The WORST contractor SCAM I've seen!

how are you doing well thanks now this is where things get pretty interesting guys this has to be dehydrated just build the foundation block by block it would be about 30 by 40 oh yeah you're the dirty monkey in youtube, yes, the story. I'm about to tell you that it's one hundred percent true and it didn't happen that long ago this general

contractor

scam

med his client,

scam

med the bank, scammed the lumber yard, scammed me, scammed the concrete

contractor

too. all at the same time and he was able to pull off a scam that earned him hundreds of thousands of dollars simply by timing everything almost perfectly to the letter.

This is a story I can't make up. I'll guide you through it. exactly what happened and how he was able to achieve this and hopefully by the time we're done with this video you guys will be able to identify potential scammers and maybe also keep yourself protected so let's dive into where this whole story started. The client hired the general contractor who had scammed everyone to simply build a house, but this was no ordinary house, it had a number of different unique features that really allowed this contractor to take advantage of everything he had to get the most.

Net income. For this client, this was back when we were doing a lot of new construction, in fact he had a team that only specialized in digging basements. He had a crew that would go out and dig basements. He had a filling crew and then he had a hauling crew, so we averaged two to three basements a week, but this was no ordinary basement we went into. Before I get ahead of the story, let's go out and see what an average basement is and then I describe exactly what we were getting into with this. My closest guess is that this contractor was able to scam his client out of over $120,000, but I'm guessing some of you may have stories where you've been scammed by a contractor or you know someone who's been scammed for a contract. and I would love to hear your stories.

Those will help us all at least be aware of what contractors are doing and hopefully how to protect ourselves against other potential scams, but let's get down to business. Going back to this video, now a normal basement we would dig would be about 30 by 40 and about 8 feet deep, not all parts of the country have basements or need them, but here in Minnesota we have to have frost protection now for us in a normal way. The excavation would cost about four thousand to five thousand dollars, removing the dirt from that excavation, depending on what was said about the elevation of the house, it can vary between an additional two to three thousand dollars and then go in and do what we call a approximate finish leveling.

Another thousand dollars, so a dig has three different components. Now that we got the call that this was no ordinary excavation, the client was not putting in a standard 30 by 40 basement with 8 feet between 8 and 10 foot side walls. In an underground basketball court, now an underground basketball court is typically four to five times the size of an average basement, so our excavation portion for this was around 20 grand alone, but the foundation work It will also be four to five times as much, so I anticipate that I don't know for sure how much the concrete contractor was charging, but it had to be between 60 and possibly 80,000 what he had invested in this project.

Let's jump in and take a look at what a typical excavation is. It seems like this is not my place now and we might get kicked out, but we'll show you what's going on, so these guys are putting this up. This is the concrete way. Hello how are you? Oh yeah, you're the dirty monkey on YouTube, yeah. Yeah, well, how are you doing? Very good. I'm making a video about the biggest contractor scam I've ever

seen

, but what kind of forms are they using? These guys use western forums. Western Forums. So they are making a solid, poor basement. right yeah perfect what's your name carl nice to meet you carl do you mind if i take a look around too yeah thanks man thanks so this is the same type of basement as this contractor general put in this job where he was screwing everyone.

If you take a look at these things, they put in the forms then they pour the concrete in the center of them and then they remove the formwork so some people use isolated formwork and then the formwork can stay there and then that's where they use cmu or units of concrete masonry and they legitimately just build the foundation block by block, this is all fill material and it generally stays on site, but the lot we were working on in this case was super dense, super tight and we couldn't keep the material on site so everything had to be removed which increased the expense, just my first part of the excavation was 20 grand which didn't include transportation, transportation, this has to be dehydrated, this is never, oh Look, they put rock in the middle, yeah. sometimes you have to do that, that adds to the expense right there, putting that rock in the middle, but we have nasty clay soils here, it's just not good for backfill, so we were done and done with the excavation, the excavation was all. complete, we would transport the materials off site, the concrete company had arrived, they had begun placing the forms exactly as I had

seen

them, but this general contractor had gone one step further in his efforts to defraud his client and what he had made.

