Two families claim they’ve been scammed out of R500 000 by a gladdebek builder who allegedly took their money, knocked down the walls of their house but never completed the job.
Malika Brennen, 36, from Athlone says she was introduced to Wyan Sampson, the owner of Sampson and Sons Group, through a referral by an architect pel.
She was quoted R342 000 to have a double-storey built and an additional R48 000.
“Wyan talked us through everything and said it would take six months, requiring us to move off our premises and rent,” says Malika.
“But he is not a builder or qualified, he just wasted five months of our time and rental money.
“The stairs he put up do not meet the requirements, it is too steep. The walls are supposed to be double cavity but it’s not.
“He removed the electrical box without authorisation from the electric department.
“The structure of the garage is not built correctly, the width of the beams are not compliant, he built the top wall without the concrete being thrown which now needs to be thrown down.”
She says to fix this is going to cost her R70 000.
“He slowly started taking his tools away, we had to constantly phone him and he would give excuses and say the engineer is a problem but when I phoned the engineer, they knew nothing.”
She says they looked for Wyan at his business premises in Pama Ville, Parow Valley, but there was no sign of the company.
“Instead it is a gated community and nobody knows him, this man is scamming people. I am busy with legal proceedings to sue for damages,” Malika says.
A 44-year-old complainant from Bellville says she found out about Sampson and Sons via Facebook after losing her house in a fire in December.
“Wyan empathised with me and said he will make the transition comfortable because he knows what I am going through,” she says.
“We used my daughter’s college funds to give him R106 000.
“I gave him money for the deck, staircase, the rubble and demolishing which is supposed to be completed but it is still exactly as is. The wall he built needs to come down and my staircase needs to be removed because it is too steep.
“The boys he worked with said he did not pay them and he claimed it’s because I did not give money.
“He makes up companies [suppliers] which are not legit and are based overseas.”
When the Daily Voice spoke to Sampson, he said he did not run away with mense se geld.
“The clients cancelled the contracts, not me. These are all allegations,” said Sampson.
“The money was spent on their property and there are invoices to support that, whether the wall was skew or not, it is my obligation as the contractor to fix it but I never got the opportunity to rectify anything because when I started working all I heard was lawyers’ letters.”