Pair accused of operating fake contracting businesses

Morning tonight for homeowners to use caution before hiring contractors, police in Lower Marion and Montgomery County arresting two men on fraud charges. Action News reporter Caroline Goggin following the story. She joins us from the Lower Marion Police Department. Lower Marion Police tell us they have identified several victims so far, but they believe that there could be more. They say they've conducted several investigations into high dollar fraud schemes over the past year and those investigations led to these arrests. Lower Marion Police want you to take a good look at these two men. Scott Bradley and Jake Fox are locked up in the Montgomery County prison, facing charges of fraud. I saw them, I think it was over a week ago, parked right on the street here and they were just walking back and forth from the one house down here and back. Police confirmed the pair was working on a home in the Belmont Hills neighborhood, operating under the business name PJS Paving and Masonry Corporation. And the homeowners were growing very uncomfortable with the rapid way in which the company was changing prices and materials and work orders on them without providing any back information. So the homeowners called police and when the pair returned to the neighborhood last Thursday looking for money from the homeowners, they were taken into custody. This unfortunately fits a pattern of itinerant contractor crime where they will change names, they will have valid looking paperwork, they may represent themselves with different companies, different phone numbers. Police believe these two men are European and frequently change their identities. In fact, they say they were born Patrick and Johnny Joseph Quinn and that they changed their names prior to entering the U.S. They also say it's likely the men operated under business names like Orchard Paving and Perfect Paving LLC, both of which have been associated with fraudulent practices. Police now want to hear from anyone who may have interacted with these men. Or this specific type of behavior with high pressure sales tactics, shoddy or no work done, non-contact, aggressive follow-ups, insistence on high dollar amounts. Police ask if you have any information about those two men or their business that you should email contractorfraud at lowermerion.org. Outside the Lower Merion Police Department, I'm Caroline Goggin, Channel 6 Action News.