Tool sharpening scam warning

[Andy69691]

Thanks guys - some good comments. I'm in touch with the police - will see where/how that goes and hopefully Eric The Viking is spot on and these guys are known to the police already. In the meantime, I've no plans to talk to the gypsy again unless the police want me to record something. I also tend to agree with Chrispy in that they are too "clever" to actually break the law. Either way, I'm not going to give these scum even one penny.
The guy must have had a lay in this morning as I've only had 5 calls from him so far today!

 

[Keithie]

Good that you're talking with the police Andy. You mightwant to talk to your legal advisors as well. I obviously dont know if your company has entered into a legal contract (verbally or otherwise) with these folk who you say are calling you. If it turns out that you have (and if you've been 'negotiating' a discount with them as you seem to say here (ie publicly) then it might well be inferred that you have already acknowledged that a contract exists) then it might be that your legal advisor would tell you that your company has a liability to pay an amount. I dont know. Getting professional advice is usually a good idea for a company director.

Also, I dont know who your telephone service provider is, but if it happens to be BT then you might be interested to read about their new 1572 nuisance call blocking service. I have no idea if it's appropriate for a companyto block calls from possible creditors though..

http://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/tech-ne ... 4136279348

 

[MacMachinist]

Beware this scam is happening now in the West Sussex area,
Was going to put 'very clever' but thinking about it No!! its just me i am F###### Stupid, feeling sick right now.
"Scumbags"
Now anyone comes knocking is going to get "F### Off"

 

[Joiner Reg]

It's now going on in the herts / essex area, I have had them in this past week and expecting them on Monday. They don't take no very well so will have to be a bit more forceful when they next come

 

[Nun of ya Biz]

Ok, peeps..well this scam is back on the road...this time in Bristol. We were caught out approx 4 years ago. They tried to charge is £850 for £50 worth of work...in then end we paid just over £100 to get rid. To add insult to injury, they attempt to add VAT to their invoice (despite being registered as a Swedish company) strangely they backed down on the VAT issue!

This morning I had a call from another biz in the area saying they were just scammed...then sure enough 5 mins later one of their 'reps' turned up to try and swindle us outta more moula. Seems they don't log who they've scammed before...they simply rely on time being a great healer.

The (seemingly endless) phone calls & visits are menacing, but they stay 'just' on the right side of the law. They imply all sorts of bull - that they're gypsies who'll come and park on your property (tap into yer lecky, use it as a dumping ground), their 'boss' won't be happy & that the person who under costed the original job has been beaten up and they wouldn't want this to happen to you or your family...they even bring a child onto the premises, pretending that they fear for the safety of their own family. Seven year old little Oliver is obviously on some kinda 'see how to Daddy scams others' work trial.

They go under the biz name of Bortech or DN Repairs, Eastern European, Silver Mercedes. Please notify as many businesses as possible.

 

[Nun of ya Biz]

ooh and bortec (whithout the 'h')

 

[Trevanion]

We tend to get some very dodgy Irish people (Sorry to the decent Irish people) come across on the ferries trying to sell tools of very questionable origin. Since there is quite a large tradesman van burglary crisis in Ireland at the moment I assume that's what all of these tools are, I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole no matter how cheap they are.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Mmmm ......I had an Irish gentleman try to sell me an industrial sized generator, brand new, that he happened to have "left over from a show". This at the end of a cul de sac off a side road in a very small Cornish village. I went indoors and checked in the mirror to make sure I didn't have effing ***** tattooed across my forehead. :lol:

 

[RobinBHM]

Mmmm ......I had an Irish gentleman try to sell me an industrial sized generator, brand new, that he happened to have "left over from a show". This at the end of a cul de sac off a side road in a very small Cornish village. I went indoors and checked in the mirror to make sure I didn't have effing ***** tattooed across my forehead. :lol:

Generators from irish gentlemen is a known scam.

You wont be surprised to know the generators are Chinese scam copies, that either dont work at all or only last a few minutes.

 

[Noel]

We tend to get some very dodgy Irish people (Sorry to the decent Irish people) come across on the ferries trying to sell tools of very questionable origin. Since there is quite a large tradesman van burglary crisis in Ireland at the moment I assume that's what all of these tools are, I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole no matter how cheap they are.

