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WATCHDOG · 7 MIN READ

Bogus tradesmen at the door: reports up 57%, one landscaper jailed, and the 30-day right most people don't know they have

Eleven Garda warnings in eighteen months, from Kerry to Donegal, describe the same five moves. A Dublin court case shows where they end. And a 2022 law gives you 30 days to cancel anything agreed on your own doorstep.

Conor Lacey · Freelance reporter · Watchdog
19 Oct 2026 · 7 min read
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Block paving going down on a driveway. Gardaí in Donegal reported gravel coated in engine oil sold as 'spare tarmac' in June 2025. Photo: iStock.
Block paving going down on a driveway. Gardaí in Donegal reported gravel coated in engine oil sold as 'spare tarmac' in June 2025. Photo: iStock.

IN SHORT

  • Garda provisional figures show reports of bogus tradesmen rose 57% in the first half of 2025 against the same period of 2024. Warnings since then have come from Kerry (this week), Tralee, Galway, Limerick, Cork, Kildare, Wexford, Clare, Tipperary, Donegal, Laois and Offaly.
  • In June 2026 a Newbridge landscaper was jailed after turning an €11,600 quote into €48,000 for an 82-year-old Dublin woman. An expert valued the work at €20,000 at most, with under €3,000 of materials.
  • Under the Consumer Rights Act 2022 you have 30 days to cancel a contract agreed during an unsolicited visit to your home, without giving a reason. If the trader never told you about that right, the period stretches by a further twelve months.

The same five moves, county after county

Between March 2025 and this week, Gardaí issued at least eleven separate public warnings about tradesmen calling to doors uninvited. The wording changes; the method does not. Reading them together, five moves repeat.

The opening line. "We've some tarmac left over from a job up the road." "We noticed your gutters from the street." "That ridge tile is dangerous." Donegal Gardaí in June 2025 described the leftover-tarmac pitch in detail: a low price quoted at the door, raised once the work began, and in some cases gravel coated in engine oil laid to look like tarmac. Kildare Gardaí in February 2026 listed roofing, guttering and driveways, "spare materials", "urgent" or "dangerous" repairs, and large cash sums up front.

The price that moves. The job starts cheap and grows. In Kerry this week Inspector Gary Carroll described poor work followed by "exorbitant payment" demands. Limerick and Cork Gardaí in March 2026 described a Bantry pensioner pressured into buying twelve chainsaws, eleven generators and seven power washers.

Cash, now. Every warning says it: the demand is for cash, often with the householder driven to the bank. The Garda Crimecall message of January 2025 lists five methods, including driving victims to withdraw money. A Tralee woman in May 2026 had cash taken from a windowsill while she was walked outside to inspect work she had not asked for.

The follow-up scam. Weeks later a second caller arrives claiming to be from Revenue or the VAT office, or asking for a "deposit" for materials. Limerick Gardaí flagged both in March 2026.

The threat. Once work is started, the tone changes. Donegal's June 2025 warning says plainly that householders were threatened when they refused to pay the new price.

The advice is the same from every station: do not agree to any work from a cold caller at the door; ask for identification and a VAT number; get an itemised written quote; never pay cash; and ring 999 if someone will not leave. Laois and Offaly Gardaí put it in one sentence in March 2025: "never agree to have any work done from a cold caller on the doorstep."

Where it ends: €48,000 for a job worth €20,000

Court outcomes are rare in these cases; most warnings report no arrest. One did reach court. On 16 June 2026 Judge Orla Crowe sentenced Myles Connors (37), a landscaper from College Farm Heights, Newbridge, Co. Kildare, to two years' imprisonment with the final twelve months suspended, after he pleaded guilty to two counts of deception.

In June 2024 he had called to an 82-year-old woman in Co. Dublin who lived alone, had mobility difficulties and had recently left hospital. He quoted €11,600 for weeding and cementing; after she chose slabs from a brochure it became €48,000. He had her write a €35,000 cheque made payable to a car dealer, the balance on a Ford Ranger Raptor he had put a deposit on that day, then charged €5,000 to power-wash her tarmac, which he also painted black without being asked. She wrote a second cheque for €18,000. A professional landscaping body put the value of the job at €20,000 at most, with materials under €3,000. A neighbour had paid €5,000 for similar work.

The judge called it "a sustained, controlled and premeditated campaign" and "a gross breach of trust". Frozen funds of €41,800 were released and she was repaid in full.

