Branson roofing company warns other contractors of scam

A Branson business is sending a warning to other business: make sure you know who you're working with.

General Manager of Pyramid Roofing in Branosn Rick Castillon believes his company was almost scammed out of thousands of dollars.

Castillon emailed and texted with a man he thought to be the owner of a home on Compton Ridge Drive near Branson. He provided an estimate, ordered materials, and almost started the work to replace the roof. However, the realized that something wasn't right, just in time.

"He started throwing red flags at me," Castillon said.

Castillon says the job was estimated at $8,500 for a new roof on the home and two sheds.

"We ordered the shingles, the vents, everything you order for a roof," Castillon said. "We just luckily caught it before we delivered and tore [the old roof] off the next day."

The house is for sale. At first, it wasn't unusual that Castillon was working with, who he thought, was an out-of-town owner. Many people own homes in the Branson area who do not live there full-time.

"This is their second home, they live in St. Louis, Kansas City, Jeff City, Springfield," Castillon said.

However, the situation started to seem unusual when the man started asking things like what credit card system the company uses and tried to arrange an odd payment process.

"I'll pay you $8,500, you send me $4,000 to the agent," Castillon said.

That's when Castillon did some checking.

"He said 'I see you have it listed, I wanted to find out, did they order a new roof for this house?'" Keller Williams Tri-Lakes Real Estate Realtor Deb Mundell said.

Mundell is the realtor who quickly also knew something was off.

"I said 'You need to send me a phone number, that's not who owns the property,'" Mundell said.

That's when Castillon called out the would-be scammer, telling the man he knew that he wasn't who he claimed to be.

"He dropped all communications and blocked me immediately," Castillon said.

As a local business owner Castillon wants this experience to be a lesson for others.

"This could happen to a roofer, a fencing company," Castillon said.

Mundell agrees that checking the legitimacy of a request for work should be common practice for homes that are vacant. She says realtors will usually be glad to help contractors determine if the request is real or fake.

"As a business owner, if you get called to do something on a vacant home, you really need to check," Mundell said.

These are precautions both Mundell and Castillon wish weren't necessary.

"It's very frustrating because that would have came out of the company's profit at the end of the year. We could have been scammed out of $8,500," Castillon said.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time KY3/KSPR News has covered scams like this in the Ozarks. One thing to always remember: anytime someone tries to get you to send funds elsewhere, that's a red flag.