Scammed by rogue roofers: 'I felt trapped'

"I feel very ashamed and upset with myself for being so stupid but if this can stop other people being taken in, especially the vulnerable and the elderly, then it's a good thing".

Veronica is a victim of a recent string of incidents involving rogue roofers.

February saw a spike in fraud-related door-to-door sales and bogus tradesmen.

In the Portsmouth area, financial losses were estimated at more than £80,000 - up from £500 in both January and December, according to Action Fraud.

The BBC has spoken to victims about their experience.

Veronica is retired and lives with her sister Ruth. She said a man turned up at their door saying the roof was "leaning over" and offered to fix it for her.

She said: "He said it would probably cost £16,000 and then it just got worse and worse when they were doing the roof.

"Before I knew it, was escalating to a total of £35,000, by which point I felt trapped."

Veronica said the men who carried out the work asked to be paid a cheque deposit of £8,000 and £500 cash right away.

Once they had finished, she said she wrote another cheque for the remaining £26,500 but it bounced because it was such a large sum.

After a warning from a friend, she said she cancelled it before they could try again to cash it.

Veronica said she received aggressive calls demanding she pay the rest of the money but she blocked the number and reported it to the police.

The men were falsely trading under the name of legitimate local business, DC Roofing and Sons, owned by Darren Comben.

They had falsified business cards and invoices using Darren's company name.

"The roofing work they have done on the one side... [would be] about £2,000 and they're charging £35,000," Darren told the BBC.

He said: "They've put foam up the side of all the joists, it's just an absolute mess up here."

Veronica's roof had not needed any work, he added, because it had been refurbished less than eight years previously.

Footage circulating in a social media group in February showed a man knocking on doors in the area.

Members of the group, including the author of the post, said the man pictured was telling people their roof needed fixing and that he was a roofer.

The BBC showed the video to Veronica and Ruth, who both said they believed the man in the video was the same man who came to their house.

"He said his name was Gary and that he was the foreman," said Veronica, adding: "The boss man was known as Tim."

The BBC has been unable to contact Gary or Tim via the contact details on their invoices and business cards.

We have also been unable to verify whether the man in the video has any connection to the incidents mentioned in this article.

The BBC did make contact with the business Veronica was instructed to send one of her cheques to.

A man who answered said he used to be the director but that the business had been dissolved.

He said he could not remember the work at Veronica's home because he used to subcontract roofing work.

When asked if any of the subcontractors were named Gary or Tim, he said he also could not remember.

Veronica is not alone. Dave Griffiths said he lost £500 to men calling themselves DC Roofing when they turned up at his door and said his roof needed fixing.

He said he agreed to let them do the work for their original offer of £100 but that this quickly escalated after they started.

Becoming suspicious, he said he rang the number on the real DC Roofing website to ask if the men were genuine.

Darren answered and said he had never heard of the men, which is when Dave phoned the police.

He said the man he dealt with was called Tim and, in documents obtained by the BBC, the invoice was signed by a man named Gary - the same name signed on Veronica's invoice.

"I felt very stupid for allowing them up there in the first place," Dave said. "I was just gutted by what had happened, by what they'd done to me."

Simon said he also fell victim to a roofing scam when a man came to his house last year, holding a piece of tile and offering to fix his roof.

He said he was charged £9,000 to replace nine tiles.

Heavy rain since has allowed water to leak into his property, he said, causing the ceiling to give way and black mould to appear in his bedroom.

On inspection, Darren said the tiles "clearly aren't matched" and where they "aren't aligned would almost certainly have caused the leak".

Simon paid the men £4,000 but refused to pay the rest after he became suspicious.

Action Fraud has warned people to be cautious of uninvited visitors and to do their own research and background checks to safeguard against doorstep fraud.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary said no-one had been arrested in relation to incidents reported to the force between 17 and 20 February, including Veronica and Dave.

Asked if it was investigating the man in the video footage, Portsmouth City Council Trading Standards said it could not comment on individual cases.

In relation to the apparently fake documents used by the tradesmen, Action Fraud said it could not comment on whether a law had been broken "without knowing the full circumstances".

It added that falsifying documents, which may be utilised by bogus tradesman, could fall under the Fraud Act 2006 or the 1981 Forgery and Counterfeiting Act.

• Details of information and support if you have been affected by a scam or fraud in the UK are available via the BBC Action Line.

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