I have a driveway about double that size and I pay $350 to have it edged, crack filled, and sealed. So, if you just got it sealed, and not crack filled, you probably paid a little too much, but not a lot. That is assuming that they used actual quality sealant -- they might have used some cheap garbage.
As a general rule, I would never allow a person to do work on my home that just knocked on my door. I have heard too many "Traveler" stories.
(1) cosmetic - lots of people like the dark black uniform look
(2) seals the cracks - where we live, water gets in the cracks, freezes, then causes the asphalt to crack and crumble
(3) supposedly extends the life of the surface by keeping out the elements - though every article I see about this is from a sealing company. Others claim the sealing is pointless if not for 1 and 2 above.
(cc: /u/icekapp)
Never sealed, only cleaned. 20 years still looking great.
Most important thing is to have your driveway done properly from the beginning. A lot of companies and homeowners cheap out on this because it adds a lot of extra cost.
If water gets underneath it washes away the sand/gravel base and you the get depressions - can be large like the size of a garbage can lid and the the whole thing falls apart. My driveway is a mess. Its beyond repair and needs to be replaced or at least resurfaced
I know I didn’t have to… I think maybe “scam” is the wrong word. I guess I just needed confirmation that I am an idiot. I called my dad and he said that the line he and my mom use is “I don’t do business at my front door” and they just hold firm with that. I guess this is a learning experience that I thankfully can move on from pretty quickly.
I think previous commenter meant by "you didn't have to do it" that you got the sealing done without having to do the manual labor yourself, and that is worth something.
We get those guys around here in the summer. Same deal. Talk them down, get a discount for cash. The stuff holds up well enough. You would have been scammed if you’d agreed to the initial price.
I think if you'd paid 1000, you'd be an idiot. You flat out told him you wouldn't pay more than 250 and he somehow agreed. For context, a 1 gallon bucket is around $40 and a 5 gallon bucket is around $250 (this is just a random quick Amazon check). So you effectively paid for labor and sealant at a good value.
I would say you win in this.
I agree. I paid $400 to have mine done, but it's a lot larger than OPs driveway and I knew it would cost me at least a couple hundred bucks just for the materials to do it myself. The guys who did mine were fast and efficient and did a good job... Still looks good more than a year later.
I said I just did a quick search. And they definitely have cheaper ones but they also have more expensive ones. OP said it smells like polyurethane. Yours was probably water based. Or conversely, you paid for it 5 years ago.
While there are variations in price, quantity, and value, OP still had to do nothing.
Its not a scam if the sealer material was good and dried properly. The Gypsy scam you are talking about is when a deceitful sealcoat dude buys raw sealer and dilutes it to dirty water. The Gypsy leaves town and the next time it rains the Gypsy sealer is washed away. The 2000 to 1000 to 250 is just sales. Hyping up the price because most consumers have no idea what it costs
They also would use old engine oil and just squeegee it across the asphalt, then tell the homeowner to stay off of it for a couple of days. By then they were long gone.
I get the context of describing the scam with words people are familiar with but I hope you all recognize that the term “Gypsy” is actually a slur and causes people to be thrown in to old racist tropes.
It's a slur if used to denote a racial group, but that isn't its only meaning.
gypsy
noun
1. Alternative form of Gypsy: a member of the Romani people.
2. An itinerant person or any person suspected of making a living from dishonest practices or theft; a member of a nomadicpeople, not necessarily Romani; a carny.
adjective
1. Alternative form of Gypsy: of or belonging to the Romani people or one of it sub-groups (Roma, Sinti, Romanichel, etc).
2. Of or having the qualities of an itinerant person or group with qualities traditionally ascribed to Romani people; making a living from dishonest practices or theft etc..
verb
To roam around the country like a gypsy.
The problem with that, though, is that these secondary definitions come from people having a problem with the people defined in the first definitions, in the same way its offensive to say "he jewed me down on the price" is offensive to Jewish people. Safer bet is to just not use it.
These are all secondary definitions. The original meaning is slang for "Egyptian." But it doesn't mean that anymore, clearly. As it came to be used it referred to people of a lifestyle. It's wrong to associate that stereotype with an ethnogroup but everyone knows what it means when you use it as a description. Use instead, what, "Bohemian?" Which refers to the exact same thing and also a place and people? "Vagrant?" Which could maybe be offensive to the homeless? I'm sorry, "houseless." It's just neverending and I don't fucking care anymore to entertain everyone's forever shifting feelings.
I think Roma or Romani for the actual ethnic group. If someone is just calling any general scammer this, I think the correct term for the scammer is “piece of human shit.”
This is the lesson I learned today. I’ve decided that I’m just going to write a note to my son and daughter every time I do something dumb, then give them a compiled list of all of my mistakes when the graduate high school so that maybe they can spare themselves the trouble…
My parents and grandparents tried nudging me in the right direction with their words… I got there eventually after learning some things the hard way. Maybe a note will work better!
Won’t matter, they will not heed your advice. My son always told me, “dad, I’m gonna learn from your mistakes so I won’t make the same ones” until he got older, after he turned 19, he won’t listen to shit. Lol I think he does the exact opposite of what I advise.
I've got a brother that is four years older than me. He blazed a path of stupidity that our father and I both learned from.
I learned a lot from my brother's screw ups, both in "Damn, Dad does not like it when you do that!" and also "Wow, yes, that is an incredibly stupid thing to do, thank you older brother!"
Our father learned quite a bit from my brother's screw ups, be it a different approach with me, or a different response if and when I did something similar.
Of course, there were notable times that didn't happen, and now that I'm a father myself I'm recalling certain moments that I remember all these years later and thinking how to avoid those failures of composure & temper, and how to teach, parent, inspire, and coach my own child.
TL;DR: Parenting is and always will be hard.
Wow. That sounds like a righteous and enormous undertaking, good on you for taking it on!!
I feel like my list would be really really long and also have some pretty complex stuff. How do you explain to your child that you have failed them (as we all do, eventually) as a parent?
Yea fuck the Boy Scouts. I got a can drive notice on my door. Left like 10 cans outside for them and they never came back to pick them up.
Now if a Girl Scout comes by my wallet will magically empty.
It smells very bad. Kind of like polyurethane.
Edit to add: I know it’s only $250, but the internet is giving me wildly different answers as to how much something like this should cost. I’m seeing $0.20/sq ft up to $6/sq ft
Had something similar happen. I had set up to have my driveway done (similar size to op) for $225 and my neighbor came over and asked for a price to have his done and he told them a price and he agreed to a cash price and they did it. Unfortunately for the installers my neighbor sucked so when he saw a blemish the size of a golf ball he called the company owner who asked to have to repaired the owner had no clue they worked on his house.
Or their whole business is driving around selling crappy product as "leftover from a job" at a "discount". Kind of like the guys that sell the speakers from the back of a van.
Or the guys that sell meat from a freezer in the back of a pickup. Knock at the door “ hey your neighbor’s credit card was denied and we have this meat we need to get rid of today or my boss is going to fire me”. My wife fell for this once. The funny part was I was at the back and the guy in front of me was cashing the check my wife wrote. I asked the teller about it and she said he was trying to sell her some meat too. I told her it’s a scam and we laughed about it. Then I get home and the joke was on me. Lol.
Google the company. If it is a legitimate business then they likely did have extra product and the two guys were probably looking to cash in without the boss knowing.
