Social Affairs Correspondent, BBC Scotland
BBCWhen BBC Russell McMaster exposed as a cowboy builder last yearAngry customers demanded that he be prosecuted.
The 64 -year -old had accepted about 220,000 pounds from seven customers to complete the improvement in the house over a period of two years.
Instead, he dropped his customers out of his pocket with half -made extensions and renovation.
This week, the McMaster at Irshire was due to prosecution on an charge, cheating a customer by showing that he would do construction work at his house four years ago.
But he was acquitted on Wednesday when Mukut dropped the case. McMaster, it emerged, returned £ 3,000, on which he was taken by fraud.
How did this happen – and what are the remedies really to customers when left to the mercy of evil traders?
Retired social activist Jim McGinley told McMaster in late 2022 in late 2022 that after waiting for more than a year, North waited for more than a year to start at his home in Udingston, Lanarkshire.
He paid 3,000 pounds to the builder to “secure his services” for internal renewal.
After a month waiting for the plan to consent, the Jim says McMaster became “ethnic” and stopped returning the call.
The pair fell out after Jim finally left a negative online review about his business, VJL builders.
Assuming that he was a “victim of a con” “, he approached the police.
He said: “The police was very hardworking and was very keen to present it in court … he felt that he was a fraud, a fake builder.”
MCMASTER – Full Name Alexander Russell McMaster – was accused of cheating, accused of receiving £ 3,000 that he would do construction work at the gym’s house.
However, when the case was called for a trial in the Hamilton Sheriff Court, the prosecutors announced that the case would be closed as McMaster paid money in the weeks before the test.
Jim said that he had agreed to leave the matter after discussion with the crown.
“The reason for going to court was that we wanted to prevent this with other people,” he said.
“When discussed with the prochemrator fiscal, it became clear that it was probably the best option to take money. But really we felt, and it seems crazy that we will disappoint people.”
Customers got out of pocket
This was not the first time Irwin was informed McMaster, police.
At least two of his former customers approached the police Scotland in 2023.
He was one of the seven customers, who contacted the BBC about McMaster, who traded the company under VJL builders and Alex McMaster Builders.
In cases, customers who contacted the police were told that their complaints are a “civil case” and direct the business standards.
The North Irshire Trading Standards confirmed that it received seven complaints about McMaster’s businesses in 2023.
One of those complaints came from Chris Jordin.
When we first interviewed him in the 2023 autumn, his scaffold was a building site, covering the exposed beams and tarplin roof tiles.
When we went back to her home in the Bridge of Wear last week, not much had changed.
Chris stated that McMaster was paid more than £ 30,000 for a scaffold conversion, but left the job leaving the Jordin family with a hole in the roof.
Eventually, he also described the matter to the police and business standards. He was also assured by McMaster through his lawyer that he would be paid £ 15,000.
No payment was made, and the scaffold was the same as it was.
Chris – who is married to two children – extracted an additional loan to complete the work and said that the affair had “crippled” his family’s finance.
He said, “It is difficult to determine how much money he is giving us, because he said with additional damage,” he said.
“He has dined with my children’s mouths. This is really bothering me. It will affect us for a long time because whatever I do will be to return the loan that he has left us.”
Another customer, Grant Kilpatrick, told BBC Scotland News that McMaster left him with a half-final extension and owed him between £ 15,000 and £ 20,000.
He said that he told McMaster to the police and it was also told that it was a civil matter.
Police Scotland stated that each case was assessed on its properties and provided “appropriate advice” to both Jordin and Kilpatrick.
A spokesman said that in the case of Grant Kilpatrick, interrogated and no criminality was established.
Civil action ‘not always easy’
Both Jardins and Kilpatrick hired a company called VJL Builders in July 2022. The business was registered with the company house a month later.
While both were chasing the company, VJL was dissolved in January 2024. It never filed accounts.
Hazel Knowles, Advice Senior Project Lead for Direct Scotland, stated that it was challenging to deal with evil trade and “civil action is not always easy”.
“Wicked traders often dissolve their companies to give consumers a little support to avoid liability,” he said.
“Consumers have rights, including the ability to cancel the contract and claim refund if they are misleading or pressurized.
“They can also be entitled to compensation for the crisis – but these rights are effective only when consumers work quickly and seek advice.
“We urge any person to report wicked trading and contact their bank if the money is lost.”
Senior Law Lecturer of the University of Glasgow Caledonian. Nick McCarell said there was a greater possibility of a successful prosecution, where it could be shown that there was no intention or ability to work, which could be seen as “dishonest wrong”.
However, it was more complex if some work was done, as it becomes more difficult to show that the builder was never going to finish the work.
He said that this was not a proper fight in many legal matters.
“It is a person against a business organization who can adopt several strategies to avoid private law functions,” he said.
McMaster ‘unavailable’ for comment
McMaster has a string of businesses listed at homes of companies under various forms of their name – most of them dissolved.
Previous reporting by the daily record newspaper in 2006 and 2013 revealed how their old businesses left the customers in the loan after the closure.
Only Alex McMaster Builders remain active.
A note on the company’s website stated that the strike-closed action was temporarily suspended after a person objected to an attempt to dissolve the company.
The BBC tried to contact the builder between December 2023 and February, in which he was an evil operator to respond to the allegations.
The McMaster did not respond until he sent a text message, stating that he was “unavailable”.
However, we managed to contact McMaster in a person outside the court this month.
We asked if they have planned to reimburse their other customers and have they closed VJL builders to avoid paying them back.
Quickly with a friend, he did not comment.
