Victim Location 46033
Total money lost $500
Type of a scam Home Improvement
Josh Ziko knocked on my door and said he noticed my driveway was bad and since he was doing the neighbor’s driveway, he could do ours too. He said he did a few of the driveways in our loop in the past, including mine with the former owner. He was friendly enough and he said he would take care of the entrance to the driveway with a patch cause it was in bad shape. He said he would burn the weeds first. He would do it for $550. I said I needed to ask my husband first and he said no problem and would even talk to him if needed. My husband was engrossed in work so he didn’t really listen to what I was saying and said go ahead. I was surprised he said yes but I told the guy go ahead. I asked him for a business card and he said he’ll give me a receipt at the end. I asked him what the name of the company was and he said Panyard. I said which one and he said just Panyard cause there are other ones and he referred to Joe Panyard and he was his brother in law and the family had disputes so they split the company. He went on and on about it and we had already had work done by Joe Panyard and he told my husband that story so I believed he was legit. After he did the work, I wrote him a check but he said it was not local so could I get cash and he’ll knock it down by $50. So I went to the bank and gave him cash. I was expecting a receipt with the company name and it was just a plain receipt from the store. All he wrote was his name and then told me to write my name and he gave me his phone number. He said we could drive on the asphalt by 5 that day. The patch was not nearly hardened by then so I called Josh the next day and left a message. He called back but only because he saw it as a missed call and didn’t know who it was. He said he would come by on Sunday to check out the patch. He didn’t show. I have been calling him everyday since with no call back. I called Joe Panyard to ask if that was his brother in law and he said no. Joe Panyard stopped by and said the patch was not going to ever harden and he gave me a quote to do the patch right. Lesson learned, do not hire anybody that knocks on your door no matter how smooth he talks.