{"id":25385,"date":"2018-02-16T12:13:35","date_gmt":"2018-02-16T12:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/?p=25385"},"modified":"2018-02-16T12:13:35","modified_gmt":"2018-02-16T12:13:35","slug":"pensioner-loses-10000-life-savings-roofers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2018\/02\/16\/pensioner-loses-10000-life-savings-roofers\/","title":{"rendered":"Pensioner &#039;loses \u00a310,000 life savings to roofers&#039;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A LLANRUMNEY pensioner has told police he was conned out of \u00a310,000 by cowboy builders.<br \/>\nOfficers are investigating after the 67-year-old man lost his life savings to pay for roof repairs that were never carried out.<br \/>\nThe man, who we are not naming to protect his identity, says he has been left feeling &#8220;embarrassed and vulnerable&#8221;.<br \/>\nHe says he has no money left for food or bills and a family friend has appealed for help to get him back on his feet.<br \/>\nThe man was approached at his home in Llanrumney two weeks before Christmas and was originally quoted \u00a3270 for the work but this figure rose as the conmen called the pensioner every day.<br \/>\nChristina Newton, 42, from Rumney is a private carer for the man.<br \/>\n\u201cThey told him the work needed to be done and a vulnerable man trusted them,\u201d she said.<br \/>\n\u201cHe is a proud man but he cried his eyes out to me. He had not slept or eaten for days and told me he feels stupid for being scammed.\u201d<br \/>\nThe builders told the pensioner they had misquoted him and the price had gone up to \u00a32,500 and they wanted cash the next day.<br \/>\nThe next day, the pensioner says he was told that the price of scaffolding was not included so the cost rose to \u00a35,000. He says the roofing company told him if he did not pay, the workers would lose their jobs.<br \/>\nA week later, on December 28, the pensioner received another saying that the tax man would be after him if he didn\u2019t pay extra. He says the men threatened to put his picture in the newspaper and, out of embarrassment, the pensioner paid up more than \u00a310,000.<br \/>\nHe realised too late he had been scammed and broke down to his carer.<br \/>\nFamily friend John Gilbo, 44, from Birchgrove, says he is overwhelmed by the support they have received from the community.<br \/>\n\u201cI\u2019m overwhelmed by the support from people. I\u2019m keen to try and get this poor man some money back to try and rebuild his future.<br \/>\n\u201cHopefully we can make more people aware of this and stop it happening to another poor person.\u201d<br \/>\nMr Gilbo has set up a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/elderly-man-robbed-of-his-savings\">Gofundme<\/a> page to get the pensioner back on his feet and more than 60 people contributed in one day.<br \/>\n\u201cThe response has been phenomenal with donations and I\u2019d like to thank everyone for all their help and support.\u201d<br \/>\nA South Wales Police spokesman said: \u201cOn February 13, South Wales Police\u00a0received information that a 67-year-old man from Llanrumney had been a victim of fraud by a roofing company.<br \/>\n\u201cThe matter is being investigated and officers are continuing to carry out inquiries in the area.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A LLANRUMNEY pensioner has told police he was conned out of \u00a310,000 by cowboy builders. Officers are investigating after the 67-year-old man lost his life savings to pay for roof repairs that were never carried out. The man, who we are not naming to protect his identity, says he has been left feeling &#8220;embarrassed and vulnerable&#8221;. He says he has no money left for food or bills and a family friend has appealed for help to get him back on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":25392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,3,110],"tags":[5598,97,5599,107],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-25385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-lead","category-news","category-rumney-llanrumney","tag-cowboy-builder","tag-llanrumney","tag-pensioner","tag-south-wales-police"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Pensioner &#039;loses \u00a310,000 life savings to roofers&#039; - The Cardiffian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2018\/02\/16\/pensioner-loses-10000-life-savings-roofers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pensioner &#039;loses \u00a310,000 life savings to roofers&#039; - The Cardiffian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A LLANRUMNEY pensioner has told police he was conned out of \u00a310,000 by cowboy builders. Officers are investigating after the 67-year-old man lost his life savings to pay for roof repairs that were never carried out. The man, who we are not naming to protect his identity, says he has been left feeling &#8220;embarrassed and vulnerable&#8221;. He says he has no money left for food or bills and a family friend has appealed for help to get him back on [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2018\/02\/16\/pensioner-loses-10000-life-savings-roofers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Cardiffian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-02-16T12:13:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2018\/02\/cardiffff.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"465\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aamir Mohammed\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Aamir Mohammed\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2018\/02\/16\/pensioner-loses-10000-life-savings-roofers\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2018\/02\/16\/pensioner-loses-10000-life-savings-roofers\/\",\"name\":\"Pensioner &#039;loses \u00a310,000 life savings to roofers&#039; - The Cardiffian\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2018\/02\/16\/pensioner-loses-10000-life-savings-roofers\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2018\/02\/16\/pensioner-loses-10000-life-savings-roofers\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2018\/02\/cardiffff.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-02-16T12:13:35+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#\/schema\/person\/321712ad58982d6ae67c57c87fa3d6bf\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2018\/02\/16\/pensioner-loses-10000-life-savings-roofers\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2018\/02\/16\/pensioner-loses-10000-life-savings-roofers\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2018\/02\/16\/pensioner-loses-10000-life-savings-roofers\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2018\/02\/cardiffff.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2018\/02\/cardiffff.jpg\",\"width\":620,\"height\":465},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2018\/02\/16\/pensioner-loses-10000-life-savings-roofers\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Pensioner &#039;loses \u00a310,000 life savings to roofers&#039;\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/\",\"name\":\"The Cardiffian\",\"description\":\"Just another JOMEC Sites Network site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#\/schema\/person\/321712ad58982d6ae67c57c87fa3d6bf\",\"name\":\"Aamir Mohammed\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/43401c7dedd0c38db4e535f18fd85308\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6f7ce914cb1c55a3f5bd8360c85733a66e92039aa23adb33423284262bfd5021?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6f7ce914cb1c55a3f5bd8360c85733a66e92039aa23adb33423284262bfd5021?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Aamir Mohammed\"},\"description\":\"My name is Aamir Mohammed. 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