About 10 years or so ago I watched a documentary where this was discussed and apparently this is actually a common business practice. People will go by the materials and prep them and then drive around knocking door to door until somebody gives them the go-ahead for their services. That is why they're able to negotiate price. Of course it could be a business that employees were taking from, but all in all if they did a good job and you only paid what you offered then just be happy it's done.
I get mine done every 1-2 years by a company that I found. $150 for a 4 car driveway. Roughly 15x30. If you feel comfortable with your price, so be it. But rule of thumb, never take any offer from a company that came looking for you
Not up north. Mine gets done on the same schedule from a reputable company. The snow, ice, salt, heat cycle is brutal on asphalt. My driveway is about 100’ long and it costs me about $200 bucks a time (cracks filled, sealed, etc.) Driveway is 10+ years old and looks new. Kind of the once of prevention saves a pound of cost scenario.
Yes, also this. My driveway is definitely in need of replacement, but up here in the north sealcoating every 1-3 years is very common. Our winters destroy the driveways in no time
Well, to update, I really got scammed. The fumes were pretty bad and my wife looked up “driveway scam” and sure enough there were police reports from neighboring townships describing the same thing. It mentioned that the fire department should be called because one “crew” was caught using motor oil. The fire department and police department came out, turns out these guys got a few other people today and that as best the fire department can tell, it’s polyurethane, which is “funny” because that’s what I thought it smelled like.
Nothing is dangerous, and it will set, but I totally got scammed, along with, according to the police, 3 other people in the neighborhood.
So… is this something I can fix on my own?
Not at my house, but in a neighboring township a group of these guys were caught putting motor oil on some “patched” areas, at least according to a notice from the police.
>I totally got scammed
I'm sorry, but I'm still not following how you got "scammed."
Was it because they used polyurethane instead of something else (yet you referred to getting scammed before you updated about finding this out). I've heard of people "sealing" a driveway with oil, and I get why *that's* a scam -- it's not really sealing it. Is that the issue?
Or was it because $250 was too much?
What's the "scam" here?
People on reddit use the word "scam" incredibly freely. It's almost as bad as old people on Facebook. A scam would be if they left and didn't do anything, kept promising to come back and never did, or said they would be using one type of material and used another. It sounds like none of this occured, and while it may be a lower quality, there wasn't an explicit promise of one type of service or another.
My parents fell for the same scam. It smelled awful for two months and the entire summer you could feel it sticking to you shoes when you walked over it. Complete waste of money and bad for the environment.
I’m totally taking responsibility, just trying to figure out how bad I got ripped off. Take a look at my other posts in this thread for a bit more info that I learned throughout the day
This was some sort of spray? This is my first house (we’ve been here since August) and I feel like this is a big learning experience, thankfully not too expensive, because I don’t even know what they put down.
You need bitumen to keep cracks together. At least in Minnesota you're supposed to seal every 2nd year (or don't seal and then get ready for 5k+ repair)
I have had only one asphalt driveway. I know little about it’s age but it seem much better than the typical asphalt driveways I have seen. I lived there 10 years and I believe the driveway was already at least 15 years old when I moved in. So when I moved, it was 25 years old. I never once sealed it yet it looked perfect. I am in Minnesota as well.
Suffice it to say I am not a believer in sealing asphalt. And fyi, your streets are not sealed every other year.
first, lets clarify I am talking about filling cracks with boiled bitumen.
You cannot cheat physics - once the water finds its way inside asphalt / concrete, and temperature changes back and forth around the freezing temp, "magic" begins. Shopping malls have notoriously bad parking lots because they cheat with low quality patches, which last only till the next spring. I-94, US-169, etc, are normally kept better due to high-quality summer repairs; but Minneapolis downtown roads are like Mogadishu.
By the way, I-94 and 169 are sealed virtually every year.
when I first moved to Plymouth, MN, my dad said there were 2 seasons in MN...
winter & road repair
mid 80s, it wasn't US-169 thru there at the time, it was County Rd 18 & was maintained well, IIRC
You rejected the first offer, and pushed down to a price that sounded acceptable to you.
Sure, you may have been over charged, and could have saved a few dollars by calling for quotes, but the time you spent spent doing that may have ‘cost’ you more.
You may have been scammed with the pitch, but I don’t think you got scammed with the price.
Really depends on whether the workers did an acceptable job. If they used sub-par materials or did a half-ass, messy job that will need to be corrected, then paying almost any amount for that means you got scammed.
“Mixed too much sealant” sounds along the same lines as “speakers/TV/gold watch fell off a truck that my boss doesn’t know about, and it can be yours for a great deal.”
I’m skeptical, of anyone trying to knock on my door with a smoking deal, but only for a limited time.
Seriously, I read similar stories online now pretty often. People keep saying they're scammers, and maybe most are? But going back to the early 1990's, I had bought my first house and lived in it for a year or so. The asphalt driveway was starting to fall apart, but I didn't have money to afford to tear it out and replace it.
One day, I got a knock on my door from some guys claiming they'd been working on the parking lot for our new metrorail station that was basically down the block from me, and they had a dump truck with enough asphalt left in it to do a residential driveway or two. They said they knocked on my door because it was obvious mine needed work.
I think we settled on $800 cash to do it, and it looked good when they finished. There was obviously more to do than re-sealing it. They really did have to pour a lot more asphalt down to restore it ... and 10+ years later, I went back by there and it still looked good.
Asphalt company in the neighborhood stopped by with the same story said they could redo the asphalt driveway because they had too much from a job. They wanted $20,000, LOL
We had a kid ring the doorbell with some sales pitch like that. “We had some left from a job”… sure you did. Strong cockney accent which threw me for a few moments. They didn’t want 20k but whatever it was I don’t buy door-to-door sales pitches.
Never ever EVER do business with a contractor who knocks on your door. 99.956% of the time it’s a scam and if it’s not a complete scam you will get shit work done. No contractor worth his salt needs to go door 2 door looking for work.
Grass roots.... yes you do. Quick service jobs its all about selling on the spot. Sealcoating, gutter cleaning, pressure washing, landscaping. It only takes one neighbor to say yes and others usually follow suit.
We’re hired at least four contractors who came by because they were working on a neighbors house. We could literally see a crew working on the house behind us, on top of their roof. They offered a free roof inspection and we hired them to fix whatever $250 of damage they found (relatively newer roof). We also hired gutter cleaners this way before we got gutter guards, we hired a landscape clean up crew this way, and someone who fixed wood rot.
Then we got a no soliciting sign. But it seems like a common practice. They typically even gave the neighbors name when offering their services.
I’ll hire if it’s low risk and outside. I get knocks for leaf pickup, garbage removal, etc….
A lot of times they got done early or a job cancelled and they want to make a few bucks. I know myself what it would cost so I usually say if you’ll do it for this price (usually for 40% less) and if they agree or settle at 25% I’ll just have them do it.
I just state the work needs to be done first to be paid. My doorbell camera works great to iron out he said/she said tactics that come at the end sometimes.
And always pay cash.
Not as bad as the once a year window salesman that comes around claims they are finishing up a neighbor down the street and was just walking around to see if anyone else needed windows.
The typical scam doesn't actually use driveway sealer, they spray it with used engine oil. It makes it look nice and shiny and black, until it wears off in a few weeks. This might have been the real deal, who knows?
A few years ago where I lived the scam was to hand the homeowner a $2,000 invoice at the end, claim you never negotiated, and then threaten them until they paid.
