How to avoid tradesman scams in the UK (2026)

Almost every rogue trader case in the UK follows one of about six patterns. None of them are clever. They work because they are applied at moments when you are rushed, worried about your roof, or embarrassed to say no to someone standing in your doorway.

Here they are, with the specific move that stops each one.

1. The cold caller

Someone knocks, or calls, and tells you they have spotted a problem: loose roof tiles, a cracked chimney, moss in the gutter, tarmac left over from a job down the road. They can do it today, cheap, while the equipment is here.

This is the single most common rogue trader pattern in the country and it targets older people disproportionately.

The move that stops it: never agree to work at the door. Ever. Say you do not deal with cold callers, close the door, and if you are worried about the roof, get someone you found yourself to look at it.

Your legal position if you did agree: contracts agreed at your home are off-premises contracts under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, which carry a 14-day right to cancel. The trader must tell you about that right in writing. If they did not, the cancellation period is extended. If you asked them to start within the 14 days, you pay a proportionate amount for what was actually done, and if they never gave you the cancellation information, you pay nothing for services supplied during the cancellation period. Rogue doorstep traders almost never give the written notice, which is often the strongest card you hold.

2. The large upfront deposit

They need most of the money before they start, for materials. Then the materials are delayed. Then they stop answering.

What is normal: a materials deposit on a job with a genuinely large or bespoke order, a bathroom suite, made-to-measure units, with a receipt, and with the balance on completion. Staged payments against visible milestones on a long job.

What is not: a substantial share of the price of a small job before any work has happened. Once you have paid most of it, you have no leverage and they have no reason to come back.

The move: pay for outcomes, not promises. On a platform, that is what payment held until you confirm the job is done actually buys you, the money is committed, so the tasker knows they will be paid, but it does not move until the work is done.

3. Cash-only pressure

Paying cash is not illegal and plenty of honest sole traders prefer it. The problem is not the cash, it is what usually travels with it: no invoice, no company name, no VAT number, no paper trail, and no way to prove what was agreed if the work fails.

The move: cash is fine if you still get a written quote beforehand and a receipt afterwards with a name, address and description of the work. Refusal to provide either is the actual signal. If someone offers a discount specifically for cash with no invoice, understand what you are trading away: your evidence.

4. The request to move off-platform

"Cancel the booking and pay me directly, we will both save the fee."

This is the most common complaint thread across every marketplace in this category, and it is worth being clear about what you give up: payment protection, the dispute process, the review record, and typically any platform insurance, which almost always excludes work paid for off-platform. The person asking knows this. That is frequently the point.

It also removes the one thing that made the arrangement safe for both of you. Keep the conversation and the money where the record is. Our fees are set out in full on our fees page, so you can see exactly what you would be avoiding, and it is less than the cost of one job going wrong.

5. Fake and manipulated reviews

Since 6 April 2025, submitting a fake review, or one that hides the fact it was incentivised, is a banned practice under Schedule 20 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. Platforms that publish reviews must take reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent and remove them, and the CMA can fine for consumer law breaches up to 10% of global turnover. That has cleaned up a lot. It has not cleaned up everything.

How to spot a manipulated profile:

• Clustering. Fifteen five-star reviews in the same week, then nothing for six months.
• Uniform length and vocabulary. Genuine reviews vary wildly. Fake batches read like one person's writing.
• No specifics. Real customers name the job, the room, the price, what went slightly wrong. "Great service highly recommended" names nothing.
• All perfect. A long-established trade with no mixed reviews at all is less credible than one with a 4.6 and two thoughtful complaints answered well.
• Reviewer histories that go nowhere. Accounts with one review, created the same day.
• Nothing negative, ever, on a business that does hundreds of jobs. Nobody's record is spotless at volume.

What to trust more: verified-transaction reviews, which only exist where someone actually paid through the platform; completion rate; and how the trader replies to a negative review. A calm, factual reply tells you more about how a dispute with you would go than any five-star review can.

6. Invoice redirection

Mid-job, a message or email arrives saying the bank details have changed and please pay the new account. The details belong to a fraudster who has compromised the email thread. This is common in building work, where invoices are large.

The move: never change payment details on the basis of an email or message. Call the number you already had, not the one in the new message, and confirm verbally.

What payment protection actually covers

Be precise about this, because platforms are often vague and it matters.

What holding payment does: it means money is not released to the tasker until you confirm the job is done, and it gives you a documented dispute process with an evidence window if you do not. If someone takes the job and never turns up, you have not lost the money.

What it does not do: it is not an insurance policy against poor workmanship, and it is not a guarantee. Platform liability insurance, where it exists, typically covers third-party injury and property damage caused during a task, and typically excludes faulty workmanship, subcontracted work and anything paid for off-platform. Read those exclusions rather than the headline number.

Your card protections, separately: if you paid by credit card and the price was over £100, section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 makes the card provider jointly liable with the trader for misrepresentation or breach of contract. For debit cards, chargeback is a voluntary scheme run by the card networks with time limits, so raise it with your bank promptly.

Your statutory rights, always: under section 49 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 a service must be performed with reasonable care and skill, and no contract term can exclude that. Remedies are repeat performance or a price reduction.

Where to report it

• Fraud: Action Fraud, the national reporting centre for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, at actionfraud.police.uk. In Scotland, report to Police Scotland instead.
• Rogue trading, misleading pricing and doorstep sales: report to Trading Standards through the Citizens Advice consumer service, which passes reports on and can advise on your rights.
• On a platform: report the account. Where money is held, raise the dispute inside the platform's stated window, because that window is usually short and evidence submitted late is worth less.
• Keep everything: messages, photographs with dates, quotes, invoices, bank records. Every route above works on documents.

The five-minute version

1. Never agree to work at the door.
2. Never pay most of the money before most of the work.
3. Get a written quote and a receipt with a real name and address, cash or not.
4. Check any registration number yourself: Gas Safe, an electrical competent-person scheme, waste carrier. See how to check a tradesperson.
5. Keep the payment where the record is.