own building business, and he's not even going to look at jobs if the customer wants anything started before July, because he's booked solid for the next 3 months. When you're booking jobs back to back that long in advance, it only takes a couple of things to go wrong to put you really behind schedule.

I've only had a tradesman let me down once. He came highly recommended by local people on Next Door. He quoted a very competitive price, we gave him the go-ahead, agreed a start date and and I gave him money up front for materials by bank transfer. He turned up promptly on the Friday with all the materials, ripped down all my guttering, took all the old stuff to the tip and finished for the day. He never came back again and didn't answer calls or texts, even when I rang from a different phone.

It transpired that he had a cocaine and alcohol habit and was given to going on benders. He'd only had the money for the materials and approx £140 which he said would mostly be the cost for disposing of the old guttering etc, and I had the materials. I had to pay another builder £50 to do a temp fix on the flat roof of my bay window, as the rain was pouring straight off the roof and pissing through.

It all came out later that he'd priced the job based on doing it from ladders, then got started and realised it needed scaffolding. The cost of the scaffolding would have meant he was doing the work a quite a loss.

The guys who eventually sorted it were brilliant, but their quote was nearly £1k higher. However, they said they could fix the leaky roof as well for £250 extra while they had the scaffolding up. We'd been quoted £1.5k for the roof repair, so ended up quids in overall.

I hope it gets sorted, OP. I've learned never to hand over money without a registered address for the business now.

I have been in touch with mybuilder and they've been really helpful. They told me to message him through their site as there would then be a record. They also sent me his address and email so I can do a formal letter requesting a refund. They tried to contact him for me but he didn't answer but it seems my message through the site prompted him to text me saying can he refund at the weekend as his wife is having pregnancy complications (this is an additional new excuse).
I'm pretty certain I won't get the money at the weekend but at least I now have an address to do a claim.
Also mybuilder have shut down his account temporarily until this gets resolved so he can't take on anymore work through them and they've removed my review which now gives me the opportunity to update it which I'll hold off on so he has a chance to rectify this.

Wow so the website have broke the law giving you his address 😳 as that is private not only that for all you know he could be have genuine problems and he can no longer book in work should like you have done a right number on him and at small claims court if he does not refund he could technically sue you back for loss of earnings as tge second job was not booked though the my builder site so be careful, oh and he is not on for not responding to you or cancelling

I would tell him that unless it's returned by the end of the month (so any wages etc would have come through) then you will be taking it to the small claims court. Whatever you do, don't let him persuade you that he'll do the job now. He's tried to scam you. I bet his wife isn't even pregnant.

Well, I bunk that’s a good response from my builder and at least puts some faith, as a consumer, into their site. I hope you get your refund

Good to hear that you're making progress, I'm not always convinced by the central tradesman sites but this one does seem to be prepared to act

It may be in their Ts and Cs that they can pass on contact details where there's a dispute

Wow mybuilder sounds good!!

Wow so the website have broke the law giving you his address 😳

If it's his registered business address then they haven't broken the law. We also don't know what people agree to about passing of information by being on the site

Why would his wife having pregnancy complications mean he can't refund for another 3 days?

@shouldistop

Why would his wife having pregnancy complications mean he can't refund for another 3 days?

I'm sure it's just an excuse but if you were having pregnancy problems (assuming you're a woman) wouldn't you rather your partner took time of work to support you. That's not too unbelievable in principle

@FlyingBurrito he can take time off work and also spend 5 minutes doing an online transfer of money to refund op.

[quote shouldistop]@FlyingBurrito he can take time off work and also spend 5 minutes doing an online transfer of money to refund op. [/quote]
He could yes, but still not unreasonable that a partner with pregnancy complications has asked him to turn his phone off and support her. If I was in hospital say with bad pregnancy news I'd be pretty passed off is my partner was distracted by work.

I don't think he is having this issue, just saying I can see that there would be men who would step totally away from work.

Uck I just think the guy is totally at it. In the time he responded to op to say that he could have fired the money across. He clearly doesn't have it.

@Dddccc

Wow so the website have broke the law giving you his address 😳 as that is private not only that for all you know he could be have genuine problems and he can no longer book in work should like you have done a right number on him and at small claims court if he does not refund he could technically sue you back for loss of earnings as tge second job was not booked though the my builder site so be careful, oh and he is not on for not responding to you or cancelling

There were probably terms and conditions he had to sign up to when he chose to be on MyBuilder. I suspect they have the right to give out his business address in cases like this.

It stinks of bullshit. Hope you get the money back.

People ought to be prosecuted for this kind of behaviour. His issues all sound like lies.

No they don't have a right as he had completed the work that was booked though them the extra work was not though them so really nothing to do with them and it comes under a data breach, however the op could have just used companies House to get the business address instead of involving a 3rd party and getting his account temporarily stopped like a normal person

Yes I am struggling to believe his excuses and I think he just doesn't have the money anymore. Will just have to wait and see what happens. I'm not the type to turn up at his address anyway and from past experience I'd say tradesmen do put their registered address on their invoices etc so I don't think mybuilder have done anything wrong.

His company doesn't seem to exist dddccc so I had no choice. He just has a mobile number so couldn't look up his company. I think mybuilder should have checked that before he was allowed to register on their site actually.

@Dddccc

No they don't have a right as he had completed the work that was booked though them the extra work was not though them so really nothing to do with them and it comes under a data breach, however the op could have just used companies House to get the business address instead of involving a 3rd party and getting his account temporarily stopped like a normal person

I'm hazarding a guess that the legal team at mybuilder had some clues for Christmas though.

@Dddccc, I am not sure that's the case...mybuilder will have a commercial relationship with the builder and the Op is also a client of the site, as such he will have agreed to privacy terms, and processes for dispute resolution. His email and address will be company details and he is likely to agreed on the basis of him securing work through the site. I suspect they have clauses for referrals.

Most reputable builders will have trade accounts and payment not required immediately, it's why cash upfront shouldn't be needed.

His company doesn't seem to exist ... I think mybuilder should have checked that before he was allowed to register on their site actually

As said, and like most paid for sites, MyBuilder just want the subs

I'm frankly amazed they sounded helpful on the phone - I've known too many people where they haven't - but suspect it'll stop a long way short of actually resolving anything.
Oh, and it doesn't matter that they've removed him from the site ... he'll just re-sign under something else and they won't check that either

@Dddccc

No they don't have a right as he had completed the work that was booked though them the extra work was not though them so really nothing to do with them and it comes under a data breach, however the op could have just used companies House to get the business address instead of involving a 3rd party and getting his account temporarily stopped like a normal person

But the law also requires him to provide his address to his customers, whether he's a sole trader or limited company. He should have provided an invoice for work previously done and that should have included his address. It's against the law for any business not to provide an address on its official documents, advertising materials, etc. The customer has a legal right to know the address of any business.