Conned by plumber - what can I do?

grizzzler

I know this is long but I wanted to add all the details to see if anyone has any advice that can help me. I really appreciate anyone who reads this as I need help.

One evening my downstairs neighbour (i live in a maisonette, a house converted into 2 flats I own the upstairs) said that there was a leak coming from my flat into his flat and there had been a damp patch on the top corner of the room for the last 2 days and it was wet. I was perplexed because the room above it was a small bedroom with no pipes underneath so couldn't work out where it was coming from. Having heard about the damage that water damage can do I panicked and started googling for emergency plumbers. The first one to answer was London Plumbing and Drainage Experts, who said they'd be a plumber there within the hour.

The emergency plumber arrived and seemed pretty impressive. He had a lot of information, talked a hell of a lot about his experiences and seemed to really take pride in his work. He told me that the leak was coming through failing grout in the tiles in the shower wall. This surprised me because the shower was adjacent to the small bedroom and the patch was on the far side. He told me that old buildings are well built and there can be buckets of water before a damp patch appears on a below flat and it's not unheard of for it to appear on the far side. He said to assess the damage he would need to get his tiler to remove a few tiles the next morning.

The next morning he arrived with his tiler and began to remove a few tiles. He called me into the bathroom later and 'confirmed' that it had been going through the tiles and that the bathroom would need to be re-tiled. His tiler had taken a lot more tiles than I expected, pretty much a whole wall! He said he could have the materials that very day. He also said that for this to be done the light would need to be replaced for a shower graded light as the tiling couldn't be done properly with the existing light. He said once I paid the deposit he could start buying the materials and bring them here the same day. He left to get the materials.

I paid the deposit (substantial amount of money) then thought I'd google the name on the receipt to see how good his reviews were. I was expecting to find good reviews as he did seem quite impressive. To my horror I found that he conned a contractor out of £3500, he was soliciting dirty holidays in Russia and running away with the money and his name was mentioned with conning a pensioner out of 40K! Then I googled his old company, London Plumbers and Drainage Ltd, and literally every single review had 1 star and was calling him a scam artist. I frantically called the bank to block the payment but they said the funds had already left my account. I then tried to ask the tiler about this but he said he spoke very little English as he just arrived from Romania. I asked how long he worked for this plumber he said 2 weeks, which surprised me as the plumber said he'd been his tiler for 3 years.

Fearing what he was going to do to my bathroom, when the plumber arrived I cancelled the job. I called my father who came and said this was a common con and he got another plumber he knew to look at the damp patch, he said it was just condensation! Having realised I'd been scammed, I opened a scam case with the bank.

The plumber called me later that day and said he would send me an invoice, but going from past reviews I wasn't expecting one. It seems he promises invoices and they never arrive. The next week I went to the address of the registered business of his old company. A young guy answered the door, I showed him a picture of the plumber and asked if he knew him (his picture is all over google). He said he knew him, he used to work for him and the guy is really dodgy, he's living out of cars and hotel rooms since his wife kicked him out and he's using the money to do up his boats in Poole, Dorset. Great, no registered address means it'll be hard to take him to court. He said he was going to call the plumber and tell him he's calling the police as he didn't want people turning up at that address.

To my surprise later that evening I got a call from the plumber. He said I caused him problems because now all his accounts are frozen, he's incurred a lot of charges because of that and that he's going to sue me! I couldn't believe he had the front after he's just conned me! He said he "swears on his childrens lives" he's not a conman, insisted he didn't misdiagnose my emergency and claimed by doing this that I have scammed him! Honestly I think he's making up the story about his accounts being frozen and using it as an excuse not to refund me because even if I couldn't prove he misdiagnosed my issue what he's done so far has not cost him anywhere near the money I paid.

My neighbours landlord has since had the patch looked at by a professional and also said it was just condensation. I explained my situation to him and asked if I could have a written assessment to prove my plumber misdiagnosed the emergency but he said he didn't want to get involved. This was disappointing as it was the only way of getting proof that he misdiagnosed my emergency.

I'm wondering if there's anything I can do now. If I make a court claim against him I will have to prove he misdiagnosed my emergency and that will be hard as the plumbers who correctly identified the issue don't want to get involved. And if it's true what the young guy said (which I'm not sure, that guy seemed as crooked as him and the 2 could be in cahoots) he doesn't have an living address so taking him to court will be hard as well. Are businesses required by law to give you an invoice?

A lot of people have asked me why I didn't just call my insurance, the answer is I didn't know that's what you could do. I've never had a home emergency before and I just panicked. Also people asked me how I could believe that a leak from the bathroom could appear so far from it. I know nothing about plumbing and just believed everything the "expert" said.

Any advice will be much appreciated.

Thanks

JJ_Egan

Visit your local CAB citizens advice .
Your post is to complicated for advice from random users .

maninthestreet

So how much money did you send him? Any chance of getting any of it back - his accounts are frozen so the money you sent him may still be in the account you sent it to.

Jumblebumble

maninthestreet wrote: »

So how much money did you send him? Any chance of getting any of it back - his accounts are frozen so the money you sent him may still be in the account you sent it to.

May I correct you
Your understanding from what the OP has told you is that his accounts are frozen although the OP does not know if this is actually true
The plumber is claiming that because the OP asked for a charge back the bank froze his accounts.
The bank has no way of knowing if the OP is actually the one trying to scam the plumber and once they had established that the OP handed over the money to the person they intended to pay I believe they would not have any further interest in this matter
Can you imagine how business would go if banks started freezing accounts like this
I have my grave doubts that the plumber is telling the truth and think he is muddying the waters

grizzzler

Jumblebumble wrote: »

May I correct you
Your understanding from what the OP has told you is that his accounts are frozen although the OP does not know if this is actually true
The plumber is claiming that because the OP asked for a charge back the bank froze his accounts.
The bank has no way of knowing if the OP is actually the one trying to scam the plumber and once they had established that the OP handed over the money to the person they intended to pay I believe they would not have any further interest in this matter
Can you imagine how business would go if banks started freezing accounts like this
I have my grave doubts that the plumber is telling the truth and think he is muddying the waters

Absolutely right. As you predicted, a few weeks ago the bank said they completed their investigation and that this is a dispute between a vendor and a customer, which is fair, contacting the bank was just a Hail Mary. They also said they are going to inform the recipient bank, meaning they hadn't done so already. The plumber was just lying about that, he must have got spooked when he found out I was looking for him so he decided to play the victim.

I contacted someone via Facebook who been conned by him, this was the guy who's forum message initially alerted me to the fact the plumber was a conman. He said that every few months (for 10 years) he gets a message from people who've been ripped off by this plumber. He said he took him to court and won the CCJ (plumber didn't even turn up) but didn't get his money as the plumber had switched the mortgage to his wife's account and had no assets in his name. He never saw a penny.

I think I might have to let this one go. Word of advice guys in case you don't know, you ever get a problem in your house just call your insurance. That way you don't get in situations like this. Sorry if it sounds patronising it's just that I didn't know that was the thing to do so if there's another me out there maybe I can spare them the trouble.