It’s no secret that beautiful driveways are expensive to design, build and upkeep, but no one expects one to be stolen. That’s exactly what happened to Paige Batten (inset) of Chattanooga, Tenn. After putting the house on the market, Batten received a phone call from a potential buyer, asking when she would be finishing up the driveway. She explained that the driveway had a couple of cracks in it, but she wasn’t planning on repaving it. Batten actually thought the caller might have gone to the wrong house. It turns out that neighbors noticed vehicles, including a dump truck and a king cab with a backhoe, were at the home for over an hour removing the contents of the driveway. The trucks were traced back to Donnie McSears, who owns McSears Concrete Finishing. It turns out that McSears was a victim of a scam when a local man named Dean Williams texted the concrete company asking for the driveway to be removed. After Batten and McSears got in contact, both were able to put the pieces together after realizing something was off. How the scam works is that they overpay for the job and then ask for a refund of the overpayment. They get the refund before the payment clears, and they walk off with their refund and the contractor is left with no money. The following week, McSears and his crew repaved the driveway for free, all in an effort to make sure everyone was satisfied. “They have been so good to work with they’ve owned up to everything,” said Batten of McSears. Unfortunately, the scam cost McSears thousands of dollars, which is why he’s making sure to tell everyone to be extra cautious when doing business with someone you’ve never met.
