 We wanted to once again address the issue of unlicensed contractors in our county so joining me today is Detective Matthew Aragon with our agency here at the PSO and we also have unlicensed contractor investigator James Russell with the county thank you both for coming on for our Friday weekly report let's get right to it we're now a couple of weeks post-erma obviously we've got people getting the repairs trying to get their homes back in order let's start with you James what what are you seeing when you go out there are you hearing cases already of people that that may be targeted already by unlicensed contractors yes we are here about them we're looking at them like I say when it's a felony right now so I just kind of pass it on the sheriff's office just give them a lead on it and so it's important that the two of you work together explain the benefits of that why the county and the sheriff's office are working together so diligently to try to prevent these crimes from occurring absolutely well it kind of came out as a joint adventure between the county and the past the sheriff's office the way we look at it is when we approach a case together we have James on the civil side as far as you know he's able to go in and observe the violations for us if we're not there present he can basically read the citations hidden where it hurts in the pocketbook in the event that that's not able to resolve the situation or it needs to move forward into the criminal realm then my partner and I are able to get involved in either making a rest or for charges okay and when you're out there and you have people knocking on your door offering services obviously that's a red flag but what are some other red flags people can look out for if you know they're they're at home someone's approaching them what what are things that maybe are markers that indicate you might have an unlicensed contractor things I look for is a mark trucks no permits posted just different things like that they give you a bid that doesn't have their contractor name or license number on it business cards they don't have a license number on it and also when they want you to write them a check they wanted to write to them personally not to accompany and another thing you want to be aware of is large deposits so if they you know come out and quote you for a job and maybe they want you know 50% upfront that's a little steep that's not really a standard that I'd be comfortable with now in a lot of those cases that we've worked previously we'll see where they will take that large deposit and they'll never come back and start any of the work it's unfortunate but they also go after let's say our elderly residents in the county or they'll also go after the infirm and they like to target those people because they are able to prey on them and sometimes it never gets reported to us either because out of fear or they just don't know how they can go about making us aware of it another indicator is if there are permits required let's say from his office in order to complete the work and they try and solicit you to go and obtain those permits that may be because they don't have the licenses required in order to obtain those permits I know we haven't made any arrests yet but there are some pending investigations already there are pending investigations out obviously the the arrests there have been some that are unrelated to Irma but as far as anything directly related to Irma there have not been I expect that number to go up obviously now that people are starting to get their insurance checks mailed out to them and just advice to people as they are assessing the damage and they're bringing in people to get a better idea of exactly what they're they're dealing with how do you find the right contractor you want to investigate them look at them check out their license see if there's any complaints against them all kinds of different things if they give you a number check that number make sure it's not just a business tax receipt them or because some of them have used that as their license number make sure they got workers comp okay because that protects you from liability someone was to get hurt there on your on your job and what else from you on that well just to echo what James was saying yeah you can you can check their license you can go on to the dbtr website my floater license comm that's a great way for them to verify the license for the state just to be sure that they they have obtained that they can also contact the pasco county building department to where they can either do a buy phone or they can go on to their website in order to check to see if they have their county license in place another thing is if you want to make sure that they are legitimate or maybe you know that they're that they're not going to scam your or defraud you there's public information out there you know you can go to the sheriff's office website and look at arresting quarries you can check the Dallas Hillsborough Hernando a lot of that is public information the tri-county area that will help you get an idea of if these guys have been arrested for you know these type of violations in the past and if they have been out there scanning folks and that's something that we were just discussing you can go to the pasco sheriff's office website under arrest and type in a name and do a search there was a case recently in a neighboring county of someone who is an unlicensed contractor who was arrested obviously didn't have the license to be a contractor in the first place but also had a criminal history with this type of behavior in the past so something as simple as just that check can make all the difference absolutely and that's it's funny that you're bringing that because those are the guys that we're really going to target and gonna hammer when you get arrested with the exception of a state of emergency when you get arrested for unlicensed contracting it's a misdemeanor now if you have a prior conviction of that which a lot of our people do then we get to hammer you with a lot more we get to pursue felony charges and our state attorney's office has been great about going after those folks anything else you would like to add is that you know people begin to move into the repair process and if you suspect it check it out even if you don't check it out it's nothing wrong with it check on that contractor for sure you know just to make sure you know just because somebody is licensed or somebody has you know gotten approval to practice that traded it's not going to make them all of a sudden you know be a good honest person we would hope that in them but still you know be diligent in your in your checks you know you want to you want to be sure that you protect yourself get multiple quotes make sure that those quotes are kind of in line with everyone else and one more thing that's important to mention when looking for a contractor some contractors aren't licensed and that's not because they are coming after you simply to try to conduct business in a fraudulent manner maybe they haven't gotten their license in the state because they came from another state or perhaps they just haven't gone through the process to get the license in the first place but they do have the skills capable of doing a good job so we would implore those individuals in our county to go through the process to get your license so that you can be a part of this community and help serve our citizens in the way that we would like for you to be able to and again thank you both for being on here with us this Friday and have a great weekend