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‘Broke’ Aberdeenshire families claim cowboy roofers scammed them out of thousands of pounds

Four people have told The P&J they were conned by three different roofing companies.

The man who introduced himself as Duncan Macdonald before carrying out the botch job at the Inverurie home. Image: Submitted.
The man who introduced himself as Duncan Macdonald before carrying out the botch job at the Inverurie home. Image: Submitted.

Several Aberdeenshire residents claim they have been scammed out of thousands of pounds by local roofing companies.

Victoria Ciesielski, from Crimond, Mike Scott, from Daviot and Inverurie locals Carol Potter and Rod Adams told The P&J they were left out of pocket by three cowboy roofers.

They are accusing Stonecraft Roofing & Building, from Turriff, A.M Roofing, from Peterhead, and Turriff’s Deveron Roofing & Building of taking money from them after failing to do the job they were hired to undertake.

The alleged victims claim the repairs these roofers did fell off within a few days.

However, when they tried to contact the companies to get them to redo the faulty work, they were ghosted or told to “f*** off”.

Some victims claim that not only did they not fix their roofs, but also caused further damage to them.

All four transferred the money to three different bank accounts, all under the name of a Duncan MacDonald.

Stonecraft Roofing & Building and A.M Roofing have been removed from Facebook and have their websites “under maintenance”.

Aberdeenshire Council Trading Standards has confirmed they are investigating “complaints concerning roofing work undertaken in Aberdeenshire.”

Victims left ‘broke’ after Aberdeenshire roofing scams

Crimond resident Victoria Joanne Ciesielski told The P&J her husband contacted Stonecraft Roofing & Building last May to repair their roof, which was leaking.

She explained: “It all seemed fairly genuine; a man who introduced himself as Duncan MacDonald came with two boys and it seemed they were doing the job.

“After they finished, I went up to have a look and I thought ‘It’s not great but at least they’ve done the job.”

However, when it rained a few weeks later, water started coming in.

“It started leaking from the area they had supposedly fixed and from somewhere else where water had not come in before,” Mrs Ciesielski told the Press and Journal.

She took videos and photographs of the leaking and sent them to Stonecraft.

Victoria Ciesielski says she was scammed by Stonecraft Roofing & Building. Image: Victoria Ciesielski

However, she obtained no response from them after several calls and messages.

The couple has lost the £4,140 they transferred to a personal bank account under the name of Duncan MacDonald.

But their misery did not end there, as they will now have to pay another £5,000 to another roofer, as the whole job needs redone.

“I’m absolutely fuming, we’re broke now, we don’t have any money left to repair the roof and the damage he’s caused so we’re pretty stuck,” Mrs Ciesielski, who has reported Stonecraft to Trading Standards, concluded.

‘Cement started falling off after a few weeks’

Daviot resident Mike Scott also claims he is a victim of Stonecraft Roofing & Building.

In June, Mr Scott was looking for someone to do some cementing on his roof and asked Stonecraft for a quote after seeing the company advertised on Facebook.

He said: “The quote was quite detailed and came on an email, so it looked quite professional.

“He was also very responsive on WhatsApp.”

Mr Scott explained a man called Duncan MacDonald came with two other people.

They worked three days, about two hours each day.

However, a few weeks later, bits of cement started falling off.

Stonecraft Roofing & Building’s logo before the company disappeared from Facebook.

After this, Mr Scott, who transferred £2,400 to the same account Mrs Ciesielski sent the money to, attempted to contact Stonecraft on several occasions.

“I have left them several messages and emails but no response,” he explained.

The alleged victim has also reported the situation to Trading Standards.

‘Website looked quite legitimate’

Rod Adams, from Inverurie, was looking for someone to fix a leaking issue on the roof of a rental property he has in Aberdeen last January.

He found a Peterhead company called A.M Roofing that “had a website that looked quite legitimate.”

He explained: “He gave me a quote, which was quite expensive, but was able to do it fairly quickly so I told him to go ahead.”

Mr Adams said a guy whose name he thinks was Duncan MacDonald and two other workers went to the property and seemed to have done the job.

A.M Roofing logo before the company disappeared.

When the workers left the property, he transferred £3,800 to a bank account under the name of Duncan MacDonald.

The account name of both Stonecraft and A.M Roofing was Duncan MacDonald, but account numbers and sort codes were different.

Mr Adams continued: “He sent me pictures and it looked okay, but a couple days later there was a storm, and the roof was still leaking,” he explained.

He tried calling and messaging A.M Roofing on WhatsApp and Facebook several times for them to come and fix the work but had no luck.

Carol Potter captured the footage of the tradesman outside her home.

Roofer told alleged victim ‘F*** off weirdo’

Carol Potter, from Inverurie, needed some repairs done on her roof, including some broken tails and the repointing of the chimney and windows.

In May, she contacted Deveron Roofing & Building, from Turriff, that quoted her £3,700 for the repairs.

A man who presented himself as Duncan MacDonald said it would be a three-person job taking three full days.

Ms Potter told the Press and Journal: “He then came with just one person.

“They were there for just three to four hours each day, but said all work had been done.

She transferred the money to a bank account under the name of Duncan MacDonald, which was also different from the two other companies.

“When he left, he said ‘any problems just give me a shout’; he was very friendly.”

A week after, as the cement started drying, she noticed that it was just crumbling away.

She called a different roofer to look into it and she was told everything needed redoing.

They also said further areas of the roof had been damaged.

Ms Potter claims the cement was crumbling away after a few days. Image: Carol Potter

Messages to roofer show inconsistencies

She contacted Duncan on numerous occasions, but her messages were ignored.

On May 10, he eventually replied, he said he was “in bed with the flu.”

Duncan said he had the flu. Image: Carol Potter

On May 21, she messaged him to ask if he still had the flu, but did not get a reply.

Deveron never came back to Carol’s house. Image: Carol Potter

A day after, she asked a friend of hers to message Deveron on Facebook.

The friend said she needed repairs on her roof, to which they responded, “no problem.”

They replied to Carol’s friend when she said she was looking for a roof repair. Image: Carol Potter

When Ms Potter confronted them about it, she was told “f*** off you weirdo.”

She says she has not heard back from them since.

Carol was not happy with the ‘f*** off weirdo message. Image: Carol Potter

Ms Potter describes the whole situation as “very upsetting.”

“I don’t have any more money.

“I was forced to borrow £5,000 to pay the roofer who fixed their horrible job,” she concluded.

They stopped replying to all her texts. Image: Carol Potter

She has now reported Deveron to Trading Standards.

They have confirmed to her that the business address Deveron has on its website is someone else’s.

A Trading Standard email reads: “The current owners are not aware of him, and he has no permission to use that address.”

Trading Standards ‘aware of complaints’

An Aberdeenshire Council spokesperson said: “We are aware of complaints concerning roofing work undertaken in Aberdeenshire.

While we are unable to provide specific details at this stage, we want to assure the public that enquiries are being carried out.

“We would encourage anyone with information or complaints related to this matter to come forward. They can contact our partner www.consumeradvice.scot or call 0808 164 6000.

Stonecraft Roofing & Building, A.M Roofing and Deveron Roofing & Building have all been contacted for comment, but have failed to reply by the time of publication.

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