A MAN has claimed his garden was left looking “like a bomb site” after a landscaper allegedly took £11,000 and left before finishing the job.
Richard Newton, 55, from Ilkeston in Derbyshire, says he now struggles to “trust anyone” following the ordeal.
He claims he hired a Newark firm called D&F Landscape UK after posting an announcement saying he was looking for landscapers on a website called Bark.
Within a few hours, Richard says he received a call from the landscaping firm and a meeting between them was quickly arranged.
Two workmen then came to Richard’s property and the final quote was £19,000.
Richard and his wife were also allegedly given the addresses of three properties around Nottinghamshire where the firm said they had completed jobs.
Richard, who works as a warehouse supervisor for a tyre engineering company, said: “That was the bait on the hook and I bit it.
“All three properties looked fine and we got rave reviews from the customers saying work had been carried out on time and the landscapers bend over backwards to make sure that you get what you want.
“Now we’ve £11,000 up the spare, a damaged drive, front and back garden – the whole thing just looks like a bomb site.
“I’ve had to get another company in to start from scratch.”
Richard says that he paid the landscapers £1,000 at first to secure the booking, followed by another £5,500 and then £4,000.
He said: “At the beginning, I was struggling to do the bank transfer because my bank point blank told me that they didn’t trust him.
“But because I’d gone to the three houses to look at his previous work, I went ahead with it.
“And I kicked myself for that but especially for the fact that I paid the extra money before he decided not to come back.”
Richard says that about a week after the works were started on the May Bank Holiday, the family was told it would take approximately three weeks.
The landscapers carried out “all the breaking up, taking out and scraping out in our back and front gardens” but were then met with promises that never materialised.
“He kept telling me he was waiting for a grab machine to come and when that finally happened and it was parked on my drive, my drive started to cave because of it,” Richard continued.
“He told me in a text message he was going to fix it, but it never happened.”
Richard added that he has since hired a new landscaping firm which he knows through friends and family – but he was still reluctant.
He said: “I had to dip into my pension pot because of all of this.
I’m having problems now trusting people.
Richard Newton
“It’s going to cause hardship longer down the line but right now my main concern is making sure he doesn’t do this to anybody else.
“I’d love for him to turn around to me and give me my money back but that’s not going to happen.
“Now I think the three houses I went to look at are in on it too. I’m having problems now trusting people, I don’t trust anyone.
“The landscaper we have doing the work now, I’m always asking him questions and making sure he’s doing what he promised. Giving out that kind of money again was hard.”
Richard has reported the matter to Nottinghamshire Police and to Bark.
If you’ve had work done at home and there’s a problem caused by the trader, you should be able to get it fixed – or get at least some of your money back.
Whatever the problem is, you’ll need to talk to the trader and come to an agreement.
You should take up the problem with the trader who arranged the work, even if they ‘sub-contracted’ (passed on) all or some of it to another business.
Before you do that, it’s a good idea to:
A spokesperson for Bark said: “We sincerely regret hearing about Mr Newton’s unfortunate experience with the service provider he found through Bark.
“While the vast majority of our users have positive experiences, we understand that issues can occasionally occur given the large number of transactions that take place on our platform.”
The website added: “We can confirm that we are committed to maintaining a high standard of service on our platform.
“Should a provider fail to meet those standards, appropriate actions, including the removal of their profile, may be taken following an investigation.”
The Sun has approached D&F Landscape UK for comment.
