Desperate to get his home rebuilt, BabcockhiresTyler Hansen, who has excellent reviews and reasonable rates.
Delay after delay and myriad excuses leave Babcock with no choice but to take his complaints to law enforcement.
This reveals a history of Hansen and his wife defrauding homeowners all over the state.
You hear it all day on the news, like, “Oh supply chains, supply chains.”
So everybody already has that seed planted in their head that everything’s going to take time.
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[00:00:40] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam.
I’m your host, Bob Sullivan.
And that’s often when criminals swoop in.
[00:01:23] Royce: My name is Royce Babcock.
I live in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.
[00:01:27] Bob: And what do you do, Royce?
[00:01:29] Royce Babcock: I am a HVAC Journeyman for casinos here in Wisconsin.
[00:01:44] Bob: And how long have you done that?
[00:01:47] Royce Babcock: Uh just over two decades.
[00:01:49] Bob: That’s a long, you’ve been doing this a long time.
[00:01:51] Royce Babcock: I’ve been doing this since I was a teenager here pretty much.
[00:01:55] Bob: Royce and his team are called in whenever there’s a big failure.
The casino loses money for every minute the building is uncomfortable.
[00:02:27] Royce Babcock: Yeah, it was a total loss.
[00:02:31] Bob: So where, where did you live after that?
[00:02:34] Royce Babcock: Hah, where didn’t I live?
So dealing with the insurance and where I’m living.
We lived up there for a bit because we were in the pandemic.
So everybody was laid off.
[00:02:57] Bob: Yeah.
You probably remember that it seemed like everyone was moving during the first year of the pandemic.
[00:03:13] Royce Babcock: Well, during that time everybody and their brothers were buying a house.
Like the market was insane.
And the, the housing market was… it was a sellers’ market, basically, you know.
So we couldn’t get a house.
So I went into it, well we’re going to have to build.
And I’ve been in the trades for, you know, two decades.
My dad built his house.
I figured eh, it’s can’t be that hard.
[00:04:09] Royce Babcock: And so I redid the garage.
And so basically, we made it.
But nobody would give me windows.
And I was just like, this is crazy.
I could not get windows.
That meant everybody had money, I guess.
So everybody was at least 14 weeks behind.
[00:05:19] Bob: Dried in.
But he can’t find a contractor who can deliver the windows.
So Royce turns to an internet search engine and just starts reaching out to the companies that are listed.
[00:05:53] Bob: Royce calls EcoView and Tyler Hansen responds right away.
He immediately offers to come out to the construction site.
He definitely looks like he was in the trades.
Like he ain’t afraid to get dirty.
But, yeah, he’s clean cut, very professional.
He can have the windows to Royce within a few days.
Like yeah, yeah.
[00:06:52] Royce Babcock: Exactly.
[00:06:53] Bob: So Royce puts down a downpayment and places a very big order with EcoView.
Thirty-two windows and five sliding glass doors.
And the windows do arrive … sort of.
The windows aren’t the brand Hansen promised, but without better options, Royce installs them anyway.
At least the windows that are the right size.
Still about a quarter of the home is windowless because some of the windows are the wrong size.
And when Hansen tries to fix the mistakes, well, that doesn’t work out too well either.
[00:07:26] Royce Babcock: He, he showed up with a U-Haul to drop these windows off.
And I was like, that’s when I was like, “This ain’t good.”
I’m getting… work progress is being made so we were still on the good side of things.
[00:07:41] Bob: It’s winter now.
In fact, the entire winter passes while Royce tries to get the remaining windows installed in his home.
Remember, they’re all still living in the garage.
And right about then, in April 2021, Hansen has another proposition for Royce.
And he goes, “Oh, I can do that.
I’ll send you my, my, my sales guy over here.”
And after Royce gives him that money, things take a quick turn for the worse.
[00:08:22] Royce Babcock: So that’s when I gave him 10 grand upfront.
And then it was nothing but COVID excuses; his mother died, his father died, everybody died.
I mean he should have nobody left in his family.
I mean everybody died.
This guy used that excuse so much, it was insane.
So that’s when I was like, something ain’t right.
[00:08:48] Bob: Royce tries and tries to get in touch with Hansen, and nothing.
I called him, I emailed him.
He had people literally, they said that they worked for him, just called me up.
They gave me some excuse at the time, like oh, he had a brain injury this weekend.
And it’s like, what?!?
Like how can this guy have that bad luck.
I’m like only I have this luck, you know.
So I was a little, okay…
It was like, “We don’t care about your windows.
We don’t care about anything.”
Like, what is going on dude?
Why are you, you know why do you do this?
I said, “Yep.”
And then I said, “What do you mean afford my siding?
You supposedly, I’m waiting for it to be delivered.”
And that’s when he knew he slipped up.
And that’s when I was like, okay, I’ve got to do something about this.
This guy is showing way too many signs that, that he ain’t coming back.
[00:11:01] Bob: He ain’t coming back.
It’s now been almost a year since he first found EcoView on Google.
Almost a year and a half since the fire.
