Posted on 01/02/2024 9:19:32 AM PST by Twotone
The plight of a Florida woman named Amanda Brochu has captured the attention of central Florida after she went to work one day and returned home to find her driveway apparently stolen. However, further investigation revealed that defrauded contractors may be to blame for the bizarre incident.
According to WFTV-TV, the bizarre situation began to unfold when Brochu put her home on the market in early December. Brochu hired some contractors to do some minor touch up work on her house in anticipation of the sale, but shortly thereafter, contractors began showing up and taking measurements for a project she did not want done: a new driveway.
Brochu confronted one of the contractors, who told her that a man named "Andre" had ordered the new driveway, claiming to be Brochu's landlord. The contractor showed Brochu text messages indicating that "Andre" had agreed to a price of $7,200 but stated that he could not meet in person to make the payment. When the contractor became suspicious and demanded proof of ownership of the property, "Andre" cut off communication.
Brochu then reportedly called the police, who confronted "Andre," who claimed that the whole situation was a misunderstanding due to an incorrect address, and that nothing else would happen to her property. However, a week later, Brochu returned home from work to find her driveway bizarrely missing, with a bare dirt track in its place.
After going to the media with her story, which garnered significant local attention, a general contractor who wished to remain anonymous told WFTV that the driveway "theft" was likely the result of an "overpayment" scam that scammers use to target contractors. According to the anonymous contractor, unscrupulous individuals work the scam by checking new home listings on public sites like Zillow. When they notice that a home goes up for sale, they will contact usually unlicensed contractors and ask for a bid on some unsolicited work, always to the exterior of the house.
In this scam, after the scammer and contractor agree to a price, the scammer will send the contractor a check for more than the agreed upon amount, then call the contractor and ask for a refund of the difference between the agreed upon price and the check amount. The contractor will usually agree, then some time later the check from the scammer will bounce, leaving the contractor in the lurch. The anonymous contractor surmised that the contractor learned about the bounced check in the middle of replacing Brochu's driveway and decided to retaliate by leaving the driveway work halfway done.
Florida deputies are investigating the situation but have few leads. The contractor has not come forward and authorities believe the scammer used a burner phone and fake name.
This story, thankfully, has a happy ending. A Cox Media Group offered to replace Brochu's driveway for free after her story made the local news. However, many homeowners are not so lucky. Brochu had set up a GoFundMe to help defray her costs, but now promises to donate the money she collected to a local charity.
We drive on parkways
We park on driveways
Gallagher, 1980s
Or Steven Wright or George Carlin. Joke theft scandal!
Some years ago, my wife and I had a nasty tree in our front yard, some kind of Locust, I think. When it dropped its leaves, many small compound leaves, they would fill up the wiper gutters on our cars so thick you had to scoop heaping handfuls out before you could drive, and if it were raining, a few always got under your wiper blade.
Just as bad were the stalks the leaves attached to, which tended to bind everything together.
The tree was not bad looking, but it was quite large, so we put out a request for a quote to remove it.
We came home one day, and the tree was on the ground, cut up.
Apparently, one of the companies we sent the request for a quote to took it as a request to cut down the tree.
We were happy to have it down, but refused to pay. We did ASK them to cut it down!
It’s easier if you park on the front lawn next to the broken washing machine.
I’m liking how you think!
The broken washing machine is out back.
The Steven Wright one I remember was something like “I parked my car in a tow-away zone. When I came back, the entire area was gone.”
Maybe this lady put up a tow-away zone sign by her driveway.
Late this past summer, I had a “contractor” by some recycled asphalt from to redo a driveway for his customer. He called me few days later and said it didn’t compact right and wanted me to bring more material and equipment and help him fix it at my cost because his client wasn’t happy. I met him on site and told him he didn’t know what he was doing. I had a sneaky suspicion that he was a fly-by-nighter, so I checked his contractor license, and it was expired. When he called me, I told him I don’t help fly-by-nights and that all he wanted from me was to put my license on the line to make it right for him.
The driveway is bare dirt.
Dig a hole, put that ‘contractor’ in it.
Pave.
Houses burn down when they burn up...
Yeah, that’s the one full of bullet holes.
What goes up must come down.
Ha! I might have you beat. Maybe. We had two sick ash trees in a cluster of trees and shrubs. Decided we would keep the two beautiful mature cherry trees which were growing near the ash, and make a sitting area underneath. We were away for the weekend when the work was to be done, but it was supposed to be overseen by a gardening landscape specialist, so we weren’t worried. When we returned home a day later, we found the two healthy cherry trees gone and the two sick ash trees still standing!! Apparently the specialist wasn’t on site when the trees were removed, and signals got crossed.
Needless to say, we were able to work out a deal where we didn’t pay a penny more for the two ash trees to be fallen, and the entire design had to be scrapped and changed because of the error. We even got the tree guy to bring us a cord of cherry wood that we would’ve had from the cherry trees had we wanted those down. They made the money work out, but the landscape was quite changed. You can’t plant a mature tree when you accidentally cut one down.
Tried to make lemons from lemonade. It is a nice sitting area despite the changes from the original plan.
That sounds about right.
I had a company bid on three dead trees in my yard. (I live on acreage next to a National Forest/Apache reservation.) It was far too high, I said “no” (in writing) and I cut them down myself.
They sent me a bill for the trees I cut down.
Got in a real fight with them, lawyers and all.
Fortunately, my daughter happened to video me cutting/pulling down the trees.
Chased off guys trying to rip my roof off once, too.
And another time, people poured a slab and dropped a portable building on the slab. They took back their building (after demanding I pay for it). They were supposed to remove the slab, but didn’t. So I have a random 20X30’ about 100 yards from my house.
“we did ASK them to cut it down”
so you asked them to cut it down, they did, and then you refused to pay? Nice.
I believe this has already been discussed in other posts. Search first.
Yeah, we did too......he said he’d do it for 45 bucks. I kept hammering him that all I had to do was bring him 45 bucks and he kept insisting 45 bucks.....I told Hub and he came out and told them to get their s&!t out of the driveway, never come back and that he was calling the police......gypsies I think they’re called.
I searched on the Title. If we’re going to search on whether any given topic has already been posted, there won’t be much to look at here on FR.
No, we did NOT ask them to cut it down. We asked for a QUOTE to cut it down as it said earlier in the post.
That last line in the post is either a mistake in my typing or an auto-co-wrecked. It should have said “...we did NOT ask them to cut it down...”
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