I think I have been scammed

[SarahFlower]

Hi, just looking for some advice.

Before we moved into our house a survey picked up that there were some tiles missing on our roof. Once we moved in we got a quote which was £3000 for having the work done, as we couldn't afford it at the time we didn't get the work completed.

On Friday last week we received a leaflet through the front door for a company which specialises in gutter cleaning and roof repairs. I contacted them on Friday and they agreed to come over on their way to a job on Saturday morning at 8am. At 7:35 am they arrived, in a car not the company van because it was "just small jobs they were doing today". I was given a quote of £65 for the gutters and £85 to replace the five missing tiles on the roof, the quote was given from the ground. We agreed to have this done and they said they could do it there and then. Once up on the roof we got a knock at the door to say that there was a few more tiles missing than they had initially seen from the ground, this for cost an extra £65, which we agreed. At this point I had no reason to believe that there was anything dodgy, about an hour later when they knocked on the door to say the work was done I stupidly didn't go out to check. I did a bank transfer for the total amount and asked for receipts. I was told if I text my email address, he would get "one of the girls in the office" to send me a receipt which I did. A few hours later in Marks & Spencer's I saw one of the men swearing at his son and being generally quite disruptive. My father-in-law came over that afternoon and had a look at the work pointing out that there were three broken tiles on the roof that were still broken. So I text pictures to the company asking if they could come back as there was a few missed. It's now Tuesday and I have not received any reply or receipt all of my messages are still showing as delivered/unread.

I did some investigating of the company and despite there being two of them, the company is registered it just having one employee. They have no trust pilot account no Google reviews and no Facebook advertising/account but do have an official looking website. When I look on Google Maps where the company is registered, it's a residential address with a company van outside advertising the company.

Do I continue to message them or just count my losses?

I don’t understand why you think they’re scamming you. They quoted for gutters and replacing tiles then found there were broken tiles and you agreed that they replace them. Your FiL then looked and saw further broken tiles. Those tiles could have been on another part of the roof and not noticed by the workmen.

you were quoted £3K for the work originally and now your complaining that you’ve spent a couple of hundred. It’s only Tuesday and you’re fussing that you haven’t had your receipt. I expect that as a small company they have few staff and it will come through soon. I think you’re being unfair to the guys.

Would you really pay £3k for a couple of tiles replacing? The broken one that are still there are in the same area of the roof. If it's taken 4 days to do a receipt that's fine but just acknowledging my texts? Not very good customer service!

Our lovely roofer actually told us we could just replace several tiles and the rest of the roof would last another couple of years. We did actually replace it, we didn’t want to wait until it started leaking.

Yes. I have used a number like this over the years.