When a man came to Isabel Webster’s house and made her an offer, she acted as politely as possible.
The 73-year-old was picking up groceries at the time. She is unable to leave her house due to chronic ME, which makes going to the supermarket almost impossible.
While the delivery driver was helping her unload her belongings, a stranger came up the driveway to her Wigan home – a door-to-door salesman making a point of looking.
The driveway to the Winstanley property needed some TLC. Isabel wasn’t interested, but the seller wasn’t going to be deterred.
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Isabel said that although she politely declined the offer, the shopkeeper was persistent and her boss called her to ask if he could get a quote.
“He looked at the driveway and said it needed to be done,” Isabel told the Manchester Evening News. “It probably did, but it was the last thing on my agenda. He asked if his boss could come and give me a quote and I said no again. He asked me to turn on my phone so his boss could call me.”
“I told him I wasn’t well, my phone was off and I wasn’t feeling well today. He asked me to turn my phone on for five minutes. I just turned it on to get him out.”
Isabel says the worker’s boss called and agreed that he could visit the property to make her an offer. The “very nice” and “very helpful” man came to the house the next day, convinced her that they would do the new driveway “perfectly” and drew up a plan.
Isabel eventually accepted an offer and the man returned two weeks later to start the project. But alarm bells started ringing when the retired teacher realised the work was being done very slowly, despite initially being told the journey would take four days to complete.
“The first few days he did almost nothing,” Isabel told MEN. “He had to go and get supplies all the time. It was just a matter of doing very little every day. The mess piled up over a few weeks. I had to apologise to the neighbours, it was so bad.
Heavy concrete slabs and other debris left on the road meant Isabel was unable to go out on her mobility scooter for two weeks.
He also noticed that many of the workers’ tools were broken, and he even had to borrow his neighbor’s axle grinding machine, which made him worry that he was being scammed.
“I told them I was worried about the way things were going and they got angry at me,” she added. When the job was finally done, Isabel says she looked out the window and the road looked fine.
Despite initially telling the grandmother she could pay by bank transfer, the workers insisted she pay the £7,000 in cash. But when Isabel went outside and took a closer look, she was horrified by what she saw.
“[When they finished]”I went out and looked and was horrified by what they had done,” he said. “The drive itself was shocking, but they had also driven over a manhole cover. I told them not to do that because it was the only manhole cover on the road.”
Isabel, who had a double mastectomy last year due to breast cancer, called the worker to ask if she could come back to fix the mess they had made.
“They had left all the rubbish in the garden and out front,” he added. “He said he would come back in two days and see what needed to be done.
“[When he arrived]He burst through the door and came out the back. He was already in a hostile mood. He said he did a good job, and I was trying to find fault.
“I didn’t think I was at all like that. All my neighbours had commented on how badly the job was done. He said he was fed up with me going on and on.
“He said it was all in my head and that I just wanted perfection. As we were driving down the road, I said, ‘What about the manhole cover?’ and he went crazy. He was so mad at me.”
Isabel says she was so distressed by the situation that she stood on her doorstep crying. “I couldn’t believe how vulnerable I felt at that moment,” she added. “I knew there was nothing I could do about it.”
Feeling completely hopeless, Isabel contacted Citizen’s Advice and was told she had a case but that the resolution would be long and drawn out. They advised her to contact three reputable tradesmen to get quotes for repairs to her drive.
“I was sick from all the effort,” Isabel added. “I had no energy. My son and I kept going for a month. They told us we needed to get a quote and have it fixed to an acceptable level.”
Isabel said two workers visited her home and were “disgusted” by the state of the road, saying it was the worst work they had ever seen. Isabel was told the damage was too extensive to repair and that she would need to build a completely new road.
Unable to spend another £7,000, Isabel thought all hope was lost until she was visited by the third and final trader, Calum Griffin, owner of CG Paving.
“He was really upset,” Isabel said. “He kept walking around with his head in his hands.”
Before leaving the property, Calum made Isabel a “reasonable” offer. However, later that night, he was surprised when his grandmother suddenly called him. In an incredible turn of events, the kind-hearted merchant offered to remove the bad work and rebuild the ride for free.
“Calum said he had thought about it and it really upset him,” Isabel said. “He said the tradesman had done a terrible job and that it had given all tradesmen a bad name. He wanted to do it but he wanted to do it for free.
Isabel said the two went back and forth before she finally accepted the kind offer. “I told him he couldn’t do it because it was too much,” she said. “I finally said yes, but I couldn’t talk. I really couldn’t talk. It just wouldn’t go in.”
Calum enlisted the help of local businesses and four suppliers came together to offer the materials for free. The worker and his “lovely” team went on to complete the job – restoring Isabel’s faith in humanity.
“He came when he said he would and his team was great,” Isabel said. “He kept me informed throughout the entire process. He did everything he said he would do.
“I couldn’t have asked for anything better. It was like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. The situation got the better of me for the first part of the year.”
Isabel claims the company that carried out the poor work was wound up after the work was done, meaning she will not get any of her money back. Hero trader Calum, 42, from Wigan, told the Manchester Evening News that Isabel’s treatment was “heartbreaking”.
“When I visited Isabel to give her a quote to fix the job, things were in such a bad state that I could clearly see that no attempt had been made to follow the correct installation procedures,” Calum said.
“It looked horrendous. Even the Tesco delivery driver stumbled while making his delivery. It’s heartbreaking that another company saw this as an opportunity to take advantage of a vulnerable elderly woman. These so-called tradesmen give the industry a bad name.
“We asked our regular suppliers if they would donate their time and materials to a good cause and without hesitation they all agreed.
“By doing this we can hopefully restore some confidence to the industry. Having work done on your property is stressful enough so we try to make it as easy as possible for the customer – not a living nightmare like the previous company and many other scam companies on the market.
“I hope this raises some awareness of what cowboys are prepared to do.”