Refundee recovers €145,000 from building purchase scam

Our client was the victim of a well known building scam, where they were tricked into paying for incomplete, unnecessary and bad quality work that was done to their home.

The rogue trader conducted the same scam to a number of individuals and claimed they were a building expert with years of experience. The reality was that the work was not to a good standard, they added unnecessary charges onto the work, and made the buildings unsafe.

The client came to us after losing money, and also having to pay for legitimate builders to come in and fix the mess that was made by the scammers.

The victim came to us after the bank rejected their claim

Our client initially reported this to their bank, who unfortunately rejected the case and claimed that it was a civil case and there is nothing they can do.

We conducted a thorough review and spoke to multiple victims affected by the same scam. We pursued the case with the Financial Ombudsman Service and submitted a detailed report proving that this was fraud and our client should be refunded.

After some time, the investigator at the FOS agreed with our report and instructed the bank to refund our client. They were able to recover their money from a devastating experience that affected their house and their finances.