The WORST contractor SCAM I've seen!

how you doing good thanks now here's where things get pretty interesting you guys this has to be de-watered just build the foundation blocked by block by block would be about 30 by 40. oh yeah you're dirt monkey on youtube yeah the story i'm about to tell you guys is a hundred percent true and it didn't happen that long ago this general contractor ripped off his customer he ripped off the bank he ripped off the lumber yard he ripped off me he also ripped off the concrete contractor all at the same time and he was able to pull off a scam that netted him hundreds of thousands of dollars simply by timing everything almost perfectly to the tee this is a story that i can't make up i'm gonna walk you guys through exactly what happened and how he was able to pull this off and hopefully by the time we're done with this video you guys will be able to identify potential scammers and maybe keep yourself protected as well so let's dive right into where this story all started the general contractor that had ripped everybody off was hired by the customer to simply build a house but this was no ordinary house there had a number of different unique features that really allowed this contractor to leverage everything that he had to get the biggest net gain out of this customer this was back in the day when we were doing a lot of new construction in fact i had a crew that just specialized in digging basements i had one crew that would go out and dig basements i had a backfilling crew and then i had a hauling crew so we were averaging anywhere from two to three basements per week but this was no ordinary basement that we were getting into before i get ahead of the story let's just go out and look at what an average basement is and then i'll describe exactly what we were getting into with this one my closest guess is this contractor was able to scam his customer out of over 120 000 dollars but i'm guessing some of you guys may have stories where you've been scammed by a contractor or you know somebody that has been scammed by a contract and i'd love to hear your stories those will help all of us at least become aware of what contractors are doing out there and hopefully how to protect yourself against other possible scams but let's jump right back into this video now a normal basement that we would dig would be about 30 by 40 and around 8 foot deep not all parts of the country have basements or need basements but here in minnesota we have to have the frost protection now for us a normal dig would be around four to five thousand dollars hauling out the soil from that dig depending on what the elevation was said of the house can vary anywhere from two to three extra thousand dollars and then coming in and doing what we call a rough finish grade was another thousand dollars so a dig has three different components to it now we had gotten the call that this was not an ordinary dig the customer was not putting in a 30 by 40 standard basement with 8 foot between an 8 and 10 foot sidewalls he was putting 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 as well is going to be four to five times so i'm anticipating that i don't know for sure how much the concrete contractor was charging but it had to be north of 60 to possibly 80 000 that he had invested into this project as well let's go in and take a look at what a typical dig would look like now this is not my site and we may get kicked out but we'll show them what's going on so these guys are putting in this this is the concrete form howdy how you doing oh yeah you're dirt monkey on youtube yeah yeah good how are you doing very good i'm making a video on the biggest contractor scam that i ever seen really but what kind of forms are you guys using so these guys use western forums western forums so you're doing a solid poor basement correct yep perfect what's your name carl nice to meet you carl you too you mind if i take a look around yeah thank you man thank you so this is the same kind of basement that this general contractor put in on this job where he was screwing everybody over and if you take a look at these things they put the forms up then they pour the concrete in the center of them and then they remove the form so some people use insulated forms and then the forms actually can stay on and then there's where they use cmu or concrete masonry units and they legitimately just build the foundation block by block by block this is all backfill material and this typically stays on site but the lot we were working on in this case was super dense super tight and we could not keep the material on site so everything had to get yanked which added to the expense just my first portion of the dig was 20 grand that did not include hauling out hauling in this has to be dewatered this is never oh look at they put rock in the middle yep sometimes you gotta do that that adds to the expense right there putting that rock down in the middle but we got nasty clay soils here it's just it's just not just not good for backfilling so we had gotten through and gotten the dig done the excavation was all complete we'd haul the materials off-site the concrete company had come in they had started laying the forms up exactly as you had seen it but this general contractor had gone one step further in his efforts to scam his customer and what he had done is he had actually ordered all of the framing materials he had been able to time all of this to a t within one business day and this is how he was able to scam the bank and collect all of the funds he needed before he left he left the country with his customers money but let's show you what he had done next now this general contractor had a pretty good idea what he was doing and he was going to make the absolute most money he possibly could out of scamming this customer so what he had done is he had gone to the lumber yard and ordered all of his rough 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 to this point was on order by the lumber yard but now he's got to get paid for all of this now this guy was crazy as a fox and sly as a loon i'll tell you right now he knew exactly what he was doing