Hi Chris,

You have rightly hit the nail over the head. I totally agree with you
and believe the Government should do some thing to stop this conmanship.

Rajinder


wrote in message
ups.com...

Stuart Noble wrote:
Owain wrote:
Ch. Rajinder Nijjhar Jatt wrote:

These builders have put two others known to my friend in the same
situation and they have paid the builders sums of £40,000 each....
Now, the builders have disconnected their telephone line that used
to
have a fax as well and there is no way we can contact them and it
seems
the address is of a rented house. Mobile phones are not answered.
I
sent them a Special Delivery Letter on 04 August, 05 demanding my
money
back but no reply or telephone call.
The Company is a sole trader


So not actually a company, and that is a crucial difference in terms
of
liability.

You can probably sue in the courts. If the court notice cannot be
served
on him at his last known address it is possible to advertise the
fact
that an action has been raised in the newspapers so the defender can
collect his copy of the court papers from the court. You need a
solicitor to do this.

If the defender doesn't attend the court hearing you should get
judgement in default. However, you are then left with the problem of
locating the defendant and getting your money out of him. If he
doesn't
have any assets it's not worth sueing him.

Owain


Is there any other field of human endeavour where people so readily
hand
total strangers large sums of money?

The average person in the street simply isn't used to dealing with such
accomplished and convincing liars. Until you've been done by such
con-men, you don't appreciate how persuasive they can be. Even after
the event, you can't work out how they took you in. They exploit
typical human weaknesses. Classically it's the elderly who are more
trusting, but people who are simply too busy to shop around and wait in
for genuine builders who don't turn up to give a quote are equally
vulnerable. And just about everybody is frightened by assurances that
"your house is in a dangerous state and such-and-such must be done
immediately", especially if the caller has given the impression they're
from the Council. Once they've got you into the habit of handing over
large sums of money you get resigned to it.

They most likely did (or started to do) a good job at a good price for
the first person in Rajinder's chain, then relied on the
recommendations. Rajinder: warn everyone that they're probably now an a
circulating "mugs list" and to have absolutely nothing to do with any
builders who appear uninvited on their doorsteps, no matter what they
say; "Yes, we know about X, we're always picking up after him, but
we're not like that." will be the opening ploy.

Sadly, the chances of your getting your money back, even with a court
order, are vanishingly slim. Our local Trading Standards has managed to
get some convictions for not allowing the doorstep sales cooling-off
period, rather than quality of work or conmanship.

Chris