Consumer Alerts April 2026
8th of April, 2026
Beware escalating roofing work
A Lancashire householder was experiencing a leak to their roof and found a roofer via an online trader site. The trader began the work, the price escalated with them asking for payment before the job was finished. The trader then broke off from the work saying he was unable to continue due to personal reasons but would get a colleague to complete the work at no extra cost. The second roofer then stated the initial work was badly done and continued to escalate the job, finding further problems requiring more money, leaving the householder concerned as to the legitimacy of either roofer.
Be wary if the roofer can start straight away. For larger property maintenance work, always do your research, get 3 quotes in writing before agreeing to any work and use known local trades people.
Trading Standards advice is to always say no to cold callers. The Safetrader scheme can help you find a trader in your area, contact 0303 333 1111 or go to www.safetrader.org.uk.
Courier fraud
Be on the alert, Lancashire Police have recently issued a warning after receiving reports of courier fraud. This type of fraud is where criminals impersonate trusted authorities such as police officers or bank officials to deceive victims into believing their bank accounts have been compromised or they must assist with a police investigation. Victims are then encouraged to withdraw money or purchase high value items such as jewellery, gold bullion or sometimes foreign currency. They are then instructed to hand the money or items over to the courier on false assurances of reimbursement.
Be suspicious if you receive such a call, often the scammer will suggest you hang up and ring your bank or 999 to ensure the call is legitimate, but the scammer will not hang up. Whilst you may believe you have rung the bank or the Police you will still be speaking to the scammers.
Beware Gmail scam
If you have a Gmail address beware receiving an email alleging to be from your provider, Google. The scam phishing email demands immediate action from users to verify their account otherwise it will be deleted. Victims are panicked into revealing sensitive data including passwords, usernames, and one time verification codes.
Check the address the email has come from, often scammers use addresses that closely resemble those of the official sender. Before clicking on a link, hover over the URL to see the actual destination. Look out for generic greetings, rather than personalised messages and for errors within the email body as phishing emails often contain poor spelling or grammatical errors.
Contact the Trading Standards Service via the Citizens Advice consumer Helpline on 0808 223 1133.
Check out our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/StanleyDards/
Report it to Report Fraud via www.reportfraud.police.uk or on 0300 123 2040.