According to a recent alert from the Better Business Bureau of Northwest North Carolina, consumers should be on the lookout for scams thanks to an uptick in the number of suspicious roof repair businesses. Several weeks of stormy weather and heavy rainfall has led to both weeds and scams popping up left and right.
The BBB of Northwest North Carolina specifically warns against door-to-door home repair salespeople. They often promise amazing deals on services, such as installing a free roof through the homeowner’s existing insurance policy. Jamie Williams of Winston-Salem was nearly a victim of such a scam, saying that the offer did seem a little too good to be true, but she took the paperwork and the agent’s card anyway.
However, after going through the paperwork, she couldn’t understand how what they were offering could possibly be so cheap as they claimed. “How would they even know if we had insurance or who it would be through — so how can they honestly say the insurance had pre-approved them to cover part of the cost?” Said Williams in an interview with MyFox8. Scam artists often rely on the fact that many homeowners are not sure about what is covered under their insurance, or how often they should be getting their roof repaired or inspected.
The BBB has several tips for homeowners, and at the top of their list is that legitimate companies are not going to pressure anyone into starting work right away. “Understand what it means for a contractor to be insured and bonded,” said the BBB in a released statement, adding that they know of 75 roofing companies in the Northwest North Carolina region that are both bonded and insured. They also recommend using the BBB’s site, as well as other review sites, to make sure that a company actually has a reputation in the local area. A scam artist won’t have much of a paper trail behind their name.