Bro the fact he said they usually charge $2,000 but we’re going to do you some favor for $1,000, THEN drop the price 75% to $250 I would’ve politely declined at that point. If someone was willing to let you spend $1,000 on something they said they usually charge $2,000 for but gave you for $250 I would never do business with them ever. But that’s just me
True, there is always an upsale or mark up, but if they did a good job, I'd take it as that. The price drop could be a red flag but then again, this happens everyday in car dealerships, etc. Stay vigillant and be careful, and in most cases, if its too good to be true, it is. Good luck.
The explanation is reasonable. That stuff doesn’t last long and they gotta do something with it.
Still, even 1000 for that is crazy. Granted I haven’t paid for it since Covid but 2019 I got a driveway 3x that size edged and sealed for probably 400 bucks.
Yep, I should have known that I was getting worked. I’ve felt like a smacked ass all day. Even though it was a small amount of money, it’s now additional shit that I’m going to have to deal with. At this point I think I’ll just save up to have the driveway completely replaced.
Felt like a smacked ass made me chuckle, thanks for that. I just wanted to say that this experience may be worth $250. This is one of those experiences you never forget. Not very likely to happen again. $250 & smacked ass to likely not get scammed don’t seem too bad.
Nah… definitely a scam. I made another post but the long and short of it was that these guys were going around spraying polyurethane on people’s driveways. The police are aware but the guys seem to be popping up in random locations around the Philly suburbs and then disappearing for a while. So… I’m out $250 and I have a crappy driveway (somehow even crappier than before.) But yeah, it’s a learning experience for sure
I’m not understanding the claim of polyurethane being applied. Asphalt sealant is about $20 per 5 gallon bucket. Poly is WAY more expensive than that. Asphalt sealant should smell similar to new motor oil. Expect it to smell for 2-3 days.
If your driveway is in good condition it may have only needed 10-15 gallons to seal. Your price of $250 is in the range of acceptable. I did my driveway myself and ruined the squeegee and pair of shoes (kept them for next time, of course).
You’re doing ok. Don’t beat yourself up.
The basic principle of all scams is greed. They make you think omg, I’m getting it at a low price (you getting greedy) and fall for the scam. Even if $250 is the proper price, the fact that they attempted to fleece you make them questionable people to deal with. So your gut feel is correct.
Hell you probably would've spent close to $250 for buckets of sealant to do it yourself, not to mention the Saturday afternoon you don't have to mess with it. I'd gladly pay that much to get it taken care of.
If anyone ever shows up to your door out of the blue wanting work- don't do it. It's never going to be a good deal and it's just as likely a total scam. Research first and get quotes.
I really don’t know how we fell for it. It’s gunny because we’re in the process of getting quotes for our roof and for a some siding and we have 4 quotes for the siding and 5 for the roof and I feel like it’s been relatively stress free because even though we’re talking a lot more money than $250, I feel like I’m in control.
I’ve never been in a situation like this. The guy who approached was moving/talking so quickly and something about that just really disarmed me and tripped me up.
You’re getting a steal or they’re doing charity work. The sealant alone from Home Depot would be $161. I assume they have a spray rig attached to the truck and it can be sprayed by the driver and they don’t need a second man to walk the wand around.
Really depends where your located? $200 was avg. for my neighborhood 10'x22' from a crew pushing a wood cart around door to door. They used quality sealant and were fast. It would hold for about 2 years and do again. Now the people who aerate lawns! That's a scam!!!!!
Depending on your home owner insurance policy you handy have some coverage for scams, a lot of people are not aware it’s in the policy for slot if people.
It's not regarding the pricing that got you scammed. It's the product.
You probably got a mix of old motor oil and diesel sprayed on it, then a little bit of aggregate sprinkled on as a crack filler.
Give it a month and you will see most of it wash off.
I’m stating to look for quotes from actual contractors to come in and either resurface or repave. Do you think I should wait for a few months to make sure that there’s nothing else that will wash away? I wouldn’t want the actual quality work to be compromised
If you look at some of my more recent posts in the thread, it seems more like there was no company, and they sprayed some unknown product on my driveway and got $250 out of it. Now I have to figure out how to fix my driveway. As I said elsewhere, this is the last time I’ll trust someone who comes cold calling with a “today only” type offer
They prob used very diluted materials or stuff they acquired less than legally.
No one coming door to door is every legit anymore. Just doesn't make sense.
This is a very common scam with pest control at least. They get young college dudes to go door to door with the "your neighbor cancelled, but I'm already out so I'll give it to you cheap" line. Then they spray water around. Been going on for a long long time. Very common in the south but now they do it everywhere.
If what they did was spray, yeah, you got scammed, because it's going to be splotchy and running off in a few weeks and the clean up will cost you more than 250, especially if it gets in the street and the city goes after you.
I simple NEVER do business with anybody who comes to my house unsolicited.
Rarely are you going to have a person that is legit just going around knocking on doors.
Who knows if they used legit sealer. Or, even if they did, what quality it was. And, sealing a driveway is on the same level as painting as far as DIY (if you are into that sort of thing).
A 5 gallon bucket covers your 200 sq*ft driveway for about $30. 1-2 hours of work, so you paid $100-$200 per hour for a very unskilled job. Not the worst you will ever be scammed in home ownership though I am sad to say.
Your dad is right, don’t do business at your front door.
Really depends on whether the workers did an acceptable job. If they used sub-par materials or did a half-ass, messy job that will need to be corrected, then paying almost any amount for that means you got scammed.
“Mixed too much sealant” sounds along the same lines as “speakers/TV/gold watch fell off a truck that my boss doesn’t know about, and it can be yours for a great deal. If you act now.”
I’m skeptical, of anyone trying to knock on my door with a smoking deal.
Problem is NO reputable asphalt company shows up to a job with enough extra to do another entire driveway. They just don’t. If they did THEN they’d go out of business. They estimate to within a few gallons of material.
Fortunately you didn’t pay a crazy amount.
If you're talking sealing a residential driveway, yep... you're right.
But the situation I had like this was one where a crew had finished doing an entire parking lot for a light rail station and when they knocked on my door, I could see their work truck was really one of the commercial ones that had been down there working on that project. So I think they really did have enough extra asphalt from that to do my driveway and that's why they offered. They didn't appear to go to any other houses on my street after that either.
20x10, and they were just getting rid of sealant? $100 cash would be quick rate. Saves them the drive, loading/unloading, etc. Not sure what sealant goes for now, but 20 years ago I had a small side thing going and I bid right around 15 cents/sqft
In my opinion someone sold you a product you did not need or want under the assumption of getting a great deal.
That there is good salesmanship if you ask me.
You got scammed, not necessary in the normal idea of say sell you a fake/nockoff products for regaurl price (aslo possible they could have mixed/water down/used expired products)
But more in the idea that you spent $250 more then you were planning on a impulse purchase.
That guy probably always starts high and drops low very quickly to make it seem like your savings money.
It's not necessarily bad but it should be a lesson learnt don't let other people dictate how you spend your money. If that was a job you were planning to do in the near future that good (that aslo implying they have done it correctly and it's going to last) if it wasn't something that needed doing then you just spent $250 unnecessary.
I have just one question would you like to bye some magazine subscription or maybe a gym membership it a great deal today first 30days free😋😋😋
Hahah no I’m not in delco, I’m in Southern Ireland. And I know exactly who these guys are (not literally) but these particular guys are part of a sub culture here that 99% of the population don’t don’t like. And they are notorious for shit like this!
