KENNESAW, GA– A man is accused of scamming an 80-year-old blind woman out of thousands of dollars for roofing work that he never did in Kennesaw, authorities said.
James Taylor, of Dalton, is wanted by Acworth police after allegedly going door to door in a neighborhood on Freedom Landing and offering to do roofing work for the woman, Channel 2 Action News reported. Her home fell under Acworth police’s jurisdiction despite its Kennesaw mailing address.
Police Capt. Mark Cheatham told Channel 2 Taylor has been arrested in the past for similar crimes.
“He has an extensive criminal history for conduct such as this,” Cheatham said.
Taylor told the woman he would clean her gutters, and he later convinced her that her roof needed maintenance, Cheatham told the news station.
He said she wrote one check for $1,080 before Taylor said he made a mistake on the amount and that he would destroy the first check. She then wrote him another check for $1,280.
An arrest warrant obtained by Channel 2 said, “The victim’s family hired a reputable company to inspect the roof and was informed that no repairs had been made.”
Taylor faces several felony charges, including fraud and exploitation of the elderly, the news station reported.
Anyone with information on this incident is asked to call Acworth police at 770-974-1232.
BBC England– Six gang members who carried out substandard or unnecessary roofing work for vulnerable elderly customers have been jailed.
They were found guilty at Teesside Crown Court, along with two other men who were sentenced to community orders.
They had overcharged five men in their 70s, 80s and 90s by thousands of pounds in 2016 and 2017.
Judge Sean Morris said it was a “well-organised fraud that set out to fleece elderly people of their savings”.
The sentences ranged from 12-month community orders to almost four years in jail.
He called Shaun Doyle “one of, if not the, main player” in the gang, describing him as “disgraceful” and a “very unpleasant offender”.
“It is quite clear there was deliberate targeting of them [the victims] because they were very vulnerable, frail, fearful, forgetful, and over-trusting,” he said.
In a statement to court one of the victims, from Thornaby, said he felt he had been “gullible”, the council said.
“I’m disappointed in myself for letting this happen,” the man said.
“They were happy to rip me off; they were so careless in what they did on my roof and I even had to pay for the damage they caused on my neighbour’s roof.”
‘Inadequate work’
North Yorkshire County Council trading standards, which investigated the gang, said an 89-year-old Richmond man had been driven to banks in Darlington on three occasions to transfer a total of £17,000.
Police were alerted by a member of the public who overheard the man talking to a bank cashier.
Image copyrightNORTH YORKSHIRE POLICEImage captionPaul Masterton and his son, James, were given community orders
The council said its surveyor called the work “unfit for purpose” and worth just £600.
Householders had been overcharged for “unnecessary, incomplete and inadequate work”, it said.
Police found the gang had targeted four other victims living in Thornaby, Pocklington, York and Rowlands Gill, Gateshead.
Three had paid £18,500, £10,700 and £9,500 but one was stopped from handing over money by neighbours who called the police.
Sentences and charges
James Masterton, 35, of Walnut Place, Newcastle – 12-month community order with unpaid work – money laundering
Andrew Hardy, 32, of no fixed address – three years, three months – money laundering and conspiracy to defraud
George Henry Queen Flannigan, 25, of Stirling Road, Milnathort, Kinross-shire – three years, 11 months – conspiracy to defraud
William Stewart, 23, of Holmelea Travellers’ Site, Elvington, York – two years, nine months – conspiracy to defraud
Shaun Doyle, 33, of Claremont Road, Darlington – three years, five months – conspiracy to defraud
Mark Genery, 39, of Tithe Barn Road, Stockton – two years, nine months – conspiracy to defraud
Graham Thom, 27, of Forglen Crescent, Turriff, Aberdeenshire – one year, 11 months – conspiracy to defraud
Paul Masterton, 67, of Walnut Place, Newcastle – 12-month community order with unpaid work – forgery
Paul Masterton and his son James were also ordered to pay £1,000 compensation to the victim in Richmond.
Doyle and Flannigan were given indefinite criminal behaviour orders, preventing them cold calling and carrying out residential work for anyone over 60.
LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa.– Police are seeking a wanted man in connection to a home improvement scam that was committed on an elderly person.
George Braun, 35, is wanted by police.
On November 12, Braun allegedly solicited roofing business from an 87-year-old victim at a residence in the first block of Martzall Road in East Cocalico Township.
Braun originally quoted a price of $425 but after approximately 1.5 hours of work, he charged the victim $4425.
He attempted to cash a check for that amount on November 13, but bank employees became suspicious and contacted the victim.
After that contact, the victim refused to cash said check. A local construction company also confirmed that the victim did not receive $4000 of roofing work.
It is believed that Braun had been living in the southern part of Lancaster County, possibly in Kinzers.
He has ties to Arizona, where there are also warrants for his arrest.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the East Cocalico Township Police at 717-336-1725.
Are you a roofer that is finding it difficult to penetrate your desired market? Are you on the lookout for strategies that will expand your clientele? You are in luck! This article is tailored to help you achieve your desired marketing goals.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Your business is probably where it is because you are stuck up with the old forms of selling it out; this doesn’t mean that marketing through radio and TV channels are ineffective, it only means that times are changing, and you should find a way to go with the flow.
In a world where the number of internet users is fast rising,you can guess right that a large percent of your prospective clients are online. Digital marketing is simply the fastest way to push your products or services out there. In this article, we will be more particular about two digital marketing strategies that are endorsed by roofing marketing pros to make a make a difference.
They are:
Facebook Ads
Statistically, there are over a billion Facebook users. Take a minute to process that. It goes to tell you how much of a large network Facebook is. Some startups, after reading up testimonials about how much of a marketplace Facebook could be, they end up:creating a business page, doing all the essentials but eventually generating an almost insignificant amount traffic. And you know, when there is less traffic,there are fewer leads (prospects of sales).
The notable problem is that your posts aren’t reaching a large audience and also the right crowd. One sure way of ensuring your posts get a wider reach is through paid Facebook advertising.
There is a defined mechanics in which Facebook helps you reach the right audience. Let me give you an example: I was discussing with a friend the other day about my stolen phone; you won’t believe that the next day when I decided to visit my Facebook timeline, I kept on seeing a ton of sponsored ads of phone brands on my news feed.
It was strange but that made me curious to find an explanation to it. Which led me to discover that Facebook uses the different data gotten from users to target ads. It was indeed a shocking revelation. So what all this means is that the sponsored ads – by virtue of the information gotten – to reach the right audience.
Another great thing about Facebook ads is the call-to-action approaches it uses to make it easier to create leads. These call-to-action approaches can be: Sign Up, Learn more, Download, Contact Us, Watch more etc.; this way, whatever goal you want to achieve with the ad will be easily achieved.
With Facebook ad, you can control: the amount spent on your campaign, the type of audience the ad reaches, the visual representation of the ads etc.
To get more details on how to set up an ad campaign on Facebook, following the instructions highlighted at Adespresso.
AdWords
What is AdWords? This is basically a Google advertising platform that allows advertisers to pay to display their ads on any of the Google networks. And like the Facebook ad, this another Advertising means that is certified to yield results, if used properly.
There is no questioning on how effective it is, because,from statistics culled from Main Street ROI it is revealed that, “Businesses make an average of $2 in revenue for every $1 they spend on AdWords.”
Contrary to the misconceptions peddled about Google ads,you don’t have to break a bank to place your ad on Google. With a specified financial budget, you can run your ads on Google for as long as your budget allows.
On how it works, in the process of setting up your ad campaign on Google, you have to bid for some keywords – in which when these keywords are being inputted by a user, an auction occurs that finalizes the ads that would be shown on the search engine page.
The finalization of which ads top the ad rank (which defines the position of the ad) is a factor of: the relevance of ad to the user’s needs and the quality of keywords used – you have a competitive advantage if you used some key keywords that are relevant to your industry (but you have to also understand that those key keywords have a higher cost-per-click)
On Google AdWords, you have the power to control: when you want you ad to come up (the time), the geographical location you want it to be available to, the type of audience you want it to reach and the device you want your ad to be displayed to – whether mobile or desktop users.
