By Sandra Guile
Better Business Bureau
Tornado sirens wail. Hail thunders down on the roof and lightning crackles across the sky. The next morning, a tree lies in the living room. The siding is pockmarked with dents from hail and the yard is littered with debris. Some guy gets out of a pickup truck with out-of-state license plates and makes his way up to the front door of the damaged home. It’s a scene local businesses dread after a weather disaster: The invasion of storm chasers.
The name is exactly what it implies. Out-of-state contractors watch weather reports from around the country, then travel to where they think a major weather event will occur. After the storm passes, contractors gather up repair materials, drive through heavily damaged areas and offer to patch up holes, nail shingles, lay tarp, or contact insurance companies to expedite the claim process.
Local businesses are impacted by storm chasers but in a different way than consumers. This happens when a reputable business is approached by a storm chaser with a large cash offer to team up and help with post-disaster cleanup. The storm chaser then makes promises such as generous warranties and quality workmanship – all under the name of the business they are partnered with.
However, it isn’t until after contracts are signed, money is paid, the repairs are complete, and the storm chaser leaves town that residents realize the promises are empty affecting the local contractor’s reputation. When the first leak springs or the quality of the work fails, the customer calls the original business only to find they can’t get warrantied work done as promised by the storm chaser.
Or, in another scenario, groups of storm chasers set up shop in a storm-prone area months before a disaster hits by renting storefronts, hiring employees, staying in temporary housing, spending money on advertising, lying in wait, ready to pounce at the first sign of bad weather.
Storm chasers are savvy enough to target areas where licensing is not required for contractors and smart enough to have the knowledge of an insurance adjuster. This makes it easier for them to pry information from storm victims when they are most vulnerable. By the time the storm cleanup is completed, the storm chasers and any cash or checks they’ve collected are long gone, leaving reputable businesses in the area left with unhappy customers and a lengthy list of shoddy workmanship to fix.
So what’s a local business to do when a storm blows through? Help people identify a storm chaser and warn other contractors to be on the lookout for them as well.
Some red flags to watch for include reluctance to provide references, evading questions about insurance coverage on their own business, persistence on signing a contract without allowing a consumer to review the contents, and being pushy on contacting the consumer’s insurance agent to process the claim.
Don’t allow a storm chaser to complicate recovery efforts. If you’re a business trying to maintain a trusting relationship in the community, BBB has resources available for you on bbb.org.
Sandra Guile is the Community Outreach Specialist for BBB. She promotes BBB’s message of marketplace ethics through public speaking engagements, presentations, media relations, press releases, web content, and other written materials.
Tune in Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m. with Scott Sloan on 700WLW for The Scam of the Week and every third Thursday with Brian Thomas on 55KRC. Contact Sandra at (513) 639-9126 or sguile@cincinnati.bbb.org. Your BBB is located at 1 East 4th Street Suite 600 Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 – to reach the office, call (513) 421-3015.