Actually, he had ordered all the materials for the frame. He had been able to time all of this into one business day and that is how he was able to defraud the bank and collect all the funds he needed before leaving. He left the country with money from his clients, but let's show them what he had done next. Now this general contractor had a pretty good idea of ​​what he was doing and was going to make as much money as possible by ripping off this client, so what had he done? It's just that he had gone to the lumber yard and had sorted out all of his raw framing materials, so if we take a look at this, he had all of his lumber ready to go, so everything to get a house up to this point was sorted into the lumber yard, but now they have to pay him for all this.

Now this guy was crazy as a fox and cunning as a crazy man. I'll tell you right now. He knew exactly what he was doing to get the most money. He wanted to have the largest number of contractors. the line and this is why we as contractors, when we get paid, have to sign a lien waiver stating that we have been paid and that we will not place a lien on the property that we were just paid for in the amount of money that We had just received payment, except that the signed lien waiver is not valid unless the fund is clean.

He wrote me a check for the twenty thousand dollars he owed me. I signed his lien waiver. This check came from her account at his company. He then continued. the same day I went to the concrete contractor and told him I needed to sign a lean waiver and also wrote his check to the concrete contractor and then upon pre-ordering the materials for the house he went to the sawmill and wrote them a check from his company and got the signed lien waiver those signed lean waivers were the key to him being able to raise real funds and what I mean is that he wrote me, the specific company and the lumber yard, all the checks false ones that would not liquidate.

He didn't have the funds, he had no intention of having the funds in the account, but he was going to put the funds in the bank account, so he took those three signed Lean waivers and went to the bank and said, "I have paid all of these suppliers and I need to raise the money to cover the funds. Now the bank took a look at what he had delivered and had delivered the appropriate materials he needed and the bank issued him a check to cover me to cover the concrete contractor and the sawmill. in one go except my check bounced the concrete contractor's check bounced and so did the sawmills the check bounced but the bank's check to the general contractor didn't bounce the funds were there he immediately deposited those funds and I don't know if he took them out in cash or what he did from there.

I wasn't aware of that, but he had raised that money and as soon as he had the legitimate funds in his account, it was about At the same time we discovered that the checks he wrote to us three were negligent, we didn't have the funds, insufficient funds to cover it, he had skipped the country he had gotten, he turned the lean exemptions sign on the bank. He had given him the money to cover the three of us and then he had pocketed all that money for himself, meaning the client was obligated to pay us all double.

It's a complicated situation, but I received the call from the client. What he was going to do, he needed to track down that general contractor and recover the funds from him, except the guy had completely escaped the country and still hasn't been seen to date. Now the important question is how to protect yourself from something like this. For a general contractor who has house after house after house after house in the area where you want to work, look for a general contractor who has an office, an established physical store that cannot be picked up or moved, and mobile work that what they have done should be clear proof of where they're going and I think that's the most important thing that you guys need to protect yourself just because a general contractor comes highly recommended by a person or two people that they need to see verify their work. what they have done look at the reviews and research that general contractor.

You don't want someone to be new to the area and I know this will make it difficult for other general contractors to get established, but I am trying to protect clients. At this point, you want someone who at least has a presence that has done work that you can locate, that you can walk up to, knock on a door, and get a response that they don't have the ability to take your money. and they disappear like they did with this guy, unfortunately it's not that hard to get a general contractor license, you can take some tests, you can study the books and almost anyone can pass that, that's up to you and that means that once they have it license, they have a license to operate and build structures, but that doesn't mean you should be the client's first choice.

Look for an established contractor who has real jobs in the area and that will be a helpful indicator that you will hopefully win. I won't run into a problem like this. Hey, thanks for letting me invade your site. Hey, good luck with that two bill. You already have the concrete pump truck here too. Guys, you enjoyed today's video. We can get something out of it. I hope you can protect yourself from contractors because I will tell you that right now there are a lot of contractors that really do a lot of fraudulent things and this was the most.

Only scam I've ever seen in my life and I hope it never happens to any of you, but I'm sure you've had contractors scam you, so if you have, please share your stories in the comments below. Everything we have for you in this one, God bless you, go get it guys, we will catch you in another one which is the concrete pump truck. So what does this truck do that doesn't actually have concrete? This truck is moved into place and lifted. and drops it where it should go. How's it going? Thank you. I love the people in this industry.

We have the best people in the world, with their feet on the ground. Good guys who want to work doesn't get any better than that and in my book, but. That's all we have for you in this video. God bless you. Go look for them.