Roofing ripoffs on BBB's list of 10 top scams of 2010

American Shingle, a roofing concern that solicited door-to-door, was responsible for 1,000 complaints to the Better Business Bureau last year making roofing one of the year's top ripoffs. Complaints to the BBB about roofing companies increased by roughly 40 percent, according to its Top 10 list of 2010 released today, due mostly to the bankrupt company leaving homeowners in the lurch.

"American Shingle's door-to-door salespeople went up and down the Eastern Seaboard, telling folks whose homes were damaged by storms that they would carry out roofing repairs that would be covered by insurance," says BBB spokeswoman Alison Southwick. But the company went out of business in September after accepting millions of dollars in deposits from thousands of homeowners.

Despite ongoing investigations by Georgia's Office of Consumer Affairs and the Arkansas Attorney General's office, BBB officials are reporting that copycat scammers—in some cases former employees of American Shingle—are still active in the Southeast and working their way up to the Midwest.

Another growing scam came from iffy timeshare resellers that promised desperate owners ready buyers once the resellers were paid several thousand dollars to cover fees.  "What we saw was a function of the bad economy, as people tried to get rid of costly timeshares but no one was buying," says Southwick. "We heard a lot of companies did the same pitch, that many of them are still in business, and that a lot of copycats are still emerging."
 
Sadly, most of the scams targeted people who were already scrambling in a down economy. The rest of the top 10 included: job-hunting scams, work-from-home schemes, debt relief services, misleading "free" trial offers, identity theft, lottery and sweepstake scams, advance-fee loan scams and overpayment schemes. "With the economy still on the mend, scammers had a field day targeting struggling families who were looking for work and trying to make ends meet," said Stephen A. Cox, President and CEO of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.

Consumers or small business owners victimized by a scam can contact their local BBB or file a complaint at bbb.org. And here's how to safely choose a roofing contractor and other roofing buying advice.