St. Petersburg, Fla. (970 WFLA)- Your house needs some work. You want to make sure it's done right, so you hire a contractor. The contractor requires you pay half the cost upfront, which seems reasonable.
About halfway through the job, the contractor stops coming back. When all of your phone calls go ignored, you decide it's time to take it up with the authorities. Unfortunately, they've never heard of this contractor. Since he doesn't have a license, they cannot threaten to revoke it.
You later find out the little work that was completed was not done to code, so not only is your house still in disarray, you have lost the money you paid upfront, and you are at risk of future problems with your insurance provider. You have been scammed.
It's a scenario they see all too often at the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. But last weekend, they showed the impostors how it feels to be duped. Through "Operation Drop the Hammer," an undercover sting operation February 17th through February 19th, detectives from the Construction License Investigative Unit arrested 26 unlicensed contractors on more than 55 criminal charges.
During the operation, CLU detectives posing as homeowners scheduled appointments with local contractors they selected from various websites and advertisements and believed to be unlicensed.
When the contractors arrived at the Dunedin "target house," an undercover detective needed only to receive the promise of an estimate to establish probable cause for arrest. After the contractors left the house, deputies pulled them over on traffic stops, confirmed they were unlicensed, and arrested them.
"We've got a major problem in this county, and this needs to stop," Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said at a press conference. "Those of you that are out there and are engaging in this unlicensed contracting, not doing it in a reputable way, ripping people off on the work, or ripping stuff off out of their homes because you're nothing but a thief ... standby. You keep it up, you're going to go to jail."
Graphic Credit: Pinellas Sheriff's Office