Ex-Royal Welsh soldier Richard Evans, 29, has been jailed for setting up a rogue call centre, scaring older people into paying for bogus and unnecessary home repairs.
Evans led a team that would call customers and tell them their current home was risking the validity of their insurance policies and would use scare tactics to get them to purchase new home additions or construction work that was not required.
The mastermind behind the con, Evans would write scripts for those working in the call centre, pressuring customers into buying new doors and windows they didn’t need, promising them government grants that did not exist for the unnecessary work.
Swansea Crown Court in Wales heard that his firm Crystal Style Home Improvements would mostly target customers in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, and would have call centre workers be “extremely insistent” during the calls.
Prosecutor Lee Reynolds said that many staff members quit after being made to read the “misleading” scripts.
The court heard that Evans left Crystal Style Home Improvements after Welsh Trading Standards began investigating, taking his fraud to a different company.
Moving onto a role at a company called SDG Carpets, Evans would offer construction work for cash deposits, and hire unskilled workers to complete the job.
Raising the cost halfway through the work, he would then threaten to walk away if the customer did not agree to pay the higher price for the inadequate work.
According to Prosecutor Reynolds, Evans and SDG Carpets boss Steve Garvey, 65, would become aggressive toward customers who complained.
“These people took my money and destroyed my home, they damaged what was beautiful and original to the property and they threatened me and my son with more delays, and even violence,” said one customer in a victim statement.
“They would lie, mock me and get abusive and threatening.
“They have ruined my house for me and I don’t know if I can ever feel about the house the way I used to.”
Richard Evans admitted to two counts of fraud and was jailed for two years and 10 months.
