Crown Street residents have been left furious after falling victim to a roof insulation sales hoax.
Instead of cooler homes they ended up with emptier wallets.
While the neighbours have complained, the insulation company proprietor Kevin Murphy said he would honour any sales his contractors had made.
Early last month Behn Monley and a handful of his Crown Street neighbours were all approached by a door-to-door salesman claiming to represent Sydney-based company Advance Fibre and Technology Australia.
According to Mr Monley once they had signed up and paid their deposits they were told they’d receive a call to arrange a suitable time for workers to come to complete the job.
“He was a lovely man and certainly did a good job in getting us to sign up,” Mr Monley said.
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“We never heard a word from the company on the Monday or Tuesday of the following week I tried calling the rep but couldn’t get a hold of him.”
That Friday a van of workers arrived at Mr Monley’s house unannounced.
“We had our wedding on the Saturday so we told them to come back on Monday,” he said.
So the men arrived back on the Monday and proceeded to do their so-called job.
Once the workers had left a neighbour of Mr Monley’s, who had also signed up for the insulation but prefers to remain anonymous, came around and suggested they have a look in the roof.
“They had only put insulation around the man hole and the other three parts of the roof had nothing,” Mr Monley’s anonymous neighbour said.
“The thing is we don’t know how far these people have gone there could be people all around the area who haven’t got a clue what is in their roof.”
Mr Monley said if it hadn’t been as bad as it was and only a few spots were missing he wouldn’t have cared so much.
“They did a horrible job they really didn’t try to do it properly at all,” he said.
“I was the first in the street to have the men come... the others who were also booked in have all pulled out now.”
Mr Murphy told the Daily Liberal yesterday he was aware of the situation and would honour any sales his contractors had made.
“If the work is not done or hasn’t been done properly we will do the insulation or repay their deposits...no question about it,” he said.
Yesterday the residents of Crown Street yesterday said they were yet to hear from Mr Murphy.
According to Mr Murphy his business was approached by a salesperson who claimed he was an independent contractor.
“He told us he would go out to the Dubbo area and sell our product for a commission of $200 per sale,” he said.
“I spoke a couple of times and he said he had already made five sales...I told him as soon as he got the first tender I’d organise for the workers to come.”
Mr Murphy said when he tried to contact the salesman over the next few days his phone was dead.
“I finally had a call from him and he said he would be changing direction and no longer wanted to contract for us,” he said.
“The deposits he had picked up in the area we never received.
“You can screen people as hard as you want but we weren’t aware that there would be a problem until well after the event.”
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