Special needs teacher, 61, is ‘left £3,000 out of pocket’ after being ‘forced’ to finish garden decking job after tradesmen vanish
- The cowboy duo have refused to return Ms Wilson’s messages since
A teacher claims a father and son building duo left her decking half-finished then blocked her on Facebook – and she’s now nearly £3k out of pocket.
Deborah Wilson, 61, says she can longer contact the pair and has had to finish the work herself.
She paid £2,800 – which she now fears she will never get back.
Deborah, a special needs teacher, said: ‘I’ve thrown so much money down the drain.
‘These people took the opportunity to scam me because they could – because they know I’m a single woman who works away.’
Deborah, from Washington, Tyne and Wear, says she contacted three companies for a quote to do her decking at the start of July.
Deborah Wilson claims she is nearly £3k out of pocket after a father and son building duo left her decking half-finished – then blocked her on Facebook
Ms Williams’ decking as left by the father and son building duo (left) and the finished product, after she had to complete the work by herself (right)
She picked the father-son firm, who are not being named, and paid up front.
Deborah said: ‘They said it’d all cost £2,200. Then they tried to charge me an extra £600 for materials – wood, screws and plaster.
‘I handed it over all at once, just to get it out of the way. I’m so trusting – I should never have done it.’
Facebook messages show that the job was agreed and times and dates were set for the work.
But Deborah says that, when the men turned up on July 7, the materials they arrived with looked used.
She said: ‘They brought a bucket of old screws – they looked like they’d been taken from other jobs. They were covered in plaster!
‘And the plaster they used was really heavy-duty. But I didn’t say anything, and let them get on with it for about five hours.’
She said: ‘They brought a bucket of old screws (pictured) – they looked like they’d been taken from other jobs. They were covered in plaster!’
Deborah claims that she’d arranged for the men to then continue work the next day.
But on the morning of July 8, only one of the builders showed up.
He worked on the decking for ‘another couple of hours’ – and that was the last Deborah heard from them, she says.
Deborah sent the men messages between July 10 and July 17.
They told Deborah they’d be able to ‘sort something out’ on July 18, messages show.
But, despite repeated further messages, the pair have stopped responding to Deborah.
And screenshots says that the ‘person is unavailable on Messenger’ – meaning the account has been deleted or Deborah is blocked.
She said: ‘I sent message after message, asked for half the money back, but they’ve just been ignored.
‘They didn’t even have the decency to let me know where they bought the wood from so I could get on with it myself.’
Deborah posted photos of the half-finished decking onto neighbourhood app Nextdoor.
People then sent her recommendations for timber merchants so she could finish the job herself.
Ms Wilson working on the decking herself after paying £2,800 – which she now fears she will never get back
The teacher, who teaches children with special needs said that she’d ‘thrown so much money down the drain’
The cowboy construction duo didn’t even inform Ms Wilson of the wood they used to lay the foundations, leaving her to find out for herself
Despite undergoing a breast reconstruction surgery in June and being advised by her doctors not to move or lift anything heavy for ‘a minimum of four weeks’, Deborah spent the rest of her holiday finishing off the decking.
She said: ‘I’m doing all of this on my own. It’s a challenge, but you have to triumph through adversity, really.
‘I should be taking this time to relax – but instead I’ve spent three weeks doing this.’
Deborah has contacted the police to try and get the money back. But her local force said it was a civil matter.
The father-son duo were individually contacted for comment but did not respond.
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