In April, Attorney General Jeff Jackson stood shoulder to shoulder with local law enforcement outside the Haywood County courthouse to launch Safe to Rebuild, an effort to fight looting of property and contractor fraud amid Tropical Storm Helene reconstruction.
The gesture, Jackson told Carolina Public Press, was to give Western North Carolinians “peace of mind” as they work to restore their damaged homes and reopen their small businesses. The idea came from a conversation he had with a restaurant owner who was worried that his forthcoming shipment of copper pipes would be stolen off the construction site.
However, law enforcement at the municipal, county and state levels told CPP that reports of looting and fraud targeting Helene victims have been few and far between since the storm.
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Although widespread damage from natural disasters can provide opportunities for thieves and scammers looking to make a quick buck, the general demeanor in Western North Carolina is one of neighbors helping neighbors, Haywood County Sheriff Bill Wilke said.
Wilke said his office investigated a handful of looting reports after the storm — some as minor as people picking up belongings swept into the road by flooding. Few issues have come up since then.
“We’ve remarked several times in our staff meetings that we had expected to see a lot more of this,” Wilke said.
The police in Waynesville — the seat of Haywood County — also haven’t received outsized reports of fraud or property theft following the storm, chief David Adams told CPP.
That’s not to say that public awareness campaigns like Safe to Rebuild weren’t ever necessary. Wilke said he sees them as effective deterrents of such crimes.
“The strategy for us as an office is to get that message out early and often and then stand behind it,” Wilke said.
“I have to believe that it’s that messaging and that approach to addressing those issues that has resulted in a significantly lower reporting of those types of things than perhaps we would have expected.”
Haywood County is a relatively rural county, home to 62,000 people. But even Asheville, the population center of Western North Carolina, hasn’t had reports of fraud targeting hurricane victims, a public information officer with the police department confirmed.
The Buncombe County Sheriff’s office did not respond to an inquiry asking about reports of fraud or looting prior to publication of this article.
Chip Hawley, who leads the State Bureau of Investigation, told CPP that looting from construction sites is “not really an issue that (he’s) aware of,” although the agency has worked with local law enforcement on a few cases of fraud targeting hurricane victims.
At this stage in the recovery process, shady contractor work seems to be more of a danger to hurricane victims than looting.
Jackson, whose department includes a Consumer Protection Division, said his office is nearing 700 complaints related to Helene. At first, many of the complaints concerned price gouging, but as the recovery progressed more of them alleged contractor fraud.
It’s unclear how many of those complaints resulted in investigations by the state.
This type of scheme often involves unlicensed contractors who get paid upfront to do work that is never completed or shoddily done. Sometimes these individuals will go door knocking after a disaster offering to do work on damaged homes.
Prosecution of criminal fraud typically takes place at the local level, although if the alleged crime involves the crossing of county or state lines the State Bureau of Investigation might get involved. Contractor fraud might also be handled through civil action, in which case the Attorney General’s office will handle the case.
Any project that costs $40,000 or more must be done by someone licensed by the North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors.
“The major concern is a lot of the licensed contracting work is going to get sucked up by the state to do major projects, which means a lot of unlicensed contractors are going to be doing the smaller residential and small commercial jobs,” Jackson said.
Although many unlicensed contractors are reputable, it can be difficult to distinguish potential scammers from the real deal. One goal of Safe to Rebuild is to educate the public on best practices for hiring a contractor to do repair work.
Property owners seeking repair work should get written estimates and compare bids, rather than going into business with the first person who knocks on their door. When ready to hire, they should get a written contract and avoid paying all or most of the cost in advance.
The information is relevant, not just to Helene survivors, but anyone in North Carolina, considering that the Atlantic hurricane season started last week and will last until Nov. 30. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasted an “above-normal” hurricane season this year with 13 to 19 total named storms.
People who think they are victims of contractor fraud should contact their local law enforcement and file a complaint with the Department of Justice.
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