Widow Says Springs Contractor Scammed Her Out Of Thousands $$

A Colorado Springs widow, who teaches developmentally disabled kids in district-11, thinks she’s been scammed because she’s a widow and too trusting.

Taran Tucker-Goetz gave Camelback Roofing’s owner, Ross Hendrickson, roughly $15,000 for several home improvement projects, but none of the work was ever finished.

Her driveway was torn up and now weeds are growing up in it. She had to pay another contractor to finish her kitchen remodel. Her roof was never replaced. Her wood floor isn’t finished. Those are just some of the jobs Camelback Roofing took down payments for, but never finished. It dragged on for more than a year.

“Well you know, I kept giving him the benefit of the doubt and kept really thinking, you know it’s gonna get better, he’s gonna follow through, he’s gonna finish it,” Tucker-Goetz tells us.

She says she’s afraid she told Hendrickson too much about herself, including that she’s a widow. She believes he may have though she was an easy target.

“I feel that maybe I shared too much and maybe I shouldn’t have said that to him and that he did indeed take advantage of me,” she says.

We went to the address listed on her contracts for Camelback Roofing. It’s a rental home in Security. The homeowner, Robert Griffith, says he kicked Hendrickson out in January of 2010.

He also pointed out the neighbors home, with a driveway that was torn out, but never finished. It’s now filled with weeds. He claims that was one of Hendrickson’s jobs that was left unfinished.

“From what I know he hasn’t finished any of the work he’s started,” Griffith told us. He also says Hendrickson owes him at least $10,000, “for rent and damages to my house.”

We went to another address we have for Hendrickson, but it appeared no one was home. We left contact information, even though Hendrickson already knows how to get in touch with Target 13 Investigates.

We’ve been talking on the phone with him since last Friday, encouraging him to tell us his side of the story. He said he’d email us a statement, but never did. A couple other times he said he’d meet us to be interviewed, but something always came up and the interviews had to be canceled.

Tucker-Goetz is taking Hendrickson to small claims court on August 25th. We’ll let you know what happens.