Survivors of wildfires face fraudulent contractors and other scams

After someone survives a disaster like a wildfire or hurricane, they often face daunting decisions while trying to rebuild.

A growing number of scammers are targeting people seeking contractors, especially as events like flooding, hurricanes and wildfires happen more often.

Naveena Sadasivam is a senior staff writer for Grist. She’s covered disaster scams for the outlet and joins us with details of her reporting and how to avoid a scam.

Learn more about how to report fraud after a disaster in Oregon here.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. After someone survives a disaster like a wildfire, a hurricane or a flood, they often face daunting questions about cleanup and rebuilding. It can be a traumatic and bewildering time, all the more so because some scammers are preying on people in these vulnerable positions. Naveena Sadasivam wrote about post-disaster scams recently as a senior staff writer for Grist. She joins us now to talk about what she found and to give advice for how to avoid getting scammed. Naveena, welcome to the show.

Naveena Sadasivam Thanks for having me, Dave.

Miller: Could you start by telling us a story of a man you talked to named Craig Crosby?

Sadasivam: Sure. Craig Crosby lives in Camarillo Hills in Southern California. In November 2024, his home is affected by the Mountain Fire that rips through his neighborhood and other neighborhoods nearby. His home is partially damaged. When he returns and he checks on the house, he sees that his avocado orchard has completely burned down in the backyard, one corner of his house has burned down and the entire house smells of smoke, it just reeks. The windows have melted, there’s significant fire damage.

At that point, he notices that there are people canvassing the neighborhood offering to help. Two of those men approach him and introduce themselves as representatives of One Silver Serve, which is a company that is a franchise of Servpro, which is a national restoration company. They offer to help, and they say, “We can come in, we can do assessments and we can help in whatever way you would like us to help. We can help with cleanup and restoring your home.”

And he is very wary. He is still in the early phases of assessing the damage to his home, so he says, “OK, y’all can come in, but I only want you to evaluate, recommend, document and inspect the home. I don’t want you to do anything else.” And they offer him a one page form which he signs, and he adds this clause to the form that restricts what they’re supposed to be doing in his home.

Then over the next 10 days, more workers come in to work on the home and he quickly starts to notice that they’re starting to damage the home further. They damage the HVAC system, they’re staining the carpeting, and he notices that they’re standing around and they’re cleaning the house, even though some of the things that they’re cleaning seem like they would have to be ripped out and thrown out anyway. So he gets concerned and he calls up his insurance agent to see what the understanding is between this company and his insurance agent, because he has very clearly also told them that “I want you to route everything through my insurance company,” and they did, at multiple points, tell him that they did work with his insurance company, which is AAA Insurance.

He is shocked to learn at that point, when he calls his insurance rep, that they don’t have a relationship with this company. And in fact, this company is on their internal blacklist. So at that point, he kicks the workers out and he says “I don’t want anything to do with y’all anymore.” And he then gets slapped with a $62,000 fee from the company, they’re invoicing him for all of the work that they did in his home. And he’s very surprised to receive this bill, but he refuses to pay. He points out that he wasn’t requiring them to do any work, they never provided an estimate up front, they never cleared these expenses with him ahead of time and they didn’t secure permission from his insurance company either.

When he refuses to pay and the insurance company refuses to pay, this restoration company at that point slaps him with a lien. And a lien, for those who are not familiar, is a legal claim against a property. It’s typically recorded with the county recorder’s office, and it can be filed by anyone who does housework. So think of a plumber or an electrician who may have a claim against you saying you haven’t paid them for their services, they can file a legal lien.

So a lien gets filed against his home. And then when he doesn’t negotiate, he continues to stand his ground, they then file a lawsuit against him in Ventura County Superior Court.

Miller: It’s really striking that Craig Crosby, he has a background in consumer protection. He runs a website that warns people about the possibility that they’re buying counterfeit goods online. He really seems like a savvy person. And as you said, even that very first day, he wrote in pen some addenda to the contract before he signed it. And yet, he still got taken in.

What did you hear from experts about the mental state of people who’ve maybe even lost loved ones, but certainly have lost property in some way or another to natural disasters, and then what happens when they encounter people who claim to be there to help?

Sadasivam: People are often in a very vulnerable state if they’ve lived through a natural disaster of some kind, whether it’s a wildfire or a hurricane. Often they’ve lost, if not loved ones, the biggest asset that they may own: their home. So they’re in a state of shock. In the days after, they’re trying to navigate a million different hurdles in trying to assess the damage to the home, in trying to come up with a plan to rebuild the home. And in Craig Crosby’s situation, he is extremely savvy, he was very wary of this company. He told me for instance that he was surprised that he was allowed to add addenda to a corporate form. He’s someone who is very on top of what he’s doing and he was making a note of every single detail. He ensured that everything was in writing, nothing was verbal.

So I think his example really exemplifies the challenges with navigating scammers in a post-disaster situation.

Miller: This is obviously just one story. How common is post-disaster fraud?

Sadasivam: It’s unfortunately extremely common. The experts that I spoke to said roughly 10% of post-disaster funds are lost to fraud and scams. It’s a huge swath of people who are affected. And some scammers are not as sophisticated as One Silver Serve was in this case. Some folks will come in and promise to do work, ask for money up front and then just vanish. Or some may come in and demolish parts of your home, but then never rebuild and walk away with the money that you may have paid them.

