A WOMAN from Rhyl was left with a trailer full of rubbish on her driveway and more than £100 out of pocket after she was conned by two men.
Laura Coates, who lives with her fiancé on Oakville Avenue, said that, last Saturday morning (January 14), a man knocked on her door and offered to clear up her rubbish and take it to a tip for her.
The man, who was later joined by another man, charged her £120 for the service.
But after they had gathered up all of Laura’s rubbish in their trailer, she said the two men never completed the job they had promised her.
As a result, Laura was left with a trailer full of her own and other residents’ rubbish, while being £120 worse off for it.
She said: “Normally, people would send them away, but with it being cold, they were probably a bit hard up.
“I asked how much it would cost, and he said: ‘For all of it, I’ll charge you £120’. For the amount there was, I was waiting on a skip anyway, but I thought, to help them out, I’d give them the money.
“I paid them, and to be honest, they were really nice to start off with. I said to them: ‘I really appreciate this; you don’t know how much this means to me’.
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“They looked at the time and said: ‘It’s about 4.30pm; it’s a bit late for the tip now - can we leave the trailer on your drive overnight?’
“I guess they’d done another job as well, because the trailer now had branches and fridges in it.
“I said to them: ‘I’ll make you dinner on Sunday, because you’ve done me a good turn’. I rang them on Sunday, but they said they’d completely forgotten, and would come on Monday to pick it up.
“I then tried all week, every which way, to get them to contact me, but their phone has been switched off all the time.”
Laura contacted the police, who, she said, described the trailer as “battered” and “old”, and advised her that she would likely have to pay herself to get rid of it.
She was kindly helped out by two people who heard of her predicament, and disposed of much of the rubbish and the trailer, free of charge.
But by yesterday evening (January 19), Laura said, she was still left with a number of items outside her home, including six fridges.
Laura added: “The trailer’s gone now, thankfully. Two young lads from a company sent me a message, and fair do’s to them, they removed 90 per cent of it for free.
“The only things they can’t remove are the fridges, so that’s going to cost me about £50-60 (for Denbighshire County Council) to get rid of them.
“I’ve been left with six fridges, a load of branches, a mobility scooter, and a double bed, but the lads were going to come back for the majority of that.
“I’m not the only one they’ve done this to. Two ladies have messaged me saying the same thing happened to them from the same guys.
“One of them had the rubbish that I’ve now got sat on my drive; another said they chucked her rubbish over the fence into their next door neighbour’s garden.”
Laura said she hoped that, by sharing her story, it would deter others for falling victim to the same trick.
She felt the two men took advantage of her, after initially believing they genuinely intended to do a good deed.
Laura added: “I’ll never trust anyone like that again. I just don’t want it to happen to anyone else, and for them to go through the heartache that I’ve been through.
“I’m not rolling in money, but I thought I was doing a good turn, where everyone else would have sent them away.”
A spokesperson for North Wales Police said: "On Tuesday, January 17, we received a call reporting a potential scam in the Rhyl area.
"It was reported that two men who had agreed to remove rubbish from a property for a sum of money did not complete the work and failed to return to their address.
"The resident was advised to progress the civil matter with Trading Standards, while officers will alert other local residents to the incident."
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