A Winnipeg senior says she’s out thousands of dollars after paying for what seemed like a good deal on a driveway makeover, only for it to be left in worse condition after work done by a company she now can’t reach.
Donna Pryma said just over two weeks ago, she was approached by a man who said he was from a company that could patch up her driveway and fill in its cracks. The next day, she was given a business card and a quote for $3,000.
She gave him the money in cash a day later.
After that, different people worked on the driveway for about half a day, but it’s now a mess of crumbling concrete, with many of the cracks not even properly filled.
Pryma said she hasn’t heard from or seen the man who first contacted her since. Now, she can’t get in touch with anyone from the company.
“It takes me a long time to make that $3,000,” she said. “I was upset.”
The company identified itself as Tip Top Paving.
CBC News called the company at the number listed on its website, which was the same as the number on the business card Pryma got. An automated response said the number is unavailable. Emails sent to the address listed on the company’s website bounced back.
The company isn’t listed under the Manitoba Companies Office.
One of Pryma’s neighbours also had an experience with the same company and said he’s out thousands too.
Shlomo Teboul said workers started prep work on his driveway, and he was then asked by a man to give a $2,500 deposit. He took money out of a savings account to pay the deposit, but nobody showed up again.
“He spoke with me like his friend…. He [connects] with me, he takes the money and [goes] away.”
Teboul has only been living in Winnipeg for a few months, and said he was anxious to get the driveway repaved in preparation for winter.
But now, he hasn’t been able to contact anyone from the company.
He’s made a police report. Pryma’s daughter had also filed a police report online on her mother’s behalf.
Police investigating similar reports
In an email to CBC News, spokesperson Const. Dani McKinnon said the Winnipeg Police Service’s financial crimes unit has had “a few reports come in over the past few months” related to incidents like the ones Pryma and Teboul described, and are investigating them.
Stefanie Lasuik, the communications manager for the Better Business Bureau of Central Canada, said the organization has fielded complaints about two different companies “operating the scam locally.” Neither are accredited with the bureau.
Lasuik also said sometimes, contractors will get people to commit to a large down payment right away, or might offer a steep discount to create a sense of urgency.
“That’s what often gets people, because they feel like, ‘OK, they’re in the neighbourhood, they’re offering me this significant discount, I better take advantage of it now, what better timing,'” she said.
“But that urgency also takes away from the consumer’s time to go do any fact-checking.”
In some cases, the work is done after the down payment, but the quality is poor, she said. In others, nothing is done at all.
A longtime estimator said as far as he’s concerned, no reputable business will go door-to-door looking for work.
“We typically get called or emailed, or people go on our website to book appointments. We never go door-to-door,” said Scott Warms, the senior estimator for Superior Asphalt Paving in Winnipeg.
“No other legitimate company that I know does.”
Warms said his company has received about five complaints that he knows of about “various companies” doing shoddy work. In almost all of those cases, the vehicles showing up to people’s houses have out of province licence plates.
The companies are “basically slapping down subpar material on top of whatever’s existing,” then demanding payment up front before abandoning the project, he said.
In some cases, Superior Asphalt has been called to do seal coating for homeowners who have had work done by the shoddy contractors, said Warms.
“This takes the onus or the blame off of this scammer and makes the homeowner have to research now which company can seal coat this material,” he said. “Then we come out and find out, well, this isn’t the material that we can actually seal coat.
“And then now, they’re left with a material or a surface on their driveway that they can’t really even use and do anything with.”
Pryma said she hopes others don’t fall for the same scheme.
“I’m very unhappy,” she said. “Because that’s the problem with me — I trust people and that’s what I get for doing this.”