Possible Chimney cleaning scam alert -

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Gooserider

Gooserider

Mod Emeritus
Hearth Supporter
Nov 20, 2006
6,737
Northeastern MA (near Lowell)
Just got this via E-mail, thought it worth passing along... Obviously this would be of greatest interest to those in the Lowell, MA area, but given that the outfit the scammers are apparently working for is in NJ or NY, it is possible they may be working in other areas of the country as well...

Gooserider

Advisory Message has been issued by the Billerica Police Department.

Saturday December 19, 2009 09:46 AM EST


Lowell Police are warning residents about a scam involving a chimney
cleaning service operating in the area.

Summary of Events:
Yesterday (12/15), an elderly woman was approached by employees of
Hamilton Ives Corporation at her residence.
Hamilton Ives is a chimney service, repair, and cleaning company that
appears to be based out of either New York or New Jersey. The victim
was told that they were doing inspections of chimneys and that her
chimney was not up to code. The employees further stated that if she
did not repair the chimney immediately, she would face heavy monetary
fines. The suspects also shut off her heat. The victim complied with
the demands to repair her chimney. The employees
installed a chimney liner and charged the victim $4200. The employees
then offered the victim the option to pay
$3600 if she paid in cash immediately, which she did.
The victim contacted Lowell Fire Department. LFD inspected the
original chimney and determined that there was no need to have had any
work done. They also found that the chimney liner was not connected to
the flu or any other apparatus. Captain Weber of the Lowell Fire
Department also learned that eight similar instances have occurred in
Danvers, MA involving the same company.
Hamilton Ives Corporation has numerous complaints against them by both
the Better Business Bureau and the Attorney General’s Office.
It appears that they solicit new customers over the phone by offering
a special discount chimney cleaning for $49.95.
Once a customer agrees, they then come to the home and often insist on
much costlier repairs.
The company’s website is: http://www.hamiltonives.com/1.html?sm=59165

For full details, go to (broken link removed to http://local.nixle.com/alert/605937/%20%20)
Contact Information:

Billerica Police Department

Criminal Division

978-671-0900 [email protected]
Click to expand...
 
Every time I see a quote from a chim repair company around here I think they are scamming... but seriously, turning off an old ladies heat?

Had a customer with a $4200 quote to tear her chim down to the roof and rebuild it with new copper step flashing's and the works. Looked fine to me... bricks all looked OK, didn't look like it was going to come falling off the roof any time soon.

Had another with a quote stating his METAL chase top flashing had hail damage and needed an elastomeric coating put on it. Yeah.... so its dented, who cares, the birds that crap on it? They had some other BS crap on there also.

That's why people call us, they ask around and find out we will give them our straight up honest opinion, the truth, and whats code and whats not.
 
I've heard a lot of stories like that about crews coming up from the NY, NJ, Long Island area and pulling that exact scam. Sometimes though it starts with the crew knocking on someones door saying they're in the neighborhood and will do a cleaning for $40 or something silly. Then, they quote the customer and proceed as stated above.
 
Boy do I hate seeing this stuff. Cross state borders too. Time for some serious FBI action here.
 
Too bad public floggings are illegal. That would certainly minimize this type of behavior.
 
seems a little common sense could put many of these people outta budiness .... id please i,ll just make a call to confirm etc etc
 
We should all ask for a free estimate. Love to see what they said about my setup. Then set the dogs on them.
 
Sometimes it's the other way around....imagine tearing down a chimney, looking in and seeing roof trusses going through the chimney beside the tiles! The customer expects that to be fixed in the original quote....I don't think so....
 
Think I heard of this company from one of my metal suppliers.. if it's the same company they also use 409 ss... On their website they say they use two ply stainless which is something that I don't think anyone does ... This is hearsay from one of my metal vendors..
 
Thanks for the heads up, Gooserider.

Some people are intrinsically evil. They prey on the elderly and the infirm. No punishment is too severe for them. I would suggest implementing the suggestions from Freefall_Doug and CarbonNeutral. Then place the parasitic bad guys in a high security Mexican prison for 15 years.

John_M
 
Back when I was in high school a couple of guys knocked on my dad's door and said they were doing work in the area and they would clean his chimney for $25. Dad agreed and they went to "work". My dad was in the basement with one while the other took a ladder off their truck, walked in a circle through the yard then put the ladder back on the truck. My dad's watching this from the basement, there was a window that faced out to the street and the gate into the backyard (corner lot). That guy comes inside, declares the chimney cleaned and proceeds to tell my dad how bad his chimney is and how they would fix it for him cheap, while the other one is shutting down the furnace. My dad is an Italian immigrant who speaks broken english, was 63 at that time and a stone mason. He was/is also a mean S.O.B., he told those guys to get the heck out of his house before things got ugly. I came home at the same time to find them arguing in the basement; needless to say they left rather quickly. They probably figured my dad as an easy target.

A sad footnote to this; a couple of years ago dad (now in his eighties) calls me and says he needs his bank account info (I handle his finances now) for a "lawyer" who is going to refinance his mortgage for him. He had responded to an email promising cheap rates. I went there when the guy was supposed to call back and spoke to him instead. I scared him off, it was clearly a scam. My dad was so upset when I told him, he felt like a dope. I hate to think what would've happened to him if he still had that info, he might've lost everything.

sorry for the rambling....
 
News like this just hurts to read about.

Boy I would like to be a fly on the wall if one of these scammers were trying to scam a member of this site!
 
Thanks for sharing. If nothing else, it will make the members of this forum more alert. If I lived in the area of these scammers, I would post on CL that I was looking for a cheap chimney cleaning and inspection and wait for them to call....sometimes the waiting is more fun than the arse whooping your planning to dish out.
 
Just when you thought you'd seen everything.......

In a recent tragedy in LA, an entire family was killed riding in a limo on the way to a wedding reception for a family member. Reading about the tragedy in the newspaper, a local couple decided that since the whole family was dead, there'd be no one home--so they broke into their house to rob them!! Fortunately, an alert neighbor called police and the scumbags were arrested......

I agree with an earlier poster, in some case public floggings are indeed in order!!!!!


NP
 
Nonprophet said:
Just when you thought you'd seen everything.......

In a recent tragedy in LA, an entire family was killed riding in a limo on the way to a wedding reception for a family member. Reading about the tragedy in the newspaper, a local couple decided that since the whole family was dead, there'd be no one home--so they broke into their house to rob them!! Fortunately, an alert neighbor called police and the scumbags were arrested......

I agree with an earlier poster, in some case public floggings are indeed in order!!!!!


NP
Click to expand...

Holy moly. That is disgusting. I agree also with flogging and hanging in public..but hell, we cant even splash water on the face of suspected terrorists any more.
 
I am assuming these scammers are men, SO I would hang them by their loose skin and I am not talking about skin of their chicken neck either. That should be so punishable, it is sick to do that kind of stuff. IF they come to my house I will allow them to go up on roof and when up there will take the ladder down and call cops and fire dept. Fire dept to check to make sure they have done no damage and check what they have done and cops for the arrest, the dirty Ba-----s.
 
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