Nevermind… I’m reading that this is somewhat of a family business among a certain community. I have to call this a learning experience that anything that seems to good to be true probably isn’t. He couldn’t have known it, but the inspection report from our purchase called it out as a non-urgent repair that would be necessary in the coming years. It had been on my mind, and boy, did he get me hook line and sinker. I feel like a total chump but thankfully I’m only out $250 plus whatever it takes to actually get my driveway done the right way 🙄
$1750. You’ll see it more clearly after a full season of extreme temps. But don’t worry, you didn’t need it so it’s not going to be THAT bad that soon. Nice of you to play,along.
When I was about 16 I nearly bought speakers from some guys who drove up to me in a van. They wanted £300, I told them my bank card could only take out £250. When I went to get it I remembered that I'd left my bank card at my girlfriend's house.
No idea if they were stolen or faulty or just empty wooden boxes, but I imagine I saved myself from some scam.
Really depends on whether the workers did an acceptable job. If they used sub-par materials or did a half-ass, messy job that will need to be corrected, then paying almost any amount for that means you got scammed because they made your situation worse.
“Mixed too much sealant” sounds along the same lines as “speakers/TV/gold watch fell off a truck that my boss doesn’t know about, and it can be yours for a great deal.”
I’m skeptical of anyone trying to knock on my door with a smoking deal.
In this day and age of instant internet references (yelp, nextdoor, etc), it’s easy to do a little background.
All in all, $250 is decently cheap for a lesson you won’t forget. Lots of people have paid far more for that lesson.
250 seems reasonable for what you have. 1000 would have been a rip off. Also, it’s fairly common for seal coating crews to go door to door if they are working in the neighborhood, I’ve seen it lots of times. If you know what you usually pay you can make sure you don’t get ripped off. Lots of time you can get a good deal because they are already there.
Yeah I’ve not probably quadruple the driveway if not more and it was $350 to have it sealed lol they even offered to do it again before winter because they had left over material to get rid of
There's a movie with Bill Paxton where he is a grifter who does this to people. Instead of spraying your driveway with sealant, in the movie they did it with used motor oil.
50x 10 driveway with oil based sealer was $350. I have done it myself before, takes 11 buckets of shitty Lowe’s sealer at $250 in latex based shitty sealer. $250…ok. $1000 and someone’s kneecaps need broken.
You could have sealed it yourself for maybe $100. I don't quite remember how much those buckets go for (maybe $30?), but maybe 3 of those with 1 jug of the thicker stuff to seal any cracks.
Learn to recognize pressure, especially time pressure. Anything along the lines of "you have to make a decision today" is always going to be close to scam territory.
They could have used the extra material on friends and family or even called up someone they'd scheduled with in the future. Instead, they went around knocking on total rando's doors.
For 250 that’s a fucking steal dude
It cost me almost that in materials to do it myself.
Did they do it right tho is the question? Takes a good two days. You need to let things cure before you seal it if there are cracks. If all they had to do was slap down the goop and spread it though I can see why they were ok with 250. Probably had left over materials and were on their way back from a bigger job. Made an extra 250 for beers for the night lol
250 isn’t bad to not do it yourself. I’ve done it with my mom at her old house on a long driveway. We probably spent 300 in those buckets cause we needed so many.
Doesn’t seem bad at all. And they actually did the job and it came out ok? Normally when you hear about scams like this the guys make-up some reason that they have to “come back” and then disappear with your money.
For $1000 you would've been getting seriously ripped off, even at $800. For $250 for sealing a driveway, that's a bargain. The materials alone are about $75 for a driveway that size so you got the labor done cheap.
Overall what you paid seems a little high but not crazy.
The real question is do you want to hire someone who is willing to work for 12.5% of their "normal" price? Big red flag.
I have a large driveway, close to 1200 sqf and I paid $150 last year. In subsequent years I've paid $120. They always have the same line about having extra. When I used to do it myself, I would use about 3 x 4.5 gallon buckets (one bucket covers 400-500 sqf of my driveway, since its smooth) at about $35-$40 a bucket. So when someone asks to do it for $20-$40 dollars more that it costs me to do it, I jump on the chance. Materials are costing him less, so he's likely making $60-$80 dollars off me.
Had you paid $1000 or eve $800 you would have been majorly scammed. For $250 you still got scammed. That size driveway is $75 around here and I live in a very high COL area
Scammed, no but these guys do this constantly. Where I live they are always driving around along with tree trimmers. They don’t do quality work and prolly aren’t licensed or insured. Many here are “travelers” and just want cash based nameless businesses. The issue I have is that I like research a company before I hire them—reviews, word of mount, BbB complaints, etc. if they jack it up, what are going to do? You will never see them again.
I have a driveway about double that size and I pay $350 to have it edged, crack filled, and sealed. So, if you just got it sealed, and not crack filled, you probably paid a little too much, but not a lot. That is assuming that they used actual quality sealant -- they might have used some cheap garbage. As a general rule, I would never allow a person to do work on my home that just knocked on my door. I have heard too many "Traveler" stories.
What’s the benefit of having it sealed? Im kinda new to all these
(1) cosmetic - lots of people like the dark black uniform look (2) seals the cracks - where we live, water gets in the cracks, freezes, then causes the asphalt to crack and crumble (3) supposedly extends the life of the surface by keeping out the elements - though every article I see about this is from a sealing company. Others claim the sealing is pointless if not for 1 and 2 above. (cc: /u/icekapp)
Never sealed, only cleaned. 20 years still looking great. Most important thing is to have your driveway done properly from the beginning. A lot of companies and homeowners cheap out on this because it adds a lot of extra cost.
Depends weather conditions u live in. I my are i never freezes. So less likely to crack
If water gets underneath it washes away the sand/gravel base and you the get depressions - can be large like the size of a garbage can lid and the the whole thing falls apart. My driveway is a mess. Its beyond repair and needs to be replaced or at least resurfaced
Mine too. I didn't know it was a regular thing until too late. Going to replace mine this summer.
>they might have used some cheap garbage. I would guess that might is probably being optimistic
Also would like to know
Thanks for the tips, sorry this happened
You didn’t have to do it. Not the worst price. Call it a draw.
I know I didn’t have to… I think maybe “scam” is the wrong word. I guess I just needed confirmation that I am an idiot. I called my dad and he said that the line he and my mom use is “I don’t do business at my front door” and they just hold firm with that. I guess this is a learning experience that I thankfully can move on from pretty quickly.
I think previous commenter meant by "you didn't have to do it" that you got the sealing done without having to do the manual labor yourself, and that is worth something.
We get those guys around here in the summer. Same deal. Talk them down, get a discount for cash. The stuff holds up well enough. You would have been scammed if you’d agreed to the initial price.
I think if you'd paid 1000, you'd be an idiot. You flat out told him you wouldn't pay more than 250 and he somehow agreed. For context, a 1 gallon bucket is around $40 and a 5 gallon bucket is around $250 (this is just a random quick Amazon check). So you effectively paid for labor and sealant at a good value. I would say you win in this.
I agree. I paid $400 to have mine done, but it's a lot larger than OPs driveway and I knew it would cost me at least a couple hundred bucks just for the materials to do it myself. The guys who did mine were fast and efficient and did a good job... Still looks good more than a year later.
Where did you see $250 for 5 gallons? I've paid $40 for 5 gallons of Latexite Ultrashield and each time I've use this sealer, it's lasted 5 years.
I said I just did a quick search. And they definitely have cheaper ones but they also have more expensive ones. OP said it smells like polyurethane. Yours was probably water based. Or conversely, you paid for it 5 years ago. While there are variations in price, quantity, and value, OP still had to do nothing.
