Police around the Chicagoland area are warnings about a group of international home improvement scammers known as the ‘Irish Travelers,’ as PJ Randhawa reports.
A Lisle couple says a $200 home repair bill quickly ballooned to $75,000 after they left contractors alone at their home to finish a small job, and it may be connected to an international group of scammers.
The scammers, potentially part of an international ring known as the "Irish Travelers," are using a new tactic to scare homeowners into paying for unnecessary repairs.
The Bhatia’s spent decades lovingly maintaining their home in Lisle, but last fall, they say their best intentions were turned against them when they chose the wrong contractors.
“We asked them to just fix woodpecker holes, which they never did. They just ended up trashing our house and they just left,” said Pradeep Bhatia.
Pradeep and his wife Anju say they hired Reliance Paving & Masonry to repair woodpecker damage last fall after finding them on Google.
“Within 5 minutes of [Pradeep] turning in his name and phone number [on the contractor’s website], he gets a call from this company. And they said, oh, you know, ‘we're in this neighborhood’,” said Anju.
The contractor’s estimate for the woodpecker repair work seemed fair at around $200. The Bhatia’s expected the contractors would start the job while they left home together the next day for a doctors appointment.
But when they came back they had a new addition: a giant trench on the side of their home.
NBC 5 Responds
“It was about 11 feet long, six feet deep and three feet wide,” said Pradeep.
The contractors claimed they’d spotted dangerous cracks in the foundation.
“They had shown that there was this crack [on the foundation], that they highlighted with this orange paint,” said Anju.
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Then the contractors talked their way into the basement- supposedly to investigate how far down the foundation crack went.
“[They] ripped off all of the drywall into a large, fairly large area,” said Anju.
“And [the contractor] comes back with a proposal, $33,000. And I go, whoa, wait a minute,” said Pradeep.
The contractors said the price would be $75,000 if they weren’t allowed to start the foundation repair work immediately.
“[The contractor] was saying ‘I wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing that your house could fall down’,” said Pradeep.
The Bhatia’s weren’t convinced. They asked the contractors to leave and soon called Lisle police. They say the officer who took their report never followed up and the department didn’t start investigating the case until NBC 5 Responds reached out.
“I will tell you that we've had a similar incident in July of this past year prior to my arrival in Lisle,” said Chief James Kruger of the Lisle Police Dept.
In that case, Chief Kruger says the scammers construction work was halted after a city building manager happened to drive by the home and notice the homeowners didn't have the required permits to have the work done.
Chief Kruger says the contractors may be part of an international group of home improvement scammers known as "The Irish Travelers." Other local police departments, including Arlington Heights Police, have also issued warnings about them as well.
“Right now we're actually dealing with some organized crime that's coming from the the UK and Ireland, and there's several incidents that are going on around the country,” said Kruger.
But one of the reasons the Bhatia’s trusted Reliance Paving & Masonry was because of the local Schaumburg address on their website.
After NBC 5 Responds couldn’t reach them by phone, reporters decided to drive to that Schaumburg office building and check them out.
Turns out, we had been to this office building before while tracking down a phony lab company in early 2024. There’s a virtual office business here where you can rent a mailing address for just $66 a month. But Reliance Paving & Masonry isn’t a client. In fact, staff at that virtual office tell me they receive hundreds of letters a month for fake companies that are using their address without permission.
While the police investigation in this case continues, Kruger is warning of a new tactic with home improvement scammers. He says these contractors actually created damage to the Bhatia’s foundation in order to scare them into paying for costly, unnecessary work.
“It was very evident to some of the reputable companies in the area that the damage was actually caused by a saw and not a crack actually in the foundation,” said Kruger.
While the Bhatia’s never paid the contractors any money, they ended up spending thousands of dollars to repair the damage done to their home.
Here are some key take-aways:
-Before hiring any contractor for a large job, make sure they have a legitimate address, and consider going there to verify the business does in fact exist.
-Watch out for high pressure, scare tactics. Take the time to get a second opinion, whether from a friend, neighbor or another contractor.
-Finally, don’t leave the contractor alone at your home- even if they’re working outside. Keep a close eye on the work being done.
