Warning! Don’t get Scammed!

We’ve recently become aware of a scam that’s doing the rounds, targeting gas installers, and wanted to warn you about it.   The scammers are working in the south east, postcode by postcode, preying on installers whose details, we suspect, they find in online listings.   The perpetrator calls up and offers you a ‘contract’ promising lots of work locally.   They say they’re acting as an agent, offering great rates of pay and guaranteed work.   They send out what looks like a bona fide contract and ask for an up-front payment of £2,000 rather than a percentage commission on work undertaken.  

Sounds too good to be true?

  Well, It is. Once they receive the signed contract and your payment, you never hear from them again. Presumably, they’ve moved on to target installers in another area.  

What can you do?

  The first step is to be cautious. If they’re pressuring you to sign up quickly or make it sound as though you’re the only one they’re interested in, be suspicious.   Ask around, see if anyone else has heard of them and check them out online.   You can look them up on companies house website and find out when the company was incorporated, find out who the owners and directors are, whether they’ve been involved in any other businesses or whether it’s their first appointment. If anything looks odd, it is!   Please take care when you’re called out of the blue by anyone offering tempting schemes.   Sole traders and the newly qualified are often vulnerable to plausible sounding criminals, out to exploit the unwitting.   Take care and make sure you check out anything you’re tempted to get involved with before you sign up or part with any money.