to get the most money he wanted to have the most contractors on the line and this is the reason why we as contractors when we get paid we have to sign a lien waiver stating that we have been paid and we will not place a lien on the property that we just got paid for for the amount of money that we had just gotten paid except that signed lien waiver is not valid unless the fund's clear he wrote me out a check for the twenty thousand dollars that he had owed me i signed his lien waiver this check came from his account from his company he then on the same day went to the concrete contractor and said i need to sign lean waiver and wrote the concrete contractor out his check as well and then by pre-ordering the materials for the house he went to the lumber yard wrote them out a check from his company and he got the signed lien waiver those signed lean waivers were the key for him to being able to collect real funds and what i mean is he wrote us out me the concrete company and the lumberyard all out phony checks checks that would not clear he did not have the funds he had no intention of having the funds in the account but he was going to be putting the funds in the account from the bank so he took those three signed lean waivers and he went to the bank and said i've paid all of these vendors and i need to collect the money to uh to to cover the funds now the bank took a look at what he had delivered and he had delivered the appropriate materials that he needed and the bank wrote him out a check to cover me to cover the concrete contractor and the lumber yard all at one fell swoop except my check bounced the concrete contractor's check bounced and so did the lumber yards check bounce but the banks check to the general contractor didn't bounce the funds were there he immediately deposited those funds and i don't know if he pulled them out in cash or what he did from there i wasn't privy to that but he had gathered that money and as soon as he had the legitimate funds in his account it was about the same time we found out that the checks that he wrote out to the three of us were were negligent we didn't have the funds insufficient funds to cover it he had skipped the country he had gotten he turned the sign lean waivers in the bank had given him the money to cover all three of us and then he had pocketed all of that money for himself that means the customer was on the hook to double pay all of us it's a screwy situation but i got the call from the customer what am i going to do he needed to track down that general contractor and recollect his funds except the guy had completely skipped the country and has not yet been seen to date now the big thing is is how do you protect yourself from something like that will you look for a general contractor that has house after house after house after house in the area where you want to work look for a general contractor that has an office an established brick and mortar store that can't be picked up and moved and mobile past jobs that they've done should be proof in the pudding of where they are going and i think that's the biggest thing that you guys need to protect yourself just because a general contractor comes highly recommended from one person or two people you need to see their work verify what they've done look at reviews and research that general contractor you don't want someone new to the area and i know this is going to make it difficult for other general contractors to to establish themselves but i'm trying to protect the customers at this point you want somebody that at least has a presence that has done work that you can track down that you can walk up to and you can knock on a door and get an answer that they don't have the ability to take your money and disappear like they did with this guy unfortunately it's not that difficult to get a general contractor's license you can take a few tests you can study the books and just about anybody can pass that that puts their mind to it and that means once they have that license they have a license to operate to build structures but that doesn't mean that you should be a customer's first choice look for an established contractor that has actual jobs in the area and that is going to be a helpful indicator that hopefully you won't run into a problem like this hey thanks for letting me invade your site hey good luck with the bill two o'clock you already got the concrete pump truck here too huh right cool beans thanks man appreciate it all right you guys well i hope you guys enjoyed today's video we're able to pull something out of it i hope you guys are able to protect yourself from contractors because i'll tell you right now there's a lot of contractors really do a lot of scammy stuff and this was the most unique scam that i had ever seen in my life and i hope it never happens to any one of you but i'm sure you guys have had contractors that have scammed you so if you have will you share your stories in the comments down below that's all we got for you in this one god bless go get him you guys we'll catch you on another one that's the concrete pump truck so what this truck does that does not actually have any concrete on it this truck gets in place lifts it up over and drops it down where it needs to go how you doing good thanks i love people in this industry we have the best people anywhere just down to earth blue collar good guys wanting to work doesn't get better than that and in my book but that's all we got for you under this video god bless you guys go get em

Channel: Stanley "Dirt Monkey" Genadek

Views: 2,569,138

Keywords: contractor scams, contractor problems, construction fraud, con artists, how to hire a contractor, construction work, general contractor, how to spot a con artist, con artist, con artist tricks, con games, construction scam, scam artist, how to protect yourself from a scam, how to spot a con man, con man tricks, how to hire a contractor to build your house, how to hire a contractor for remodel, how to spot a con man in business, construction scams format, construction scams

Id: BAPtnrSnzxE

Length: 13min 40sec (820 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 15 2022