Organised criminals operating across Australia

South Australians should remain alert for travelling conmen pushing bitumen services that turn out substandard.

Consumer and Business Services (CBS) is seeking the communities support in reporting these unlicensed traders to put a stop to their unscrupulous behaviour or scams.

Crews of ‘bitumen bandits’ are the subject of a coordinated response by consumer protection officials nationally who work with other government agencies to map their movements across Australia.

The organised criminals come armed with high pressure tactics triggering a cycle of complaints each year. In South Australia around 15 known cases over 8 months in 2023 pocketed them more than $100,000 – and that’s just the cases reported.

They travel around offering to re-surface bitumen driveways and car parks for seemingly attractive prices, only to leave shoddy work in worse shape than before. They use sub-standard materials and demand a higher fee than originally quoted.

Their typical methods include:

• unsolicited doorknocking
• offers of ‘left over bitumen from a job nearby’ at a cheap rate
• usually asking for cash
• overly eager to close the deal with their pressure tactics
• unable to provide a building work contractor’s license number (when requested)
• substandard or shoddy work
• sometimes also letterbox dropping, flyers & signs on posts
• using standover tactics and threatening behaviour.

These offenders breach many consumer laws including coercing customers for payment, failing to observe the 10-business day cooling off period for door-to-door sales, known as unsolicited consumer agreements, providing false representations about the price and wrongly claiming to be affiliated with reputable entities.

Some have even used legitimate business names on flyers with their own mobile phone number to trick customers about their legitimacy.

Don’t be fooled into promises of cheap work by these unlicensed transient tradies.

Businesses or homeowners who have encountered these individuals should quickly contact CBS on 131 882.

CBS has been tracking recent reports of these organised criminals at:

• Fleurieu Peninsula - November 2023
• Eyre Peninsula - November 2023.