Scam Alert: Fultondale couple almost loses over $1,000 on pine straw

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - Jim Hughes says he’d been shopping around for pine straw for his yard for awhile, so he was relieved when four men stopped by his house offering to put some out. However, he would soon find out he’d been scammed. A job that should’ve cost about $300 ended up costing more than $1,000.

“They had a trailer with pine straw in it, and they said they’d been doing a job in our neighborhood and had some pine straw left and noticed that we needed some in front of our house, and they would put it out for us for $6 a bale,” says Hughes.

That low price sounded correct to Hughes, but once the men finished, the amount skyrocketed. He says the once nice young men’s attitudes changed quickly, once he began questioning them.

“He pulled out a bill and handed it to me. It said that they had put 74 rolls of pine straw in my yard, so this is $18 a roll, so they’re talking over $1,300 where I was expecting to be $200-$250,” says Hughes. “The young men who had been very friendly and courteous previously got real loud, very defensive, very argumentative with me, threatening, and they immediately said they would take less than half.”

All of these were indicators to Hughes that he was being scammed. Carl Bates with the Better Business Bureau says they are seeing more and more people getting their yards ready for the spring all across the state, especially during this time of year.

“You know it’s only going to take 8 to 10 bales of pine straw for your yard. But here is the key: you don’t get anything in writing from them. You agree. You stand there and watch how many bales they put down,” says Bates.

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