this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
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Why is NZ so corrupt? (lemmy.nz)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Recently I talked to three people who were ripped off by builders and tradies. One of them was out by more than a hundred thousand dollars, the others were in the tens of thousands of dollars.

People signed contracts and then didn't finish the job. In one case when confronted the builders said "you can't move in until I am done and if you don't accept this I won't be done for at least a year".

In the other case the contractor demanded double the money halfway into the build and contacted all other builders in the area and smeared the friend so that they didn't pick up the job.

In the third case the contractor took half the money up front, didn't show up for weeks, finally showed up for a few days and did a few things and the fucked right off. This was for about a 30K job.

Court costs are ten thousand dollars per day of trial (including prep work by the attorneys) so all of them had no choice but to take being ripped off. The tradie community seems pretty tight too so once you are ripped off you are known as a mark because all of them had issued with other tradies they hired afterwards.

Needless to say cops and the courts are useless.

Learn to do things on your own I guess. You can't trust any builder or tradie in NZ.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Since posting this I have talked to a couple of more people and they had very similar stories. One guy talked about how the tradie took half up front and didn't show up. He took him to small claims court and the tradie said he was having mental health problems and the judge ruled in favor of the tradie. He had to appeal to get a judgement for his money back. He did win that case but the tradie never paid.

The second guy told me he too took the tradie to court but the tradie had sheltered all his assets under a trust and his wife so he just claimed poverty and the judge bought it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 weeks ago

@BalpeenHammer, I guess that's where the 'buyer beware' comes in.
I do background checks or recommendations from people I know. I think you still can be unlucky as times. I like to trust people but I verify as good as I can, especially when big sums are involved.