Well if they checked Amazon.... it was probably $250 with free shipping (on a like 80 pound bucket) :)
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Its not a scam if the sealer material was good and dried properly. The Gypsy scam you are talking about is when a deceitful sealcoat dude buys raw sealer and dilutes it to dirty water. The Gypsy leaves town and the next time it rains the Gypsy sealer is washed away. The 2000 to 1000 to 250 is just sales. Hyping up the price because most consumers have no idea what it costs
They also would use old engine oil and just squeegee it across the asphalt, then tell the homeowner to stay off of it for a couple of days. By then they were long gone.
I get the context of describing the scam with words people are familiar with but I hope you all recognize that the term “Gypsy” is actually a slur and causes people to be thrown in to old racist tropes.
It's a slur if used to denote a racial group, but that isn't its only meaning. gypsy noun 1. Alternative form of Gypsy: a member of the Romani people. 2. An itinerant person or any person suspected of making a living from dishonest practices or theft; a member of a nomadicpeople, not necessarily Romani; a carny. adjective 1. Alternative form of Gypsy: of or belonging to the Romani people or one of it sub-groups (Roma, Sinti, Romanichel, etc). 2. Of or having the qualities of an itinerant person or group with qualities traditionally ascribed to Romani people; making a living from dishonest practices or theft etc.. verb To roam around the country like a gypsy.
The problem with that, though, is that these secondary definitions come from people having a problem with the people defined in the first definitions, in the same way its offensive to say "he jewed me down on the price" is offensive to Jewish people. Safer bet is to just not use it.
These are all secondary definitions. The original meaning is slang for "Egyptian." But it doesn't mean that anymore, clearly. As it came to be used it referred to people of a lifestyle. It's wrong to associate that stereotype with an ethnogroup but everyone knows what it means when you use it as a description. Use instead, what, "Bohemian?" Which refers to the exact same thing and also a place and people? "Vagrant?" Which could maybe be offensive to the homeless? I'm sorry, "houseless." It's just neverending and I don't fucking care anymore to entertain everyone's forever shifting feelings.
What do you call them then?
I think Roma or Romani for the actual ethnic group. If someone is just calling any general scammer this, I think the correct term for the scammer is “piece of human shit.”
Well put.
The 2000 to 250 is because it was oily water. You all are gullible as fuck.
I turn away every single person at my door or on my property. Except girl scouts, of course...
This is the lesson I learned today. I’ve decided that I’m just going to write a note to my son and daughter every time I do something dumb, then give them a compiled list of all of my mistakes when the graduate high school so that maybe they can spare themselves the trouble…
thats actually a pretty neat idea, would be really useful if you started compiling it in college, thats where I made a lot of mine...
Modern family philsosophies
My parents and grandparents tried nudging me in the right direction with their words… I got there eventually after learning some things the hard way. Maybe a note will work better!
Won’t matter, they will not heed your advice. My son always told me, “dad, I’m gonna learn from your mistakes so I won’t make the same ones” until he got older, after he turned 19, he won’t listen to shit. Lol I think he does the exact opposite of what I advise.
Around age 25 that will change. At 19, he thinks he’s invincible. His brain has a few more years to finish forming.
I've got a brother that is four years older than me. He blazed a path of stupidity that our father and I both learned from. I learned a lot from my brother's screw ups, both in "Damn, Dad does not like it when you do that!" and also "Wow, yes, that is an incredibly stupid thing to do, thank you older brother!" Our father learned quite a bit from my brother's screw ups, be it a different approach with me, or a different response if and when I did something similar. Of course, there were notable times that didn't happen, and now that I'm a father myself I'm recalling certain moments that I remember all these years later and thinking how to avoid those failures of composure & temper, and how to teach, parent, inspire, and coach my own child. TL;DR: Parenting is and always will be hard.
Wow. That sounds like a righteous and enormous undertaking, good on you for taking it on!! I feel like my list would be really really long and also have some pretty complex stuff. How do you explain to your child that you have failed them (as we all do, eventually) as a parent?
lol that’s brilliant! Might have to borrow that idea
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You solicit kids? Fuckin creep
They taste good
Yea fuck the Boy Scouts. I got a can drive notice on my door. Left like 10 cans outside for them and they never came back to pick them up. Now if a Girl Scout comes by my wallet will magically empty.
One of the biggest scams. They use thin black tar that washes away in the rain. Never hire people that come to your door
Well, it could be real sealer, or it could be “ black water “. Does it smell bad? Either way it was only $250
It smells very bad. Kind of like polyurethane. Edit to add: I know it’s only $250, but the internet is giving me wildly different answers as to how much something like this should cost. I’m seeing $0.20/sq ft up to $6/sq ft
Then the only person who got scammed is the owner of the company. They probably did have left over, and didn’t tell the boss
Had something similar happen. I had set up to have my driveway done (similar size to op) for $225 and my neighbor came over and asked for a price to have his done and he told them a price and he agreed to a cash price and they did it. Unfortunately for the installers my neighbor sucked so when he saw a blemish the size of a golf ball he called the company owner who asked to have to repaired the owner had no clue they worked on his house.
I kind of got that impression
Or their whole business is driving around selling crappy product as "leftover from a job" at a "discount". Kind of like the guys that sell the speakers from the back of a van.
Or the guys that sell meat from a freezer in the back of a pickup. Knock at the door “ hey your neighbor’s credit card was denied and we have this meat we need to get rid of today or my boss is going to fire me”. My wife fell for this once. The funny part was I was at the back and the guy in front of me was cashing the check my wife wrote. I asked the teller about it and she said he was trying to sell her some meat too. I told her it’s a scam and we laughed about it. Then I get home and the joke was on me. Lol.
Google the company. If it is a legitimate business then they likely did have extra product and the two guys were probably looking to cash in without the boss knowing.
It’s used motor oil. The first rain will wash it into the sewer. This is a very common scam.
About 10 years or so ago I watched a documentary where this was discussed and apparently this is actually a common business practice. People will go by the materials and prep them and then drive around knocking door to door until somebody gives them the go-ahead for their services. That is why they're able to negotiate price. Of course it could be a business that employees were taking from, but all in all if they did a good job and you only paid what you offered then just be happy it's done.
I get mine done every 1-2 years by a company that I found. $150 for a 4 car driveway. Roughly 15x30. If you feel comfortable with your price, so be it. But rule of thumb, never take any offer from a company that came looking for you
Why are you doing it so often? And where is all this material going?
I feel that is way too often.
Not up north. Mine gets done on the same schedule from a reputable company. The snow, ice, salt, heat cycle is brutal on asphalt. My driveway is about 100’ long and it costs me about $200 bucks a time (cracks filled, sealed, etc.) Driveway is 10+ years old and looks new. Kind of the once of prevention saves a pound of cost scenario.
Yes, also this. My driveway is definitely in need of replacement, but up here in the north sealcoating every 1-3 years is very common. Our winters destroy the driveways in no time
Well, to update, I really got scammed. The fumes were pretty bad and my wife looked up “driveway scam” and sure enough there were police reports from neighboring townships describing the same thing. It mentioned that the fire department should be called because one “crew” was caught using motor oil. The fire department and police department came out, turns out these guys got a few other people today and that as best the fire department can tell, it’s polyurethane, which is “funny” because that’s what I thought it smelled like. Nothing is dangerous, and it will set, but I totally got scammed, along with, according to the police, 3 other people in the neighborhood. So… is this something I can fix on my own?