The numbers behind the warnings

The CCPC's Consumer Helpline Report for 2025, published in April 2026, puts home building and improvements second only to vehicles as a source of complaints: 2,838 contacts, up 12% on 2024, with an average of €14,597 at stake per complaint and 1,409 referrals to the Small Claims Court, the most of any sector. The CCPC's Grainne Griffin: "Home improvements can be costly for consumers, especially if things go wrong." Garda figures for the first half of 2025 recorded a 57% rise in reports of bogus tradesmen on the first half of 2024.

Neither body publishes a breakdown by trade. Roofers, drives and gardens dominate the Garda warnings; the CCPC's complaints are about traders who do not finish, do not turn up to fix faults, or refuse to engage.

The 30-day rule

This is the part the warnings do not mention, and it matters when you have already signed something. The Consumer Rights Act 2022 gives you the right to cancel an "off-premises" contract, one made with a trader somewhere other than their business premises, without giving a reason. For most such contracts the period is 14 days. Where the contract was made during an unsolicited visit to your home, section 113(3) makes it 30 days from the day the contract was agreed.

Three further sections do the real work:

  • Section 114. If the trader did not tell you, in writing, that you had a right to cancel, the cancellation period is extended by twelve months. A doorstep trader who hands over no paperwork has handed you a year.
  • Section 119. If work is to start inside the cancellation period, the trader must get your express request on paper or email, and must tell you that you lose the right to cancel once the service is fully performed. If they did neither, you owe nothing for work done during the cooling-off period.
  • Section 104. The lighter paperwork rules apply only where you asked the trader to call for a repair, both sides perform there and then, and the bill is €200 or less. A cold call is never that.

Separately, the CCPC's own checklist for home improvement work is the practical defence: recommendations from people you know; a genuine address and references; more than one written quote; written price, completion date and payment schedule before any deposit; traceable payment, staged for bigger jobs; and verification of gas and electrical registration directly with RGI and Safe Electric. Disputes go: written complaint, then chargeback if you paid by card, then the Small Claims Court for amounts up to €2,000.

“Never agree to have any work done from a cold caller on the doorstep.”

An Garda Síochána, Laois/Offaly division, 20 March 2025

+57%
reports of bogus tradesmen, H1 2025 vs H1 2024 (Garda provisional figures)
€14,597
average sum at stake per home-improvement complaint to the CCPC, 2025
30 days
to cancel a contract agreed during an unsolicited visit to your home

By the numbers — figures from the sources listed at the end of this piece.

WHAT TO DO NEXT

Providers near you with their score, their checks and the date each was made — no account needed to look.
Find a roofer, gardener or driveway company near me

Questions this piece gets asked

Someone is at my door now offering to do work. What do I do?

Say no, take no quote, sign nothing, and do not let them start 'just the first bit'. Ask for identification and a card; genuine traders leave details and are happy for you to check. If they will not leave, ring 999. Then ring a neighbour who may be next.

I already paid cash. Is there anything I can do?

Report it to your local Garda station with every detail you have: vehicle, registration, names, phone numbers, what was said. Cash is hard to recover, but reports are how warnings and prosecutions begin, and the Connors case started with one.

I signed a quote at the door three weeks ago and the work hasn't started. Can I cancel?

If the visit was unsolicited, yes: you have 30 days from the day you agreed, and you need give no reason. Cancel in writing (email is fine) and keep a copy. If you were never told about the right to cancel, the window runs for a further twelve months.

Sources

FOLLOW WATCHDOG

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Comments 3

0 / 600 · Links are rejected automatically. Be specific, be fair. The rules
  • REAoife M.Customer · Dublin 8EDITOR'S PICK2 h ago

    The register link is the useful bit. Looked up the lad who quoted us for the board last month — not on it. Saved us a job.

  • PRMarta R.Provider · Electrician · Crumlin1 h ago

    Every one of these cases is a board or a shower. Ask for the certificate before the balance, every time. A registered contractor will not blink.

  • RECiara D.Customer · Cork40 min ago

    The thirty-day rule should be on a sticker on every front door.

Signed-in Locufy customers and providers only. Comments close 30 days after publication. Report anything that names a person unfairly — we act on every report.

NEXT IN WATCHDOGUnregistered electrician convicted in Sligo: €24,409 for a job that left a family with live sockets6 min read

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One email per section per month, the day the piece goes out. Stop in one tap. Privacy.

