Any time the weather turns rather nasty here in North Carolina, you can certainly expect a veritable army of rando solicitors from multiple roofing companies turning up on your doorstep to try to sell you on the idea of a new roof.
Most of the time, I can usually tell they’re one of the roofing scammers by looking through the thin window next to the main door and usually turn right back round and go back to whatever I was doing that seems far more relevant to my life.
If I’m lucky, these miscreants eventually take the hint and bugger off to try their scams with someone who is either gullible, gives a rat’s rear end about their pitch, or both.
If the stars have truly aligned in my favour, they get a very loud and enthusiastic duet of a tongue lashing in conversational Labradoodle when Mistletoe and Mocha are available to bark out their annoyance and frustration from having been woken from a sound and enjoyable slumber! 🙂
But with the recent storms ranking well above mildly moist, the roofing scammers have redoubled their efforts to engage in their dubious business practices.
In fairness, not every roofing contractor is a scammer wanting to scumbag you and your insurance company with a bit of Dutch door action but it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that the ones desperate or stupid enough to trespass upon my land uninvited and disturb the peace of this house invariably do tend to the shadier side of their deplorable industry.
Here’s two recent examples and you can decide for yourself which one’s the dumber one…
Bozo #1 – Millennium Roofing
The first guy from this company shows up on the doorstep and rings the doorbell. I walk over to the window, see someone I have zero interest in talking to, and turn on my heel and walk away. I don’t think he ever noticed that I’d actually been eyeballing him for a minute as he was looking in every direction but the door.
He eventually takes the hint and goes off to harass my neighbours.
A few days later, that same guy returns with two more in his entourage.
This time, I am watching the three of them having a conversation with each other on my doorstep (and one was looking down at his phone the entire time) for well over a minute before the leader of the group finally notices I’ve been standing there observing them all along.
That lack of situational awareness on their part and my lowered estimation of their competence from it’s already low value merely for being door-to-door serial harassers (particularly in the most dangerous ZIP code in Raleigh according to RPD’s crime statistics!) seems to be a very curious way to try to sell someone a new roof.
As it happens, I was somewhat bored that afternoon so I figured I’d see if these three people appearing to be barely 20 years old (if that) could redeem their generation’s usual deplorable sense of manners and courtesy.
The first word out of the leader’s mouth being unforgivably familiar from a total stranger quickly dashes those hopes.
Apparently, this guy wants to send his guy up on my roof to perform an inspection.
Ahhhh…it’s the roofing scam which I’d already figured out seeing “Millennium Roofing” on their dark blue polo shirts.
That would be where they send their guy up on the roof armed with a hammer and then he’s off to the areas of the roof where you can’t observe him and it should come as no surprise that he’ll come down with a report that the roof is in dire straits and needs to be completely replaced. I have yet to hear of one case where the recommendation wasn’t a complete roof replacement.
I point this out to the leader of the group as well and that I’m quite familiar with how that “inspection” usually turns out.
His considered response was to tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about and that in his opinion, he could see from where he is standing that my roof was “totally messed up”.
So…he’s disturbed my peaceful afternoon and he’s insulted not only my intelligence but also the roof of my home which is perfectly serviceable even with all of the storms we’ve had but almost certainly wouldn’t be if I let his mate up there to intentionally cause damage to it.
This sales technique isn’t off to a glorious start but this guy was just getting warmed up.
He decides to change his tune and now wants to sell me on this notion that I’m not going to have to pay anything because they’re going to make a claim against my insurance and have them replace it for “free”.
And there it is, the ol’ “we’ll get you a new roof and have your insurance pay for it” scam.
He didn’t even make it to the high-pressure part of his pitch where he wants you to sign a contract immediately (breathtakingly stupid move on your part if you do with someone who unexpectedly shows up on your doorstep selling you something you probably don’t need) and promises that he’ll get the new roof completely covered by insurance.
What he’s hoping you won’t notice is that if the insurance doesn’t pay their massively inflated figure for re-doing the roof, the contract will ensure that you’re now on the hook for a very expensive bill, especially when the shadier scammers will go ahead and start the work before the insurance company has even had a chance to look at the roof and make a decision.
Some of them even have scripts they’ll give you when you’re talking to the insurance company (or they’ll use the script on your insurance company on your behalf) that borders on suborning insurance fraud and guess who will be ultimately prosecuted for it if the insurance company decides to press charges? You!
When I point out that I’m dubious at best at the legality that insurance will pay for a new roof, he doubles down and tells me that I’m completely ignorant of how his offer actually works.
Great sales technique…telling the person you want to profit massively from that they’re “ignorant”. And on their own doorstep, no less!
The funny thing is that the roofing insurance scam is not only not new, it’s been around for decades and is one of the reasons every insurer that can dump their property insurance lines of business in Florida either has or is in the process of doing as they’re fleeing the state as fast as they possibly can.
I’ve known of this particular scam and how it works longer than two of the three idiots on my doorstep put together have BEEN ALIVE.
I’m pretty sure my poker face was not really working that afternoon because he almost immediately tries to backpedal and tell me that his company has been around for years and that it’s chock-a-block full of honest NC State students and that they’re just there to give me a really great offer and then has the temerity after his piss-poor behaviour to try to leave the business card on the porch column.