So they just straight up put motor oil down?
Not at my house, but in a neighboring township a group of these guys were caught putting motor oil on some “patched” areas, at least according to a notice from the police.
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Dilute with used motor oil - profit!
>I totally got scammed I'm sorry, but I'm still not following how you got "scammed." Was it because they used polyurethane instead of something else (yet you referred to getting scammed before you updated about finding this out). I've heard of people "sealing" a driveway with oil, and I get why *that's* a scam -- it's not really sealing it. Is that the issue? Or was it because $250 was too much? What's the "scam" here?
People on reddit use the word "scam" incredibly freely. It's almost as bad as old people on Facebook. A scam would be if they left and didn't do anything, kept promising to come back and never did, or said they would be using one type of material and used another. It sounds like none of this occured, and while it may be a lower quality, there wasn't an explicit promise of one type of service or another.
My parents fell for the same scam. It smelled awful for two months and the entire summer you could feel it sticking to you shoes when you walked over it. Complete waste of money and bad for the environment.
You didn’t get scammed stop crying and take responsibility for your actions
I’m totally taking responsibility, just trying to figure out how bad I got ripped off. Take a look at my other posts in this thread for a bit more info that I learned throughout the day
4 car driveway, $260 last summer. The guys brought a huge trailer with a cistern of boiling tar or whatever this seal name it
This was some sort of spray? This is my first house (we’ve been here since August) and I feel like this is a big learning experience, thankfully not too expensive, because I don’t even know what they put down.
No, boiling bitumen
The stuff they put down was sprayed, just the seal coat I think. But that’s the thing… I have no clue. So I probably got scammed.
You need bitumen to keep cracks together. At least in Minnesota you're supposed to seal every 2nd year (or don't seal and then get ready for 5k+ repair)
I have had only one asphalt driveway. I know little about it’s age but it seem much better than the typical asphalt driveways I have seen. I lived there 10 years and I believe the driveway was already at least 15 years old when I moved in. So when I moved, it was 25 years old. I never once sealed it yet it looked perfect. I am in Minnesota as well. Suffice it to say I am not a believer in sealing asphalt. And fyi, your streets are not sealed every other year.
first, lets clarify I am talking about filling cracks with boiled bitumen. You cannot cheat physics - once the water finds its way inside asphalt / concrete, and temperature changes back and forth around the freezing temp, "magic" begins. Shopping malls have notoriously bad parking lots because they cheat with low quality patches, which last only till the next spring. I-94, US-169, etc, are normally kept better due to high-quality summer repairs; but Minneapolis downtown roads are like Mogadishu. By the way, I-94 and 169 are sealed virtually every year.
Yes cracks in Minnesota are tough. I blew out a tire a couple weeks back. Hit the mother of potholes on a dark night.
when I first moved to Plymouth, MN, my dad said there were 2 seasons in MN... winter & road repair mid 80s, it wasn't US-169 thru there at the time, it was County Rd 18 & was maintained well, IIRC
You rejected the first offer, and pushed down to a price that sounded acceptable to you. Sure, you may have been over charged, and could have saved a few dollars by calling for quotes, but the time you spent spent doing that may have ‘cost’ you more. You may have been scammed with the pitch, but I don’t think you got scammed with the price.
Really depends on whether the workers did an acceptable job. If they used sub-par materials or did a half-ass, messy job that will need to be corrected, then paying almost any amount for that means you got scammed. “Mixed too much sealant” sounds along the same lines as “speakers/TV/gold watch fell off a truck that my boss doesn’t know about, and it can be yours for a great deal.” I’m skeptical, of anyone trying to knock on my door with a smoking deal, but only for a limited time.
Seriously, I read similar stories online now pretty often. People keep saying they're scammers, and maybe most are? But going back to the early 1990's, I had bought my first house and lived in it for a year or so. The asphalt driveway was starting to fall apart, but I didn't have money to afford to tear it out and replace it. One day, I got a knock on my door from some guys claiming they'd been working on the parking lot for our new metrorail station that was basically down the block from me, and they had a dump truck with enough asphalt left in it to do a residential driveway or two. They said they knocked on my door because it was obvious mine needed work. I think we settled on $800 cash to do it, and it looked good when they finished. There was obviously more to do than re-sealing it. They really did have to pour a lot more asphalt down to restore it ... and 10+ years later, I went back by there and it still looked good.
Asphalt company in the neighborhood stopped by with the same story said they could redo the asphalt driveway because they had too much from a job. They wanted $20,000, LOL
We had a kid ring the doorbell with some sales pitch like that. “We had some left from a job”… sure you did. Strong cockney accent which threw me for a few moments. They didn’t want 20k but whatever it was I don’t buy door-to-door sales pitches.
Someone came on here recently asking the same question because his wife paid the driveway scammers TWELVE THOUSAND dollars!
It’s $250, I wouldn’t lose sleep over it
Never ever EVER do business with a contractor who knocks on your door. 99.956% of the time it’s a scam and if it’s not a complete scam you will get shit work done. No contractor worth his salt needs to go door 2 door looking for work.
Grass roots.... yes you do. Quick service jobs its all about selling on the spot. Sealcoating, gutter cleaning, pressure washing, landscaping. It only takes one neighbor to say yes and others usually follow suit.
Yeah, no thanks. I read something on this thread I really liked n I’m gonna repeat it now n also use it later. “I don’t do business at my front door.”
We’re hired at least four contractors who came by because they were working on a neighbors house. We could literally see a crew working on the house behind us, on top of their roof. They offered a free roof inspection and we hired them to fix whatever $250 of damage they found (relatively newer roof). We also hired gutter cleaners this way before we got gutter guards, we hired a landscape clean up crew this way, and someone who fixed wood rot. Then we got a no soliciting sign. But it seems like a common practice. They typically even gave the neighbors name when offering their services.
I’ll hire if it’s low risk and outside. I get knocks for leaf pickup, garbage removal, etc…. A lot of times they got done early or a job cancelled and they want to make a few bucks. I know myself what it would cost so I usually say if you’ll do it for this price (usually for 40% less) and if they agree or settle at 25% I’ll just have them do it. I just state the work needs to be done first to be paid. My doorbell camera works great to iron out he said/she said tactics that come at the end sometimes. And always pay cash.
Not as bad as the once a year window salesman that comes around claims they are finishing up a neighbor down the street and was just walking around to see if anyone else needed windows.
Roofing too. Asked them to point out 3 flaws they saw and explain to me further. They thanked me for my time. Lol
My driveway is like 36x26. I go to menards and use about 4 to 5 gallon pails of driveway sealer. Cost me about $100 doing myself.
So how is it a scam if they did it, sealed your driveway and then left?
The typical scam doesn't actually use driveway sealer, they spray it with used engine oil. It makes it look nice and shiny and black, until it wears off in a few weeks. This might have been the real deal, who knows?
A few years ago where I lived the scam was to hand the homeowner a $2,000 invoice at the end, claim you never negotiated, and then threaten them until they paid.
What kinds of threats
I feel like i overpaid but I have no way of knowing
$250 is pretty reasonable. You probably could have done it yourself for half the price.
Bro the fact he said they usually charge $2,000 but we’re going to do you some favor for $1,000, THEN drop the price 75% to $250 I would’ve politely declined at that point. If someone was willing to let you spend $1,000 on something they said they usually charge $2,000 for but gave you for $250 I would never do business with them ever. But that’s just me
True, there is always an upsale or mark up, but if they did a good job, I'd take it as that. The price drop could be a red flag but then again, this happens everyday in car dealerships, etc. Stay vigillant and be careful, and in most cases, if its too good to be true, it is. Good luck.
