Flood Contractor Scams

A Germantown woman, swamped by last weeks flooding, narrowly escapes some scammers looking to make a quick buck off of her misery. So she turns to two with this warning for other homeowners who might run into high pressure salesmen.


"no uniforms, no business cards no...no nothing, no nothing."

Krystyne Edmondson says that was her first clue something was wrong. She tried calling two local companies -- but they were booked. So Krystyne logged on to the Internet to find help.

"they were like we can come out today and i was like oh, what luck! got somebody to come out right now in all this flooding."


Instead... she says she saw trouble pulling into her driveway.

"he's in a personal vehicle and he just has a not enclosed trailer on the back of his van and he had new york license plates so i thought that's kinda odd."

Krystyne says he gave her the song and dance and came up with a price.

"he said you know he's going to cut us a deal and the best he could do was 47-56, four thousand seven hundred fifty six dollars for this."

Minutes later, he took 500-dollars of the price and then the final offer.

"well then he comes back with well i tell you what, if you don't tell my boss, and this that and the other, I'll do it for three thousand."

Krystyne eventually got the contractor to leave. He left this card, with a 516 area code for a phone number that's linked to Long Island New York. Krystyne says the second contractor was from Massachusetts and had sang the same song as the new yorker.

"and he was like i can tell by looking at this job this is about 12 hundred, but i gotta be paid right now."


Krystyne says it was her gut that was telling her something wasn't right. Thankfully, she did not lose thousands of dollars to those fly by nighters. Before you hire a contractor, check with the better business bureau first, to get some company history. You should also ask to see some form of identification. Plus, ask for them to prove that they are licensed and bonded. If at all possible, pick a company that's in the Miami Valley. Your chances of getting the sham will decrease drastically.