Beware, Scammers!

If you don't want the construction of your house to turn into a suspenseful adventure, it's essential to carefully choose a construction company.

Unfortunately, in the event of dealing with scammers, even having a packet of documents with all the signatures and stamps fully confirming your correctness doesn't guarantee you either a refund or any measures taken against the scammers.

So, how can you understand that a company is a scam?

Before starting cooperation and signing any contracts:

• They aggressively offer their services, persistently call you, and almost persuade you to sign a contract and make an advance payment.

  Of course, every company wants to attract as many clients as possible, but you're not the last person on earth, and such behavior is at least suspicious. Such persuasions are especially suspicious if they occur after your polite refusal to collaborate or after you take a pause to think.

• The company offers you a suspiciously low cost compared to other companies on the market, which is unclear how they calculate without a ready project and estimate.

  No business can operate at a loss in the long term.

  Recently opened companies may offer you a cost 5-10% below the market to attract initial clients, but a more significant difference is achieved through strict cost-cutting on the quantity and quality of materials and necessary work in construction or by the absence of construction altogether. In such cases, company representatives use arguments such as "Right now, we have a discounted price, which you can lock in by making a larger down payment, or better yet, pay upfront for the entire house," "And we'll throw in the project/basement/columns as a bonus to the construction, just leave a down payment." Bonuses and discounts are easily explained by the fact that no one intends to do anything except drag out the process.

• Ask the company for a sample contract; it should include the company's Tax ID (INN). Through a lawyer or on your own, check the company for any enforcement proceedings, debts, or failure to fulfill obligations to clients. Also, it's useful to find out who the owner of the company is based on its Tax ID and check what other companies they own and how they conduct business, whether they have debts or any unfulfilled obligations, and other unpleasant stories.

• Ask how you would terminate the contract (just in case?) and how the company would refund your money or complete its obligations in such a case. If you're satisfied with the answer, make sure that the verbal response matches what is written in the contract regarding this matter.

• Ask to visit with a company representative the objects already built or still under construction by the company. In this case, it's not so important whether these objects were custom-built with clients funds or with the company's own funds, but rather that the company has at least one object built by them and completed. Of course, there are new companies where you might be their first client, and in this case, each person decides whether they are willing to give credit to a new company or not.

So, you've chosen a construction company and signed a contract. Does this mean you can relax? Absolutely not.

• Check the company's performance at each stage and demand confirmation in the form of documents, at least for important matters. Suppose they tell you that the building permit from the municipality has been obtained and suggest making the next payment and starting to build your future home. In that case, insist on receiving/sending by mail/receiving by carrier pigeon the documents. If after your request to provide you with the project/permit/geology report or anything else that the company claims to have completed, nobody gives you the documents, then with a probability of 99.9%, they are shamelessly lying to you and want to extract as much money from you as possible before you realize who you've dealt with and send them away.

• Moving on to the construction stage, the company doesn't adhere to the project. For instance, the structural design specifies that reinforced concrete columns should use 18mm diameter reinforcement in a quantity of 6 pieces. Yet, on the construction site, without informing you, the company uses 16mm diameter reinforcement in a quantity of 4 pieces. When you rightfully protest, they use arguments like "Don't teach us how to build! How many houses have you built compared to us! Our houses stand!" It doesn't matter that the company has zero fully completed projects and that their partially constructed monolithic structures have been standing for approximately six months to a year, with no one knowing what will happen after the next minor earthquake.

  If they start telling you that the company actually works on trust and your demands offend them (!?!) - unfortunately, the company turned out to be not a construction one but a fraudulent one.

• Despite the oral and even written conditions in the contract, the company is not willing to let you go. After you suggest that you'll continue the construction on your own/with the help of another company, they start telling you, "Actually, we're the best company in Georgia, we'll give you trouble, you won't finish your house WITHOUT US, you'll be left without a house and without money."

• The company constantly fails to fulfill its obligations and always blames others for it - "Oh, the architect let us down, oh, the foreman let us down, oh dear, give us more money, we've already spent yours." These are real quotes from one "CEO," I'll leave them without comment, as I don't have any censorious words for such people.

All the examples provided above are taken from real-life experiences and involve a company that, unfortunately, continues its operations in Georgia. At the time of publishing this article, no actions have been taken against either the company or its owner.