Foolishness goes both ways
Some residents renovating their units in a subdivision woke up one day to discover that they had been scammed and victimized by someone posing as a contractor/architect.
The modus operandi appears to be done this way. He rents a house in a subdivision then makes friends with the neighbors. He introduces himself as an architect. As a glib talker, he readily convinces a vulnerable resident then enters into a verbal agreement to renovate or work the expansion of a neighbor’s house. He submits the costing of materials and the labor cost. An initial payment is made followed by cash advances. The resident/owner is assured that the renovation will only take a few months. More cash advances are made until the entire cost of the construction work has been fully paid. Labor slows down due to lack of materials. The resident wakes up and nobody is working anymore on the said contracted expansion work.
The said contractor posing as an architect is gone with unpaid rental and utility bills. It was a nightmare experienced by several residents in the same subdivision victimized by this person I now will call “estafador.”
Hundreds of thousands of pesos gone and the work is unfinished. One resident who is an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) was almost teary-eyed while confiding to a friend; hard-earned money gone to a fake architect.
Resident victims have already filed a formal complaint with the barangay. The village chief handling this case will have some difficulty solving this case as the fake architect is nowhere to be found. With proper coordination with the police, I hope this “estafador” will be held accountable.
In order not to be victimized by contractors whose only reason for living is to make a fast buck at the expense of others, ask for particulars and credentials. Do not enter into a verbal agreement with someone you hardly know. Ask for the organization or association where he supposedly gained membership by virtue of his government professional registration. Misrepresentation is a criminal act. That alone should put him behind bars.
Remember there are only two groups of people in a world full of uncertainties. “Ang manloloko at
ang maloloko.” (The scammers and the scammed). You would not want to be associated with any of these two groups. Be smart. An agreement entered into by two parties should be a written contract and duly notarized to include mode of payment. Final payment should only be given upon completion of construction work.