This thread is created to highlight all possible ways you could lose your money without knowing it in the building industry, I will be adding stories and pictures from my experiences while buying materials, negotiating deals and supervising works. You can add yours too, lets get balling.......

SCAM 1

Just when you thought you have heard it all, when you thought you have seen every possible way you could be cheated while you build your house or manage a building project, then comes this. The measurement of a block is supposed to be 225x225mm in height and width, but imagine a situation whereby your block maker is making blocks of only 200mm height? This is pure cheating, do you know the effect of this? You lay a block line of 9 blocks and get the height of 8! You have been scammed of 1 block in 9. Be guided.

Cullled from http://amazingviewpoints..com/

SCAM 2

How sound are your cement bags, do you know a sound cement bag when you see one? I can spot a tampered bag a mile away, watch those cement sellers, they may be removing some quantities of cement from the factory measure and sell to you.

The wood you are buying the 2 by 4 is most likely 1.75 by 3.5 at best. Don't forget your tape measure when you leave home.

The wires nko make sure you are buying copper not rubber. Light copper which no reach guage are being sold all over.

The sand nko you are told 20tonnes when for the most part they are selling 12.5tonnes.

spyder880:
SCAM 2

How sound are your cement bags, do you know a sound cement bag when you see one? I can spot a tampered bag a mile away, watch those cement sellers, they may be removing some quantities of cement from the factory measure and sell to you.

A tampered cement bag is called "REBAG"

segzy14:


A tampered cement bag is called "REBAG"

Yes, only that they don't have a bagging company.

spyder880:
SCAM 1

Just when you thought you have heard it all, when you thought you have seen every possible way you could be cheated while you build your house or manage a building project, then comes this. The measurement of a block is supposed to be 225x225mm in height and width, but imagine a situation whereby your block maker is making blocks of only 200mm height? This is pure cheating, do you know the effect of this? You lay a block line of 9 blocks and get the height of 8! You have been scammed of 1 block in 9. Be guided.
http://amazingviewpoints..com/

Thoughtful of you to start this thread. I'm a Ghanaian living in Ghana and i must say this is also evident in Ghana. most people here build using 5 inches solid block measuring 18 inches by 9 inches but has been reduced to 16 inches by 7-8 inches in recent times. majority (local builders) or some are not aware of this except the masons. i once queried the boss of the block factory we normally buy from about this development and he claimed the new block moulding machines were imported from Europe with European/international standard and that the old machine/system has be discontinued. lol. i can confidently say 90% of block factories in Ghana are now producing the smaller blocks.

the masons are extremely happy about this because more bags of cement means more money. in terms of laying the blocks. hmmm

spyder880:
SCAM 2

How sound are your cement bags, do you know a sound cement bag when you see one? I can spot a tampered bag a mile away, watch those cement sellers, they may be removing some quantities of cement from the factory measure and sell to you.

Scam 2 is here in Ghana as well. our major producer of cement is ghacem and re-bagging of ghacem is done in some areas of the country but not too common. it started recently, people complained and authorities are currently dealing with the issue.

fost4real:


Thoughtful of you to start this thread. I'm a Ghanaian living in Ghana and i must say this is also evident in Ghana. most people here build using 5 inches solid block measuring 18 inches by 9 inches but has been reduced to 16 inches by 7-8 inches in recent times. majority (local builders) or some are not aware of this except the masons. i once queried the boss of the block factory we normally buy from about this development and he claimed the new block moulding machines were imported from Europe with European/international standard and that the old machine/system has be discontinued. lol. i can confidently say 90% of block factories in Ghana are now producing the smaller blocks.

the masons are extremely happy about this because more bags of cement means more money. in terms of laying the blocks. hmmm

Its everywhere, and as you rightly put it, many people are not even aware of this. Thanks for educating us about the Ghananian angle. How is real estate faring generally in Ghana?

SCAM 3

Just as someone had mentioned earlier, buying wood for building construction is another place where you notice widespread cheating going on among sellers and dealers. You walk to a wood dealer and ask for 2x4 wood, which should translate to a wood with 2 inches by 4 inches as the size, and you will be given a wood measuring about 1 and a half inch by 3 inch. If you start screaming "cheats", everyone around will know you are new. This trick is everywhere and starts from the the saw mill machines who adjust their saw cutting settings to get more quantities from a log of wood. Hey! how about the total length of the wood? I bet you its short by some inches

Have they sold you cheap soft wood and told you its mahogany? That's the problem, these people will eat you raw when they are sure you don't know the difference.

Builders should be aware of this when buying wood, look for places where you can find complete gauge wood, or be aware of what you are buying so you could compensate for the shortfall in size to prevent future problems in the building.