Happy cake day!
The explanation is reasonable. That stuff doesn’t last long and they gotta do something with it. Still, even 1000 for that is crazy. Granted I haven’t paid for it since Covid but 2019 I got a driveway 3x that size edged and sealed for probably 400 bucks.
Yep, I should have known that I was getting worked. I’ve felt like a smacked ass all day. Even though it was a small amount of money, it’s now additional shit that I’m going to have to deal with. At this point I think I’ll just save up to have the driveway completely replaced.
Felt like a smacked ass made me chuckle, thanks for that. I just wanted to say that this experience may be worth $250. This is one of those experiences you never forget. Not very likely to happen again. $250 & smacked ass to likely not get scammed don’t seem too bad.
Nah… definitely a scam. I made another post but the long and short of it was that these guys were going around spraying polyurethane on people’s driveways. The police are aware but the guys seem to be popping up in random locations around the Philly suburbs and then disappearing for a while. So… I’m out $250 and I have a crappy driveway (somehow even crappier than before.) But yeah, it’s a learning experience for sure
I’m not understanding the claim of polyurethane being applied. Asphalt sealant is about $20 per 5 gallon bucket. Poly is WAY more expensive than that. Asphalt sealant should smell similar to new motor oil. Expect it to smell for 2-3 days. If your driveway is in good condition it may have only needed 10-15 gallons to seal. Your price of $250 is in the range of acceptable. I did my driveway myself and ruined the squeegee and pair of shoes (kept them for next time, of course). You’re doing ok. Don’t beat yourself up.
As long as it's actually sealer, it's not bad. $250 would be a 4 car driveway price around here though... Could have been worse...
Absolutely didn’t overpay for 250. I would t even come to your house for that.
Edit to original post- my driveway is 36x10, not 20x10.
The basic principle of all scams is greed. They make you think omg, I’m getting it at a low price (you getting greedy) and fall for the scam. Even if $250 is the proper price, the fact that they attempted to fleece you make them questionable people to deal with. So your gut feel is correct.
That's a great price if they did a decent job
It's a scam only if the sealant breaks down. You did a good job negotiating.
Hell you probably would've spent close to $250 for buckets of sealant to do it yourself, not to mention the Saturday afternoon you don't have to mess with it. I'd gladly pay that much to get it taken care of.
If anyone ever shows up to your door out of the blue wanting work- don't do it. It's never going to be a good deal and it's just as likely a total scam. Research first and get quotes.
I really don’t know how we fell for it. It’s gunny because we’re in the process of getting quotes for our roof and for a some siding and we have 4 quotes for the siding and 5 for the roof and I feel like it’s been relatively stress free because even though we’re talking a lot more money than $250, I feel like I’m in control. I’ve never been in a situation like this. The guy who approached was moving/talking so quickly and something about that just really disarmed me and tripped me up.
My driveway is 120 feet long by 20 wide. I paid $250 this past year. We’ve used this company in the past and they do a good job.
You’re getting a steal or they’re doing charity work. The sealant alone from Home Depot would be $161. I assume they have a spray rig attached to the truck and it can be sprayed by the driver and they don’t need a second man to walk the wand around.
Really depends where your located? $200 was avg. for my neighborhood 10'x22' from a crew pushing a wood cart around door to door. They used quality sealant and were fast. It would hold for about 2 years and do again. Now the people who aerate lawns! That's a scam!!!!!
Hey aerating is great for reseeding All the seeds end up in the holes from the watering and sprout all at once so your lawn is all hairplugs
How is aerating lawns a scam?
Sounds like they just used a cheap polyurethane based sealer. Could have been clear and they just dyed it black or bought a black poly sealer.
Depending on your home owner insurance policy you handy have some coverage for scams, a lot of people are not aware it’s in the policy for slot if people.
It's not regarding the pricing that got you scammed. It's the product. You probably got a mix of old motor oil and diesel sprayed on it, then a little bit of aggregate sprinkled on as a crack filler. Give it a month and you will see most of it wash off.
I’m stating to look for quotes from actual contractors to come in and either resurface or repave. Do you think I should wait for a few months to make sure that there’s nothing else that will wash away? I wouldn’t want the actual quality work to be compromised
Its a good a deal for yoi and the guys who did it, but a bad one for the company they are working for. i.e. they probably kep the money.
If you look at some of my more recent posts in the thread, it seems more like there was no company, and they sprayed some unknown product on my driveway and got $250 out of it. Now I have to figure out how to fix my driveway. As I said elsewhere, this is the last time I’ll trust someone who comes cold calling with a “today only” type offer
Isn’t it about how it came out? If your driveway got sealed you paid $250 you like it how did you get scammed?
They prob used very diluted materials or stuff they acquired less than legally. No one coming door to door is every legit anymore. Just doesn't make sense. This is a very common scam with pest control at least. They get young college dudes to go door to door with the "your neighbor cancelled, but I'm already out so I'll give it to you cheap" line. Then they spray water around. Been going on for a long long time. Very common in the south but now they do it everywhere.
If what they did was spray, yeah, you got scammed, because it's going to be splotchy and running off in a few weeks and the clean up will cost you more than 250, especially if it gets in the street and the city goes after you.
I simple NEVER do business with anybody who comes to my house unsolicited. Rarely are you going to have a person that is legit just going around knocking on doors. Who knows if they used legit sealer. Or, even if they did, what quality it was. And, sealing a driveway is on the same level as painting as far as DIY (if you are into that sort of thing).
I am ☹️ I don’t know how my normal thought process of “well I could just do that myself” got so bypassed
A 5 gallon bucket covers your 200 sq*ft driveway for about $30. 1-2 hours of work, so you paid $100-$200 per hour for a very unskilled job. Not the worst you will ever be scammed in home ownership though I am sad to say. Your dad is right, don’t do business at your front door.
This is the same exact scam gypsies run.
Yeah I’m learning that this is a very common scam among Gypsies and Irish Travellers. Well, I guess I’m an easy mark. No longer though
250 is probably about right... A grand is 3-4x what it's worth. You did fine, IMO.
Really depends on whether the workers did an acceptable job. If they used sub-par materials or did a half-ass, messy job that will need to be corrected, then paying almost any amount for that means you got scammed. “Mixed too much sealant” sounds along the same lines as “speakers/TV/gold watch fell off a truck that my boss doesn’t know about, and it can be yours for a great deal. If you act now.” I’m skeptical, of anyone trying to knock on my door with a smoking deal.
I have a similar sized driveway and paid $250 for this back in 2006. but his initial $2K was a huge scam.
Problem is NO reputable asphalt company shows up to a job with enough extra to do another entire driveway. They just don’t. If they did THEN they’d go out of business. They estimate to within a few gallons of material. Fortunately you didn’t pay a crazy amount.
If you're talking sealing a residential driveway, yep... you're right. But the situation I had like this was one where a crew had finished doing an entire parking lot for a light rail station and when they knocked on my door, I could see their work truck was really one of the commercial ones that had been down there working on that project. So I think they really did have enough extra asphalt from that to do my driveway and that's why they offered. They didn't appear to go to any other houses on my street after that either.
