You can cheat an honest man.
And home repair scam artist have been known to do so, flim-flamming honest Siouxlanders on a regular basis for as long as anyone can remember. What may be news to some folks is that these home improvement scams are more often initiated by hinky local contractors than the fly-by-night con men who occasionally roll through the area with their come-ons and bullying tactics that fleece often-elderly rural folk out of their hard-earned cash.
That's the official word anyway from Bob Brammer, a spokesman for the Iowa Attorney General's Office in Des Moines with about 30 years' experience, and Jeremy McClure, a crime prevention officer with the Sioux City Police Department.
Brammer breaks the scam artists into two varieties.
Variety one consists of the itinerant or migrant scams in which someone shows up out of the blue, often in small town or rural settings, telling homeowners they have "extra" shingles or "extra" asphalt, then offering to repave their driveway at a huge discount.
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"And they're pushy," Brammer said.
The word is that these folks sometimes migrate up from Missouri with the good weather.
"Frankly, we encourage people to look out for their older neighbors if there's a strange truck or something like that because the M.O. (modus operandi) can be very belligerent," he said. "Let's say, somebody says, 'Well, I guess that sounds like a real bargain for a few hundred dollars,' and then they come back and they sort of shake down people maybe for a couple thousand dollars, and they'll be belligerent. It's a scary situation, and they want people to withdraw money for them,"
The Attorney General's office and law enforcement folks see this type of scam, particularly in the rural areas, but not as often as some people might believe, he noted.
"And that's a flat-out scam where there's some intimidation often involved," he said of these door-to-door offers involving allegedly leftover shingles or asphalt. "They may paint your driveway black and not really do any work and they insist on a major payment. And they say, 'Oh, there was a misunderstanding. It was $3,000, not $300.'"
The more prevalent variety of scam involves "questionable or bad-apple local contractors," he said, noting that such predators are just as common in the city, maybe even more so, than in rural areas.
And the perception that they only prey on the elderly is equally false, McClure said. "Statistically, it's across the board," he said, noting that a number of people in his age group, late 20s and early 30s, have been hit with home repair scams. If the elderly are in the majority as scam victims, it's not a big majority, he said.
"Probably the most common one is where they'll get a down payment to do the work and then not deliver on the work," McClure said. "And then I've heard the extreme is where they'll do shoddy work or just get up on a roof and even bang on the roof and act like they're doing the work."
Checking with the Better Business Bureau is a good place to start, but a simple gut check can do wonders, he noted.
"First and foremost, if your gut is telling you that something's wrong, that this doesn't feel like a legit deal, listen to your instincts," he said. "You know a reputable person is going to have a business. They're going to be listed usually, and they're going to have a good client base that would either refer them or have good standing in the community."
As for those "bad-apple contractors" found in many urban areas, Brammer said the cardinal rule for all homeowners to observe is: "Don't make large payments in advance." The bad apples will bite into that apple, then either do a poor job or ignore you completely, he said.
It's more difficult to prosecute these contractors from a fraud point of view because they may just be unreliable or way too slow, sometimes never finding the time to even start the job, he said. Usually they do just enough work to make it hard to prove fraud.
McClure said police follow up on complaints with criminal complaints when appropriate. "The big problem is sometimes it dances on the lines of civil and criminal," when trying to determine how to approach the problem, he said.
"Every once in a while, we'll take an action where we can aggregate a bunch of cases," Brammer said. "We had one recently in the Des Moines area where a guy took thousands of dollars, and he was from around here. But they're very tricky and kind of hard to handle."
People can take these contractors to small claims court, but that's a risky proposition, too, Brammer noted.
"We're fortunate to have basically reputable, honest, talented, basically good contractors," he said. "I don't want to besmirch the industry because we're fortunate in Iowa. People are able typically to find somebody locally who's been at it for years and has a good reputation. But sometimes you have to do your homework and ask around."
It's unusual for a reputable contractor to come to your door looking for work, he noted. But it happens. Occasionally the pitchmen say they're looking for a demonstrator house, and that could be true; but then again...
"There are some come-ons that are frankly just too good to be true," Brammer said.
How not to be scammed
The office of the Iowa Attorney General offers the following tips to prevent home repair scams and disputes:
-Don't fall for the "knock-at-your-door" scam in which someone shows up out of the blue and says your driveway needs repaving or your house needs new shingles, and they just happen to have materials "left over" at a big price discount. They are sure to take your money and run, without doing the job at all or doing it right.
-Check out contractors before you sign a contract or pay any money. Request local references - and check them out. Contact the Attorney General's Office to see if it has had complaints by calling 515-281-5926 or 888-777-4590. Contact the Better Business Bureau (515-243-8137 or http://www.bbb.org). Check to see if a contractor has been sued by unsatisfied customers by going to http://www.iowacourts.state.ia.us.
-Get several written estimates, choose the best and get a contract in writing. Before work begins, agree on a written contract detailing work to be done, responsibility for permits, costs and any other promises. Ask for a copy of thecontractor's liability insurance certificate. Put start and completion dates in writing, and consequences if the contractor fails to meet them.
-Avoid paying large sums in advance if you don't know the contractor. If you need to make a partial advance payment for materials, make your check out to the supplier and the contractor. Insist on a "mechanic's lien waiver" in case the contractor fails to pay others for material or labor.
Five Best Con Man Movies Ever
Con men have been prominently featured in movies over the years. Here are the five best. Pointedly left our are the big caper, bank heist and typical thief movies that are even more abundant. At least one of the principal characters has to be a dishonest-to-God flim-flam man.
1. "The Sting" (1973). Directed by George Roy Hill. Starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. The con man movie to end all cons features Newman and Redford at their best-buddy best, a great villain in Robert Shaw and more twists and turns than seem humanly possible, plus a great Scott Joplin piano score.
2. "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" (1988). Directed by Frank Oz. Starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin. Hilarious duel between big-time and small-time con men ends with the perfect twist. Glenne Headly is the attractive target of these would be lotharios.
3. "Catch Me If You Can" (2002). Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. The ultra-charismatic DiCaprio is Frank Abagnale, a real-life counterfeiter. Hanks is dour and obsessed as his FBI pursuer. So many clever twists and turns, it's hard to believe this really happened.
4. "The Grifters" (1990). Directed by Stephen Frears. Starring John Cusack and Anjelica Huston. Violent, gritty take on the con man game also features Annette Benning as the woman who almost comes between Cusack and his really scary mom, Huston. It shows that keeping it all in the family when it comes to the con game doesn't always work.
5. "The Flim-Flam Man" (1967). Directed by Irvin Kershner. Starring George C. Scott and Michael Sarrazin. And the best group of character actors working at that time. Funny farce features perfect Scott as a rural con artist who takes on a young army deserter as his protege in this period piece set in the Old South.
Honorable mention: Nicolas Cage and Alison Lohman in "Matchstick Men" (2003), Ryan and Tatum O'Neal in "Paper Moon" (1973), Robert DeNiro and Dustin Hoffman in "Wag the Dog" (1997), Edward Burns and Dustin Hoffman in "Confidence" (2003), Lindsay Crouse and Joe Mantegna in "House of Games" (1987), James Garner and Lou Gossett Jr. in "Skin Game" (1971) and James Woods and Lou Gossett Jr. in "Diggstown: (1992).