Culled from http://amazingviewpoints..com/

Educative thread.

spyder880:


Its everywhere, and as you rightly put it, many people are not even aware of this. Thanks for educating us about the Ghananian angle. How is real estate faring generally in Ghana?

real estate is a booming business and mad rush for land is the hottest thing going on right now in Ghana but, the locals/average workers are unable to acquire any property sold by these real estate developers due the high cost of the houses being sold. they are very very very expensive! Mortgage is a no-go area for most people here. starting your own project as an average income earner is much better choice as am doing right now. i'm not a building contractor just an ordinary guy trying to build a decent house for myself. one funny observation, average income earners who are bent on getting real estate property here in Ghana only end up with a one bedroom semi-detached house and a small space for future expansion which is laughable. they pay over a period of 5-10 years in dollars. so just imagine, if the local currency drops in value they suffer for it. Some end up losing their properties if they fail to pay within the stipulated time.

anyway, your posts and this forum actually helped in shaping my house.

When it comes to plumbing, especially when piping the entire structure, whether you are buying the items personally or not, the plumbers overquot the it excessively. If he goes to buy it, he will only bring the needed quantity, if you buy it, he will only use the needed quantity and the rest will disappear into his holdings. Imaging quoting 7 Venus Guage valves and only using 4. Each cost about 1k2.
Also, quoting kaka materials only to buy cheap pvc stuffs in place at half the price.
Recently my plumber quoted over 140 units various piping items, I brought in 91 and still had left overs after the job.
This is just one aspect of plumbing! Imagine.

My people, learn measurements! Measurements! Measurements! Be it feels, meters, square meters, liters, even tones. It's the bases for cheating during construction and especially fittings. Everything can be learned easily with patience and occasionally spending quiet time alone in ur ongoing building. It's not rocket science. Most artisans capitalize on it to ripe off.
A tiller gave my total of 345 square meters only for us to arrive at 309 collectively. A neighbor of mine even bought over 19 cartoons of tiles because the sellers messed with his knowledge of metering. The cartoons were rain beaten and damage and the seller refused to refund. Same thing for POP jobs, wall screeding, interlocking pavements, etc
Many other more examples, learn measurements and avoid them.

dgitrader:
When it comes to plumbing, especially when piping the entire structure, whether you are buying the items personally or not, the plumbers overquot the it excessively. If he goes to buy it, he will only bring the needed quantity, if you buy it, he will only use the needed quantity and the rest will disappear into his holdings. Imaging quoting 7 Venus Guage valves and only using 4. Each cost about 1k2.
Also, quoting kaka materials only to buy cheap pvc stuffs in place at half the price.
Recently my plumber quoted over 140 units various piping items, I brought in 91 and still had left overs after the job.
This is just one aspect of plumbing! Imagine.

my plumber is a specialist in this area and now has a shop full of stolen plumbing materials. lol

I don't mean to derail a bit, but on the average what's the cost of building a 6 bedroom duplex ?

jaz:
I don't mean to derail a bit, but on the average what's the cost of building a 6 bedroom duplex ?

I will suggest you draw a building plan so we can see the type and size of 6 bedroom duplex you have in mind before you get the wrong advice. Thanks.

SAND
When buying sands, there are tricks
One is deliberate Underfilling of the tippers, if u look from the ground level, it appears full, but when u go higher to see the sand before they drop it, u will find a wide hollow of sand in the center of the tipper truck.

Also, if they are to drop several trips in the same spot, they gradually reduce each trip while they heap each on another, making the shortage very less obvious.

Finally, up north, 10tires tippers of sharp sand is about 25k, but shockingly it's not up to the volume of 3 trips of small tippers of 7k each. Just some ways of misleading buyers.

My brothers, there's very little one can do with respect to these cheats.

Imagine you have a 8 - 5 job, is it at the end of the day you will go to site inspite of all the traffic. Even when you get there it is already dark.

Even if you buy the materials yourself, they will tell you of shortages. Do you suspend the project for audit, which may not even reveal anything as you don't have the requiste skills to assess?

Don't even start with being in diaspora...

To an extent I monitored blocks, cement (can't do much about re-bag), electrician etc....but plumbing has been very difficult to monitor or challenge for me...may God save us!

SCAM 4

So you call in a welder and describe the type and design of gate you want, but the detail is in the type of metals used to build the gate. There are many types of flat sheets, checkered plates, square pipes and rods, plus other different materials for building a gate. Your welder can exploit your limited knowledge if he is sure you don't know the difference. What they do is to promise to use thicker gauge plates and pipes to build your gate, but end up using lighter gauge materials. If they promise you 2.5mm plates, they may use 1.5mm plates in the end. Same for pipes and rods.

In the end the gate ends up lighter and less sturdy than what you planned for, and your welder ends up richer.

Culled from http://amazingviewpoints..com/

@spyder880, I think it is " chaka "plate not checkered plate, please correct me if I am wrong.

spyder880
some of the post above requires you to apply wisdom and also increase ur prayer points o!

nice thread, keep it coming.

g

Ok

Did learn how to outsmart these scammers understudying my Dad

FOLLOWING....

segzy14:


A tampered cement bag is called "REBAG"

Ojoro bag abi

Lol.....nice piece of info.

I wish the thread had achieved sufficient traction before being put on the front page. Hope there won't be derailment.