Trading standards warn Moray residents of tarmac cowboys who cheated couple out of £10k

Trading Standards officers are warning residents about itinerant traders in the Moray area offering to lay tarmac on driveways.

The alert follows a complaint where a couple were duped into agreeing to a small amount of work which rapidly developed into a demand for payment of over £10,000.

The rogue traders told the couple that they had left over tar from a Moray Council job - completely untrue. Trading Standards warn residents that these scammers have no connection to Moray Council and are concerned that the way the overpriced work is sold is misleading. Investigations into this most recent complaint are underway with colleagues from Police Scotland, but it appears that the traders involved are continuing to work in Moray.

Peter Adamson, Trading Standards Manager said: “We believe these people are approaching residents in rural areas and stating that they have a small quantity of tarmac 'leftover from a nearby Council job'.

"In this particular case it was agreed that a very small area be treated but the individuals took advantage of the situation and carried out a shoddy job on hundreds of metres of driveway by putting down bitumen and chippings, a cheap product vastly inferior to proper tarmac. We understand that other similar work has recently been carried out in the area and we need to identify where that is.

"As part of the investigation, Trading Standards officers returned to a driveway that had been treated last year and were amazed to find no trace of the surface that had been laid. The roadway is covered in potholes and is in a worse condition than ever – at a loss of many thousands of pounds”.

Moray Council Trading Standards are asking any residents in Moray who may have been approached over the last few weeks or agreed to having work done in this way to contact Moray Council Trading Standards urgently.

Peter Adamson added: “This is the latest example of what can happen when scammers pounce on the unsuspecting in our Community. This month is National Scams awareness month and our message is to ‘be aware of being scammed’. Everyone needs to play their part in acting on scams and in this case any information would be useful to our enquiries”.

Residents with any information about this issue should contact Moray Council Trading Standards on 0300 1234561