Does Home Improvement Fraud Exist In Seattle?

Are Residents Defrauded Reporting It?

Evidently, the headline “Does Home Improvement Fraud Exist In Seattle?” is somewhat like asking “Does Crime Exist In Seattle?” Yet it has an ironic twist in that defrauding others, by whatever means, is a moral crime. Do they exist? We can most certainly agree – they do.

Furthermore, we can fairly acknowledge that it is beyond probability that home fraud in Seattle exists, as well. In a community of approximately 149,000 private home decision makers and thousands of others renting and leasing from the same, there has to be.

This reasonable analogy suggests that if Seattle has so many private home residents of variable status, reports on being defrauded by the corrupt faction of those in the building trades are enormously absent.

That is to say, of all the residents who have reported being swindled by home repair and improvement contractors (a genre of building tradesmen/women), somehow that news did not reach the overall Seattle community.

Why Related Reports Are So Important

The urgency of this concern is that there are apparently a few mischievous individuals or firms who continue to thrive on “the silence.” This is not to suggest many affected residents have not reported it, but only to imply that it was not made public for the benefit other Seattleites.

There are multiple values in other home heads being aware of undesirable persons in the community who make a living as residential predators. We have to know who they are for the safety of our household and property. This information can be very useful in more ways than a few. But here are a couple which merit most mention at this time:

1. through knowing who these deviants are, we are far less likely to be victimized by them.

2. as we are made privy to how and by what means these unfortunate residents were cajoled, we are more apt to decline service when met by similar overtures.

Unknown:“We just happen to be in the neighborhood.” No fooling!

Resident: “Sounds great! Now will you just ‘happen’ to disappear!”

Summary

Have we been tricked into a home contract? Were we made fools of by a dishonest person or company we connected with online? Has the home store sent us contractors who were useless because of work around our homes they did or did not do? Have we reported it to the local news? We can report it as a “tip.” In fact - it is. Press the issue. The story potentially benefits other residents in Seattle and neighboring communities. Our private homefront is 149,000-plus strong. But what is so unconscionable is that we do not hear about this criminal activity and learn about its predators.

Yes! Home improvement fraud exists in Seattle.

Interested parties can visit HGRBS “Resident Strategic Studies” -
https://www.hgrbs-flagship.com/resident-strategic-studies.php

Footnote

For Contractor Lookup, Labor and Industries:
https://secure.lni.wa.gov/verify/

149,000 Owner-Occupied Homes in Seattle

https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/WA/Seattle-Demographics.html

Edited with special assistance from Team HGRBS [2020]

*HGRBS is national volunteer nonprofit, an exclusive consumer information service with emphasis on supporting self-empowerment among U.S. private home decision makers. Special focus is on sharing related information enabling residents to make the safest and wisest choices in resident-contractor relations. It was founded in 2009.

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