Miller: What did you hear from Servpro? And as a reminder, because you did mention it earlier, this one company, One Silver Serve that Craig Crosby was dealing with, they are a franchise, one of thousands of franchisees of this huge company Servpro. What did you hear from Servpro about all of this?

Sadasivam: Servpro is a multi-billion dollar restoration company, and when I reached out to them, their director of communications fielded my questions and then ultimately responded that they are aware of the lawsuit against Crosby and his counterclaims against One Silver Serve, and because of the pending litigation that they were not willing to comment.

Miller: You wrote this: “As hurricanes, wildfires and flooding become more frequent and severe, the disaster economy has boomed.” What is the disaster economy?

Sadasivam: In the aftermath of a hurricane or a wildfire, there are any number of businesses that move in to help with the recovery process. So this includes cleanup crews that are dealing with debris. It includes the construction crews that may come in and help tear down your home and help you rebuild. There are mold remediation companies that will maybe need to come in if there’s water damage. So there’s an entire economy that’s built around disasters.

Miller: Did you find any evidence that these kinds of scams are happening in Oregon?

Sadasivam: Yes, absolutely. One of the franchises that I looked at that is a Servpro franchise did have several similar claims against it – I think they’re based out of Northeast Salem in Oregon. So there is some evidence that these franchises exist all over the country, and some portion of them, some segment of them are engaging in intimidation tactics, in price gouging, in overbilling and the kinds of things that we saw in Southern California.

Miller: Is there a connection between these scams and the insurance market?

Sadasivam: Yes, absolutely. This is a question that I spoke to experts about. And they said that because there are a significant portion of funds that are lost to fraud and scams, insurance rates are affected by it. So you can think about an insurance company, take for instance AAA Insurance that covered Craig Crosby’s home, they also cover several of the homes in his neighborhood and in the area that were affected by wildfires. So in cases where there are fraudulent contractors who may be overcharging, overbilling, price gouging, some of those costs are passed on to the insurance company that may step in and pay for those claims. So that means the cost for the insurance company goes up, which is then eventually passed on to customers, or in some instances, you may see insurance companies leave the market entirely.

Of course, there are many factors that influence insurance rates, so this is not the only factor. But the folks I spoke to and the research that I did did point to the fact that it is a significant factor in insurance rate increases.

Miller: Oregon is one of a number of states that has a three-day rescission period, in which if someone knocks on your door and says, “hey, I’m offering you this service” and someone signs, that person has three days to get out of that contract. California goes even further than that. Can you explain California’s disaster declaration law?

Sadasivam: Yes, in California, they go one step ahead. If your county has a disaster declaration and someone knocks on your door, canvasses and you sign any paperwork, you have seven days to rescind. So you have a little bit more of a buffer time. And I think that’s in recognition of the fact that people are especially vulnerable after a disaster hits.

Miller: Although I can imagine for plenty of people, they only realize that they’re being scammed more than a week after they’ve signed that contract. So even there, they would be out of luck.

So what are some red flags that people who are dealing with so much loss should also be keeping in mind if they’ve been through a disaster?

Sadasivam: I think the one big red flag is how did you find the person who is offering to help you? Did they find you? Did they canvass your neighborhood and did they knock on your door? Or did you find them independently through a trusted source? Experts repeatedly told me that canvassing after disasters is extremely common, and a lot of folks take people up on it because they are in a crunch, they’re in a tough spot and they may be struggling to find contractors. So when there is one who knocks on your door, people are willing to take folks up on it. That can be a reason to be extra cautious if someone is knocking on your door and coming to you.

Another safety check is to see if the person is licensed and whether your insurance company works with them, so calling up your insurance agent and verifying whether the contractor is someone that they would cover, and whether they have any experience working with the company or the individual contractor previously. That can be another great safety check.

Miller: What is happening with Craig Crosby right now?

Sadasivam: Well, a day after the story published, the lawsuit was rescinded.

Miller: A day after your story published, telling his story?

Sadasivam: Exactly, a day after our story published, One Silver Serve released the lien against him and also withdrew the lawsuit against him. But his credit score has been significantly affected. Crosby himself filed counterclaims in response to the lawsuit, so he hasn’t withdrawn his lawsuit. So that’s the current situation.

Miller: It almost seems like this company chose the wrong victim, with a very savvy person who had everything in writing and was very on top of things. What about his neighbors?

Sadasivam: His neighbors unfortunately are still facing lawsuits. Many of them have liens against them. I spoke to an 82-year-old neighbor of Craig Crosby’s who is in a similar situation. She hasn’t filed any counterclaims or filed her own lawsuit, but the claims against her are still pending and she’s in the process of rebuilding her home. But she’s very worried about this lawsuit and there are several others like her in Crosby’s neighborhood.

Miller: Naveena Sadasivam, thanks very much.

Sadasivam: Thank you for having me.

Miller: Naveena Sadasivam is an investigative journalist and an editor at Grist. She wrote recently about scammers who prey on people whose homes have been damaged by natural disasters like wildfires, hurricanes and floods.

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