Yeah…pull the other one! You already lost me when I saw you were a roofing scammer and compounded it with “hey!” and then going straight on to insulting me and my home on my own doorstep.
He was told that he can remove his rubbish as well as his entourage and that they’d be well-advised to never darken my doorstep ever again.
A casual search of the NC Secretary of State’s site shows that not only is this company not the greatest at attending to their paperwork requirements, they were actually suspended for at least six years and have been bouncing round the area once they were reinstated in 2019. Not exactly the harbingers of trustworthiness, if you ask me. And in spite of this guy’s claims that they have lots of great reviews, a more exhaustive search failed to turn up even one from the usual consumer rating sites and the BBB.
Not exactly the people I’d trust with command of a dead cat, much less re-roofing the biggest investment I’ve ever made in my life. And even if the roof was in need of mending, I know who I’m calling to have a look at it before I’d let anyone else up there whether they’re armed with a hammer or not!
It’s people like this that I can truly do without and is exactly the reason why this country needs the equivalent to the UK’s right of a property owner to withdraw the implied right of access and enforce charges of wilful trespass against these scammers should they dare ignore that order.
Sadly, the courts have interpreted the First Amendment to include people coming to your door uninvited (unless there is a locked fence blocking access which this neighbourhood’s HOA would never allow), insulting you multiple times…all so they can pitch their product or service that they have zero chance of ever landing a successful sale in that one conversation.
Bozo #2 – Southern Premier Roofing
A few days after those idiots were sent packing, my snapshot from USPS Informed Delivery shows seven images of incoming mail in the post that appears to be identical from the same sender.
My initial thought was that someone might have messed up the code that queries the images of the incoming mail when it creates the EMAIL.
Structured Query Language (SQL) has the DISTINCT keyword for the SELECT statement for a reason, folks! 😉
So imagine my surprise when I checked my post box and found that instead of it being USPS Informed Delivery biffing the EMAIL, this one sender actually did send me seven identical copies of the same mailer on the same day.
With quality control over their mailing list like this, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in their roofing abilities does it?
At the 2024 standard pre-sorted rates, they just chucked a minimum of $3.50 to spam my actual postbox!
But I’ll give them credit for at least giving the game away as to what they’re up to…it’s the ol’ roofing and insurance scam now laid out in detail in their mailer!
They also offer to send their guys up to inspect for damage (and we know what that answer will be) and are willing to actually scam your insurance carrier directly which is so nice of them but won’t save you or them from charges should the claim be found to be fraudulent!
But what was truly eye-watering was the costs of the supposed jobs they’d done in the area. Even accounting for inflation and the President’s tariffs, those are still well above the normal rate for a complete roof replacement especially in this ZIP code.
So if those examples were actually paid by the insurance company, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out where the extra profit for the roofing scammers will be recouped.
Here’s a hint: INCREASED PREMIUMS for making the claim as well as the general increases they’ll push through the NC Rate Bureau even if you don’t make a claim but your neighbours do.
So that “free” roof really isn’t free after all…there is no such thing as a free lunch!
And notice all those words demanding immediate action on your part…”time is of the essence”, “urgent”, “time is running out”, “you have a limited time to file a potential claim” are just a few that leap out at me.
That’s the hallmark of a scammer to me…demanding an immediate decision on my part to get my name on the dotted line.
That will not happen from me, ever. I will not sign a contract to replace this roof without having competing estimates from companies that have a proven track record of honest dealing and quality workmanship.
These people seem better than the first group at maintaining their paperwork with the Secretary of State and their reviews are mostly positive but the fact that they’re mailing an unsolicited roofing/insurance solicitation (which wasn’t really needed once, much less seven times!) is more than a little concerning.
They also are a bit misleading in their “recent neighbourhood roof damage repair/replacement” schedule implying that insurance completely paid the bill. However, even if the insurance adjuster was to agree that replacement is needed…you’d still be on the hook for your policy deductible and you’re still going to be getting the higher rates down the road as insurers will pass the cost of covering claims to their insured policyholders.
That seems a curious omission that might well run afoul of the laws governing fair dealing and Federal Trade Commission regulations and it’s one they’d be well-advised to rethink. Other junk mailings they’ve sent in the past have mentioned the deductible so it’s a bit concerning they’re not more up front about it here.
So What’s The Verdict?
For me, the right answer is that both of them are bozos not worth my time of day.
I will never make a snap decision involving thousands of dollars I don’t have just because someone came round to my door to disturb my peace.
If I feel I need something, I’ll do the research and find an appropriate vendor and go from there. If it’s a big ticket item, I’ll insist on at least being able to sleep on the offer before committing to it and a reputable company should have no problem with respecting my privacy as well as give me all the time I need to come to a decision.
At least with the second lot, I can chuck their rubbish into the recycling bin for shredding without dealing with insufferable young people who are incredibly rude and disrespectful to someone that has 2-3x the years they do so in that sense, I would probably rate the guys self-inflicting postage losses on themselves slightly higher than the first posse of fools and both just barely above the scum found on the average pond.