"Steve B" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
oups.com...
On May 12, 3:15 pm, wrote:
On May 12, 4:20 pm, "Steve B" wrote:



"Ignoramus6369" wrote in message

m...

It happened yesterday. A truck cruised in our neighborhood and I saw
them stop by our neighbor's house (we have a concrete driveway, his
is
asphalt) and they talked. Then I went to do something else, the next
thing I know is that my neighbor's asphalt driveway was sprayed with
some tar like substance. So I went to talk to see what happened.

He said that he was scammed: they first agreed on a certain price
($175), they took the money, sprayed half of his driveway, then
acted
all surprised and said that "it takes a lot more coating than they
expected" and demanded $50 more for finishing the work. I guess with
the implication that if he did not pay, they would drive off with
his
driveway half sprayed looking really stupid. So, he said he paid
extra
$50 and they finished the work.

So. I am aware that the general wisdom says do not give work to any
"drive by" people. But I would like to know, let's say that due to
poor judgment, it happened to me and these artists demand extra $50
to
finish. What would be a sensible thing to do in these lousy
circumstances?

i

Swallow hard, take down the license plate number, and walk away a
wiser man.
Then get on the phone and start calling local authorities.

Steve- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yeah, like local authorities don't have anything better to do than
waste their time on this crap? They're gonna tell you it's a
contract dispute, it's a civil matter, and take it to court if you
like. Good luck there.

Maybe, but here I suspect they would locate them and determine if they
had a city business license.
If not they would be happy to make sure they paid the city a nice fine
for not having a license. You might not get your money back, but they
might not be able to keep the money.

Dan


Dan, do YOU think that you'd have a better chance of getting something
done by the police in a small town or in a big city? trader and I seem to
think differently on this. What do you think?

In the small towns I have lived in, yeah, the local law does roust drive-by
scammers like this pretty hard, mainly because their preferred victims
usually have gray hair. Young homeowners usually don't care how driveway
looks, or are strong enough to go to Home Despot, and get a mop and couple
5-gallon buckets of glop and do it themselves.

aem sends...