Taken in by a con artist

[ThatLemonBear]

I feel so stupid. Had a chap approach me saying he was working on my neighbour’s drive, and could he clear mine at the same time. Spoke to my husband, who was non comital. Said yes in the end, purely to see my drive free of weeds and also because he was working next door. Turned out he wasn’t working next door at all, and I’ve paid way over the odds for a pressure washed driveway. The drive looks better now, but I have a sick feeling that I paid so much on a basically false pretence (I wouldn’t have entertained them if I hadn’t believed they were working next door)

YABU - you idiot, you should have seen this coming
YANBU - it’s not always easy to spot a liar

please be gentle with me!

That’s a crazy amount. Even paying £350 out of the blue for something unplanned and unfun as that is hard to fathom but you obviously had the cash and agreed to the price so best to own it really, and enjoy your slightly better driveway.

DH did something similar, it does happen to even sensible people unfortunately.
He got suckered into agreeing for people to dig out a border in our back garden. Think he paid £350 and the weeds were back within a year🙄

I still get irritated when I look at that border which is still full of weeds but mostly I do laugh about it now!

DH has too.

It's the grifter that's in the wrong, not you. You're just a nice person who momentarily forgot that not everyone is honest. Tell trading standards and your neighbours, then write off the money and send your bad luck with it.

What the guys done isn’t against the rules of trading standards.

Jeez, he saw you coming. "working at a neighbours" is their usual phrase, load of bollox. "Extra treatment", another phrase when they think you're an easy target.

Had a tree 'surgeon' knock on my door, said he was working at a neighbours, not one single house in our 35 house cul-de-sac has a feckin tree but us. Anyway, he wanted £300 to chop down a (small) tree by our house, this would have been a 5 min job for us to do by the way, he wasn't even going to take the tree away. I told him I'd have to 'speak with my husband', he stood there looking at me waiting for me to speak with him! When I realised he was waiting, he told me to call him now. I said no, he's in work. He then told me to call him at work! I said no, because he's at work. His face getting redder and redder with anger. He stormed off cursing in the end.

Fucking chancers.

Lesson learned for you OP.

They do it because it works. If you can afford the money then you can write this one off as experience.

I guess you can let the Police know, but its not like you have to have a liscence so I have no idea what they would charge him.

Police wouldn’t do anything, the guy hasn’t broken the law.

Don’t feel stupid. Assuming someone is acting honestly and fairly until proved otherwise is a wonderful
thing. I made a similar mistake a few years ago. I posted about my experience on here and was torn to shreds, I’m so happy to see kinder responses now.