BREAKINGStorm Austen: yellow rain warning for every county from 7pm Thursday — what to do before it arrives20 Oct 2026Read

WATCHDOG · 7 MIN READ

Bogus tradesmen at the door: reports up 57%, one landscaper jailed, and the 30-day right most people don't know they have

Eleven Garda warnings in eighteen months, from Kerry to Donegal, describe the same five moves. A Dublin court case shows where they end. And a 2022 law gives you 30 days to cancel anything agreed on your own doorstep.

Conor Lacey · Freelance reporter · Watchdog
19 Oct 2026 · 7 min read
Block paving going down on a driveway. Gardaí in Donegal reported gravel coated in engine oil sold as 'spare tarmac' in June 2025. Photo: iStock.
Block paving going down on a driveway. Gardaí in Donegal reported gravel coated in engine oil sold as 'spare tarmac' in June 2025. Photo: iStock.

IN SHORT

  • Garda provisional figures show reports of bogus tradesmen rose 57% in the first half of 2025 against the same period of 2024. Warnings since then have come from Kerry (this week), Tralee, Galway, Limerick, Cork, Kildare, Wexford, Clare, Tipperary, Donegal, Laois and Offaly.
  • In June 2026 a Newbridge landscaper was jailed after turning an €11,600 quote into €48,000 for an 82-year-old Dublin woman. An expert valued the work at €20,000 at most, with under €3,000 of materials.
  • Under the Consumer Rights Act 2022 you have 30 days to cancel a contract agreed during an unsolicited visit to your home, without giving a reason. If the trader never told you about that right, the period stretches by a further twelve months.

The same five moves, county after county

Between March 2025 and this week, Gardaí issued at least eleven separate public warnings about tradesmen calling to doors uninvited. The wording changes; the method does not. Reading them together, five moves repeat.

The opening line. "We've some tarmac left over from a job up the road." "We noticed your gutters from the street." "That ridge tile is dangerous." Donegal Gardaí in June 2025 described the leftover-tarmac pitch in detail: a low price quoted at the door, raised once the work began, and in some cases gravel coated in engine oil laid to look like tarmac. Kildare Gardaí in February 2026 listed roofing, guttering and driveways, "spare materials", "urgent" or "dangerous" repairs, and large cash sums up front.

The price that moves. The job starts cheap and grows. In Kerry this week Inspector Gary Carroll described poor work followed by "exorbitant payment" demands. Limerick and Cork Gardaí in March 2026 described a Bantry pensioner pressured into buying twelve chainsaws, eleven generators and seven power washers.

Cash, now. Every warning says it: the demand is for cash, often with the householder driven to the bank. The Garda Crimecall message of January 2025 lists five methods, including driving victims to withdraw money. A Tralee woman in May 2026 had cash taken from a windowsill while she was walked outside to inspect work she had not asked for.

The follow-up scam. Weeks later a second caller arrives claiming to be from Revenue or the VAT office, or asking for a "deposit" for materials. Limerick Gardaí flagged both in March 2026.

The threat. Once work is started, the tone changes. Donegal's June 2025 warning says plainly that householders were threatened when they refused to pay the new price.

The advice is the same from every station: do not agree to any work from a cold caller at the door; ask for identification and a VAT number; get an itemised written quote; never pay cash; and ring 999 if someone will not leave. Laois and Offaly Gardaí put it in one sentence in March 2025: "never agree to have any work done from a cold caller on the doorstep."

Where it ends: €48,000 for a job worth €20,000

Court outcomes are rare in these cases; most warnings report no arrest. One did reach court. On 16 June 2026 Judge Orla Crowe sentenced Myles Connors (37), a landscaper from College Farm Heights, Newbridge, Co. Kildare, to two years' imprisonment with the final twelve months suspended, after he pleaded guilty to two counts of deception.

In June 2024 he had called to an 82-year-old woman in Co. Dublin who lived alone, had mobility difficulties and had recently left hospital. He quoted €11,600 for weeding and cementing; after she chose slabs from a brochure it became €48,000. He had her write a €35,000 cheque made payable to a car dealer, the balance on a Ford Ranger Raptor he had put a deposit on that day, then charged €5,000 to power-wash her tarmac, which he also painted black without being asked. She wrote a second cheque for €18,000. A professional landscaping body put the value of the job at €20,000 at most, with materials under €3,000. A neighbour had paid €5,000 for similar work.

The judge called it "a sustained, controlled and premeditated campaign" and "a gross breach of trust". Frozen funds of €41,800 were released and she was repaid in full.