PM me I can do very good deal on..... : )
I used to get the carpet boys, the "we'll paint your roof sir" boys etc, not so much now but still see and hear about the tool merchants either stolen or counterfeit. Supposed to be a specialised police squad but, well, with cutbacks hear very little about them these days.
Makita was a favourite, or at least some things vaguely similar in a teal colour.
Hadn't heard a bout the van crisis, although it's generally always been a crisis.

 

[Trevanion]

the "we'll paint your roof sir" boys

Those boys used to get quite a bit of work around this way as a lot of farmers didn't have the time / ways to be able do it and the boys that were going about doing it were pretty fair on price, I remember they used to use basically a long-handled broom and would stand at the apex of a shed/barn and sweep the paint down the side whilst precariously overstretching themselves over the edge. I think a few years ago one of the boys actually fell off the roof and died which resulted in a massive court case and the farmer ended up going to prison if I remember correctly.

These days pretty much every farmer has some form of a telehandler with a man cage attachment so it's pretty easy and quick to do it themselves.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Like the Nun above, we live in Bristol: we have (nominally) Irish tinkers just arrived on the Downs again, over the weekend...

... We went for our usual Sunday afternoon walk yesterday and there was a foul smell coming from something boiling, next to a table with a bench grinder on it, alongside one of the caravans.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the scam doesn't emanate from there - I was going to ask exactly the question you have just answered in your posting.

 

[Noel]

Like the Nun above, we live in Bristol: we have (nominally) Irish tinkers just arrived on the Downs again, over the weekend...

... We went for our usual Sunday afternoon walk yesterday and there was a foul smell coming from something boiling, next to a table with a bench grinder on it, alongside one of the caravans.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the scam doesn't emanate from there - I was going to ask exactly the question you have just answered in your posting.

It's Travellers or The Travelling community these days.
As I alluded to up above, some good, some bad. Some are the nicest and accommodating sort of folk you'll meet, others are complete whatevers and leave anywhere they've been like an open sewer. I think most of them in GB could be classified as English rather than Irish but not really that important, purely a trivial point.

 

[Eric The Viking]

In this case they are Irish. Their Mercedes estate cars and the caravans have Irish plates, although I have no idea how often they change them (the number plates I mean).

As for the morality etc., it seems to be the same group that were only removed by injunction last year, illegally in exactly the same spot. The Downs byelaws are on signage less than 100 yards from their camp: no overnight camping, no vehicles no open fires...

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The "travellers" living around here aren't Irish, they're just dirty thieving scumbags. An acquaintance, a big lad, had his whacker stolen from his truck. He saw them do it and knowing that police wouldn't go onto their site he followed them. He stood by the newest car (a Merc, as it happened) with a six foot piece of scaffold tube and called one of them over. You've got two minutes to put the whacker back on my lorry, or I smash the cars one by one and anyone's heads who get in the way until I get it. He got it. :lol:

 

[SammyQ]

We had two of ‘de travellers’ try to force their way past me in my open (6 bar) gateway “ta just touch up yer tarmac loicke”..I am 6 ft (pre-decimal) and when my two sons, who are both taller than me and have represented their country athletically, strolled out to flank me and (temporarily) bar the gypos exit, the look of sheer panic on their faces was priceless. Good day’s work...

Sam

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Some years ago I was standing with my mother looking out of one of her upstairs windows. We saw a flat bed transit pull up in the layby and a chap get out - this was in the early '80s and there wasn't a week go by without a gypo offering to take down a dead elm or tarmac the drive. We watched him (he was a big lad, about 6'4") open the farm gate, shut it and walk down the drive until he came face to face with my Doberman. We saw the sunshine gleaming on her rising hackles and wondered whether he would take his chances. A minute or so went by and we heard the bark ............the bark of an English Mastiff standing on top of a six foot hedge directly behind him, crouching to jump (if you've not heard a mastiff bark seriously they sound as if they come from the bowels of the earth ). I have never to this day seen anyone run so fast and vault a five bar gate. :lol:

 

[Nun of ya Biz]

The tool scammers in Bristol at the mo are definitely not Oirish. I'm guessing they are Eastern European. Look out for a Silver Mercedes WW8 90GA...though as someone commented, I guess they change/have false plates.