Victim Location 46113
Total money lost $21,000
Type of a scam Home Improvement
Joseph Gene Yungwirth, aka Joe Yungwirth, stole over $21,000 from me in a con artist contracting scam. I hired him to rehab a house in Indiana. He demanded weekly payments and made up additional costs, asking for more money, and did almost no work on the house. He made up various lies and excuses for why he was behind schedule, and 3 weeks after the scheduled completion date he walked off the job and stopped returning messages. He stole all the money and materials that I paid for.
Joseph Yungwirth claimed to be a master licensed plumber and electrician with 35 years of experience. However, after I called the state licencing department they informed me that Joseph Yungwirth is not licensed for anything at all. Upon inspection of the house, I learned that Joe didn’t do any proper electrical work as he had claimed. Switches throughout the house either didn’t work or turned on in separate rooms. There was no water supply at the house. The well pump wasn’t working even though I had paid him extra money to install a new well pump, and he had told me it was completed. The house was left gutted without flooring, cabinets, vanities, lighting, doors, locks, windows, and other materials that I paid for.
Not only did Joe steal $21,000, but he also wasted 2 months of valuable time while I was paying taxes, insurance, utilities, and financing costs to carry the house.
He left my house a complete mess with toilets and trash inside and outside the house. When walking off the job he didn’t even have the decency to leave the materials or clean up after himself.
I learned that Joseph Yungwirth has a long history of questionable behavior and legal problems in public records. Joseph is 57 years old and was born in Redfield South Dakota before moving the Indianapolis, Indiana. He had a car mechanic shop in South Dakota, and later in Carmel Indiana, however there was a judgement against him and his car shop for over $83,000. My advice to anyone even considering working with Joe would be to run a background check .
As part of the scam, Joe would talk about himself for hours on the phone explaining how great his work was and how lucky I was to have him working on the house. He also claimed to own 23 houses in Indianapolis but there are no properties in the county’s assessors office titled to him. Joe also has had 2 evictions filed against him in the last 6 months, according to county public records.