Rogue Traders: The Smiths
The Smiths: A family run firm who offer tree surgery, gardening and driveway cleaning across East Kent, where key skills have been passed from one generation to the next.
We've heard from customers who reported overcharging of elderly customers, poor workmanship, as well as pushing customers into work that doesn't need to be done. Like many family businesses with everyone sharing the same surname, it has been difficult for customers to work out who is who.
One member of the family, Walter Smith first offered to clean customer Donald Joyce's driveway for £150. That was several years ago and Mr Joyce explained, "He was obviously hungry for work and quite frankly he made a good job." So when Walter offered to do exactly the same job last July, Mr Joyce thought he'd be in good hands. However, this time Walter refused to say how much the job would cost. When the final bill was revealed, it was a whopping £1680.
"I was dumbfounded, in the sense that you know I realised I'd been a stupid fool, I'd accepted the fact that they'd done the job before and they did a good job, and now they've taken me to the cleaners" Mr Joyce explained.
Rogue Traders went on the trail of Walter Smith and his family. These Smiths come from the Folkestone area, please don't confuse them with any other similar sounding company.
We've heard there is a second Walter in the family, who may or may not be the original Walter's father. We've found that Walter Jnr got a 12 month suspended sentence in 2012 for altering customer's cheques in his favour - for huge amounts.
We found a house in Kent that had a tree and a tree stump ready to be removed. Our actress Lynda posed as the elderly home owner and tree expert James Pinder was ready and waiting to watch The Smiths at work.
We booked the appointment with a man who identified himself as 'Walter', but it is a man called 'Wayne' who arrives at the house to meet Lynda; confusingly he explains that Walter is his son. Lynda showed Wayne to the garden and is clear that she wants one cherry plum tree removed and an apple stump taken away; Wayne quotes £280 for the work.
Before work got underway, a few more members of the Smith family turned up, as Wayne brought in reinforcements - six of them in total, including his son Roy and brother Aaron. With the introductions over with, it was time for work. In the 45 minutes that they worked on the garden, there was no safety equipment in sight and we witnessed them pushing on a tree stump while it was being cut, so had they slipped they could have landed on the chainsaw. They didn't complete the work either, leaving the stumps above ground level and having not poisoned them, despite promises to the contrary.
Before they leave Wayne told Lynda that more work needed to be done. Infact, Wayne tried to persuade Lynda she has seven or more trees in need of serious pruning. He sounded convincing, despite the fact that he didn't even know what some of the trees were in the garden. Wayne quotes Lynda £850 - and when his persuasive tactics don't work, the even more persistent Aaron has a go. Our expert James explains that the Smith's working practices were 'atrocious' and not one of them knew a single thing about a tree.
Later we decide we want to get another look at their standard of work, so we took them up on their offer but asked them only to attend to two of the trees.
Once again Wayne's tree knowledge was in doubt as he incorrectly identifies a Sorbus tree as an Ash Tree, and despite Wayne's claims that the tree is about to topple over, our expert James confirms it certainly isn't. When Lynda talks costs with Wayne, his quote went up from £850 to prune seven trees to £650 for just two.
Our expert described the work this time round as total tree butchery; there was no safety equipment used and no consideration for the neighbour's garden, where some of the branches fell. James summed up their work ethic as being "just get up there and cut wherever they can reach."
Not satisfied with leaving it at that, the Smith's were touting for more work before going on their way, offering Lynda grass cutting or weeding.
In total we were left with a bill of £280 for incomplete work, plus £650 for dangerous and shoddy work that was completely unnecessary, all of which came to a whopping £930.
It was time for us to get some answers to our questions. We called Wayne back and he disputed our claims that the company employees are not tree specialists, and he disputed that the company targets the elderly and vulnerable, creating work that is not necessary. Wayne claimed they couldn't fully remove the tree stump due to deep snow that was on the ground and that Walter is not his son. He also denied that Walter works for him.
When it came to assessing his workmanship, Wayne was quite clear before he drove off: 'The work that I do is perfect. Everything.'
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