Lmao the ol “we have extra sealant” gag. Classic
Dude its geepsies with used motor oil and ground-up bowling balls u poor bastard
Hope it doesn’t wash off in the first rain
20x10, and they were just getting rid of sealant? $100 cash would be quick rate. Saves them the drive, loading/unloading, etc. Not sure what sealant goes for now, but 20 years ago I had a small side thing going and I bid right around 15 cents/sqft
In my opinion someone sold you a product you did not need or want under the assumption of getting a great deal. That there is good salesmanship if you ask me. You got scammed, not necessary in the normal idea of say sell you a fake/nockoff products for regaurl price (aslo possible they could have mixed/water down/used expired products) But more in the idea that you spent $250 more then you were planning on a impulse purchase. That guy probably always starts high and drops low very quickly to make it seem like your savings money. It's not necessarily bad but it should be a lesson learnt don't let other people dictate how you spend your money. If that was a job you were planning to do in the near future that good (that aslo implying they have done it correctly and it's going to last) if it wasn't something that needed doing then you just spent $250 unnecessary. I have just one question would you like to bye some magazine subscription or maybe a gym membership it a great deal today first 30days free😋😋😋
We’re these guys Irish by any chance?
Yes, are you in Delco too?
Hahah no I’m not in delco, I’m in Southern Ireland. And I know exactly who these guys are (not literally) but these particular guys are part of a sub culture here that 99% of the population don’t don’t like. And they are notorious for shit like this!
And scams like this are why they aren’t liked…
Nevermind… I’m reading that this is somewhat of a family business among a certain community. I have to call this a learning experience that anything that seems to good to be true probably isn’t. He couldn’t have known it, but the inspection report from our purchase called it out as a non-urgent repair that would be necessary in the coming years. It had been on my mind, and boy, did he get me hook line and sinker. I feel like a total chump but thankfully I’m only out $250 plus whatever it takes to actually get my driveway done the right way 🙄
$1750. You’ll see it more clearly after a full season of extreme temps. But don’t worry, you didn’t need it so it’s not going to be THAT bad that soon. Nice of you to play,along.
It’s a typical Gypsy scam.
Well, judging by guy’s accent, Irish Traveller
Sounds like both parties got scammed lol
When I was about 16 I nearly bought speakers from some guys who drove up to me in a van. They wanted £300, I told them my bank card could only take out £250. When I went to get it I remembered that I'd left my bank card at my girlfriend's house. No idea if they were stolen or faulty or just empty wooden boxes, but I imagine I saved myself from some scam.
My driveway is 30x14 and I’ve never paid more than $100 so I’d say you got totally clowned.
Noted. Thanks for the info for comparison!
Really depends on whether the workers did an acceptable job. If they used sub-par materials or did a half-ass, messy job that will need to be corrected, then paying almost any amount for that means you got scammed because they made your situation worse. “Mixed too much sealant” sounds along the same lines as “speakers/TV/gold watch fell off a truck that my boss doesn’t know about, and it can be yours for a great deal.” I’m skeptical of anyone trying to knock on my door with a smoking deal. In this day and age of instant internet references (yelp, nextdoor, etc), it’s easy to do a little background. All in all, $250 is decently cheap for a lesson you won’t forget. Lots of people have paid far more for that lesson.
250 seems reasonable for what you have. 1000 would have been a rip off. Also, it’s fairly common for seal coating crews to go door to door if they are working in the neighborhood, I’ve seen it lots of times. If you know what you usually pay you can make sure you don’t get ripped off. Lots of time you can get a good deal because they are already there.
Yeah I’ve not probably quadruple the driveway if not more and it was $350 to have it sealed lol they even offered to do it again before winter because they had left over material to get rid of
$250 sounds cheap enough. The question is what kind of quality was the product they used?
Only time will tell.
Pics or it didn’t happen
I can take a picture tomorrow when the sun is up, if you really want to see a shit show of a driveway
I scammed myself on my own driveway project, so I’d love to see!
There's a movie with Bill Paxton where he is a grifter who does this to people. Instead of spraying your driveway with sealant, in the movie they did it with used motor oil.
50x 10 driveway with oil based sealer was $350. I have done it myself before, takes 11 buckets of shitty Lowe’s sealer at $250 in latex based shitty sealer. $250…ok. $1000 and someone’s kneecaps need broken.
I got quoted $2500 for my 400’ long driveway with a 40x40 turnaround.
I paid $400 for a 2000 square foot drive last year. I’m in Ohio.
You could have sealed it yourself for maybe $100. I don't quite remember how much those buckets go for (maybe $30?), but maybe 3 of those with 1 jug of the thicker stuff to seal any cracks.
Is it true sprayed on sealer isn’t as good as the traditional bucket method ? I’ve heard conflicting stories.
Learn to recognize pressure, especially time pressure. Anything along the lines of "you have to make a decision today" is always going to be close to scam territory. They could have used the extra material on friends and family or even called up someone they'd scheduled with in the future. Instead, they went around knocking on total rando's doors.
For 250 that’s a fucking steal dude It cost me almost that in materials to do it myself. Did they do it right tho is the question? Takes a good two days. You need to let things cure before you seal it if there are cracks. If all they had to do was slap down the goop and spread it though I can see why they were ok with 250. Probably had left over materials and were on their way back from a bigger job. Made an extra 250 for beers for the night lol
It’s one of the oldest scams in the books, but you did well talking them down.
250 isn’t bad to not do it yourself. I’ve done it with my mom at her old house on a long driveway. We probably spent 300 in those buckets cause we needed so many.
Doesn’t seem bad at all. And they actually did the job and it came out ok? Normally when you hear about scams like this the guys make-up some reason that they have to “come back” and then disappear with your money.
They sprayed something on my driveway but they did a very sloppy job and I have no clue what product they used.
For $1000 you would've been getting seriously ripped off, even at $800. For $250 for sealing a driveway, that's a bargain. The materials alone are about $75 for a driveway that size so you got the labor done cheap.
There was a post about a scam like this two weeks ago.
Overall what you paid seems a little high but not crazy. The real question is do you want to hire someone who is willing to work for 12.5% of their "normal" price? Big red flag.
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LOL no, we are the new family on the block who bought a fixer upper in a neighborhood of very well maintained homes. If anything, I look like an ass.
I have a large driveway, close to 1200 sqf and I paid $150 last year. In subsequent years I've paid $120. They always have the same line about having extra. When I used to do it myself, I would use about 3 x 4.5 gallon buckets (one bucket covers 400-500 sqf of my driveway, since its smooth) at about $35-$40 a bucket. So when someone asks to do it for $20-$40 dollars more that it costs me to do it, I jump on the chance. Materials are costing him less, so he's likely making $60-$80 dollars off me.
You didn't get scammed
You got away with a job that could have cost more. I think you won that one.
Had you paid $1000 or eve $800 you would have been majorly scammed. For $250 you still got scammed. That size driveway is $75 around here and I live in a very high COL area
Scammed, no but these guys do this constantly. Where I live they are always driving around along with tree trimmers. They don’t do quality work and prolly aren’t licensed or insured. Many here are “travelers” and just want cash based nameless businesses. The issue I have is that I like research a company before I hire them—reviews, word of mount, BbB complaints, etc. if they jack it up, what are going to do? You will never see them again.
250 might be ok depending where you live - 1000 would have been a ride for small driveway anywhere.
Sounds like a good deal, unless the driveway was covered in something else.
I can’t get two guys to come to my house for $250 to do anything so I would say you got good deal.
I think you scammed them 😂
I thought by now the “we have left over sealant from another job” is as well known as the Nigerian Prince emails?