Missouri Roofing Contractor Warns Other Contractors of Scam

By Karen L. Edwards, RCS Editor.

Pyramid Roofing in Branson, Missouri believes they almost were victims of a scam.

Typically, the only time you see scams and roofing in the news, it’s a story about how some unscrupulous roofing contactor defrauded homeowners out of thousands of dollars without performing the work. In this case in Branson, Missouri, the roofing contractor was almost the victim.

KY3-TV reported the incident in to help spread the warning to other contractors. Pyramid Roofing general manager Rick Castillon told KY3 that he believes his company was almost scammed out of thousands of dollars. Castillon said he had been emailing and texting with a man who he thought was the owner of a home in the area. Branson. Missouri is a destination town and many people own second homes there, so it was not entirely unusual for the owner to be absent.

Pyramid Roofing provided an estimate of $8,500 to replace the roof, ordered shingles, vents and all the materials and had almost started the work on the home when Castillon said to KY3, “He started throwing red flags at me.”

The man began asking questions about the credit card system that Pyramid Roofing uses and tried to arrange credit card payment for $8,500 but wanted Pyramid to then send $4,000 to the real estate agent. The house was for sale so Castillon trusted his instinct that something was off and did some investigating, contacting the realtor, Deb Mundell.  She confirmed that the seller was not who Castillon had been speaking with about the project.

Castillon called out the would-be scammer and told him he knew he wasn’t who he said he was. The scammer immediately stopped all communications with Castillon and blocked him. Castillon shared his story because he wants to warn other contractors about it. "It's very frustrating because that would have [come] out of the company's profit at the end of the year. We could have been scammed out of $8,500," Castillon told KY3.

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