The numbers behind the warnings

The CCPC's Consumer Helpline Report for 2025, published in April 2026, puts home building and improvements second only to vehicles as a source of complaints: 2,838 contacts, up 12% on 2024, with an average of €14,597 at stake per complaint and 1,409 referrals to the Small Claims Court, the most of any sector. The CCPC's Grainne Griffin: "Home improvements can be costly for consumers, especially if things go wrong." Garda figures for the first half of 2025 recorded a 57% rise in reports of bogus tradesmen on the first half of 2024.

Neither body publishes a breakdown by trade. Roofers, drives and gardens dominate the Garda warnings; the CCPC's complaints are about traders who do not finish, do not turn up to fix faults, or refuse to engage.

The 30-day rule

This is the part the warnings do not mention, and it matters when you have already signed something. The Consumer Rights Act 2022 gives you the right to cancel an "off-premises" contract, one made with a trader somewhere other than their business premises, without giving a reason. For most such contracts the period is 14 days. Where the contract was made during an unsolicited visit to your home, section 113(3) makes it 30 days from the day the contract was agreed.

Three further sections do the real work:

  • Section 114. If the trader did not tell you, in writing, that you had a right to cancel, the cancellation period is extended by twelve months. A doorstep trader who hands over no paperwork has handed you a year.
  • Section 119. If work is to start inside the cancellation period, the trader must get your express request on paper or email, and must tell you that you lose the right to cancel once the service is fully performed. If they did neither, you owe nothing for work done during the cooling-off period.
  • Section 104. The lighter paperwork rules apply only where you asked the trader to call for a repair, both sides perform there and then, and the bill is €200 or less. A cold call is never that.

Separately, the CCPC's own checklist for home improvement work is the practical defence: recommendations from people you know; a genuine address and references; more than one written quote; written price, completion date and payment schedule before any deposit; traceable payment, staged for bigger jobs; and verification of gas and electrical registration directly with RGI and Safe Electric. Disputes go: written complaint, then chargeback if you paid by card, then the Small Claims Court for amounts up to €2,000.

“Never agree to have any work done from a cold caller on the doorstep.”

An Garda Síochána, Laois/Offaly division, 20 March 2025

reports of bogus tradesmen, H1 2025 vs H1 2024 (Garda provisional figures)+57%
average sum at stake per home-improvement complaint to the CCPC, 2025€14,597
to cancel a contract agreed during an unsolicited visit to your home30 days

By the numbers — figures from the sources listed at the end of this piece.

WHAT TO DO NEXT

Providers near you with their score, their checks and the date each was made — no account needed to look.
Find cleaners near me

Questions this piece gets asked

Someone is at my door now offering to do work. What do I do?

Say no, take no quote, sign nothing, and do not let them start 'just the first bit'. Ask for identification and a card; genuine traders leave details and are happy for you to check. If they will not leave, ring 999. Then ring a neighbour who may be next.

I already paid cash. Is there anything I can do?

Report it to your local Garda station with every detail you have: vehicle, registration, names, phone numbers, what was said. Cash is hard to recover, but reports are how warnings and prosecutions begin, and the Connors case started with one.

I signed a quote at the door three weeks ago and the work hasn't started. Can I cancel?

If the visit was unsolicited, yes: you have 30 days from the day you agreed, and you need give no reason. Cancel in writing (email is fine) and keep a copy. If you were never told about the right to cancel, the window runs for a further twelve months.

Sources

FOLLOW WATCHDOG

One email a month — the watchdog piece, the day it goes out. One tap to stop.

Comments 3

0 / 600 · Links are rejected automatically. Be specific, be fair. The rules
  • REAoife M.Customer · Dublin 8EDITOR'S PICK2 h ago

    The register link is the useful bit. Looked up the lad who quoted us for the board last month — not on it. Saved us a job.

  • PRMarta R.Provider · Electrician · Crumlin1 h ago

    Every one of these cases is a board or a shower. Ask for the certificate before the balance, every time. A registered contractor will not blink.

  • RECiara D.Customer · Cork40 min ago

    The thirty-day rule should be on a sticker on every front door.

Signed-in Locufy customers and providers only. Comments close 30 days after publication. Report anything that names a person unfairly — we act on every report.

NEXT IN WATCHDOGUnregistered electrician convicted in Sligo: €24,409 for a job that left a family with live sockets6 min read

More in Watchdog

All watchdog →

FOLLOW A SECTION

Pick your sections. The month's piece arrives the day it goes out.

Nothing is pre-ticked. Choose one section or all 20; you get at most one email per section per month.

Show all 20

One email per section per month, the day the piece goes out. Stop in one tap. Privacy.