He didn’t have them when I looked at it back in 2020.
He was the greatest thing.
And I was like, “What did I get involved with?”
And I was like, uh-oh.
So I did some research.
I called the Better Business Bureau of Wisconsin.
They just said, “Yeah, file a complaint.”
And that’s all, it ended with that.
And I was like, “What did I get into?”
So, he could escape the trial of complaints he’d left behind.
Hansen made his family live in a garage for almost a year.
He wants this serial liar to go to jail.
I was like, “No, this is not a civil case.
Like this guy is literally, I think he’s doing it for a career.”
His name was Detective Brian Johnson.
So he was like looking at it.
I’ll look it over."
So he takes it, and like two months go by.
And I would get a hold of him, I’m like, “What is going on?”
And he was like, “I was just going to call you,” he said.
He’s like, “We just opened up Pandora’s Box.”
And I was like, “Well, I don’t know what you mean by that.”
He’s like, “You are just the tip of the sword.”
He’s like, “We have so much involved now.”
[00:14:29] Royce Babcock: So that was in ‘22.
I have to wait another 14 weeks to get that."
Like, “Hey, this is the wrong stuff.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.
I got to do another 14 weeks then.”
You hear it all day on the news, like, “Oh supply chains, supply chains.”
So everybody already has that seed planted in their head that everything’s going to take time.
So it’s pretty smart what he was doing, you know?
He was just collecting more money, ‘cause he was actually, supposedly giving out refunds.
But I haven’t met anybody that got a refund yet.
Put this lady on the list."
Well it turns out I actually do know her.
She works at the casino here.
He came and basically ripped the side of her house off and left.
it’s possible for you to see the inside from the outside for two years also.
But with home repair scams, money is often the least of the victims’ worries.
These crimes often leave people without a safe, warm, dry home to live in.
That’s what makes them so awful.
So her house was the same as my house.
Like, “I just built this house and you’re going to destroy it.”
[00:18:11] Bob: And you’re losing so much more than money.
I mean this, this must just be so frustrating.
I got married in July of 2020, 4th of July.
We were going to have it at our land.
We were going to have all these parties, the birthday parties.
You know, the things that the kids missed out on because they were basically homeless, you know.
Like, you know, [laughs] we have to warn everybody for the longest time.
They were sentenced just a few weeks ago, in January 2024.
[00:19:10] Bob: When was the last time you saw him?
[00:19:11] Royce Babcock: Well two weeks ago.
I, I was at the federal case.
[00:19:15] Bob: Oh you were, you were at the sentencing two weeks ago.
[00:19:17] Royce Babcock: Yeah, yep.
I went and spoke at the sentencing.
[00:19:20] Bob: Did he look at you?
He was sucking air.
He had a limp.
It was like, what happened, dude?
Like it was insane.
I couldn’t, almost to the point you couldn’t recognize him.
And he tells the judge this when he reads his victim impact statement during the sentencing.
We asked Royce to read part of that for us.
[00:20:23] Royce Babcock: This was actually pretty tough.
I mean when you’re doing a victim statement, I mean the emotions.
Do you know how many times I threw my keyboard typing this thing?
And that’s putting it very politely.
[00:21:25] Bob: The judge gives Hansen 7 years, and his wife 3.
That doesn’t sit well with Royce.
And that was the main deal, which is I, I explained to the federal judge.
[00:22:21] Royce Babcock: Yeah.
[00:22:23] Bob: So what is Royce’s living situation now?
I finished the house myself.
So as of right now, my house is almost done.
That’s what I do now.
For the next 30 years, that’s what I’ll be doing.
[00:23:16] Bob: God.
That’s just a nightmare.
[00:23:23] Royce Babcock: Yeah.
She’s 6 months old.
[00:23:30] Bob: Congratulations.
[00:23:31] Bob: What would Royce like people to know about all that’s happened to him?
They’re like, “What do you think about this?”
I mean vet your companies.
So the main thing is vet the guy.
You know, I mean look for reputable companies that, that you know.
And always ask for references.
Always ask for references.
I was like, whatever.
Google said you’re good, we’re going with you, and you help me out."
[00:24:41] Royce Babcock: It’s not even close.
[00:24:43] Bob: So how can you protect yourself from home repair or home improvement scams?
It’s not easy, especially if you, like Royce, find yourself in a pretty desperate situation.
[00:25:14] Joannie Wei: Yes, a hundred percent.
And typically there’s some issue.
It, it’s typically not a remodeling scam.
It’s, it’s typically people who really need the help and need it right away.
So they’re, they’re desperate, and that’s why they’re vulnerable.
[00:25:57] Joannie Wei: Yes.
Uh, we see this a lot.
[00:26:19] Bob: Just how common are home repair scams?
Probably more common than you’d think.
Now, and in 2021, it was even higher.
[00:27:25] Bob: So 82,000 is just a number.
Imagine behind every one of those complaints is someone like Royce living in terrible conditions, waiting for help.
[00:27:38] Bob: But is 82,000 a lot?
So it’s really crazy.
[00:27:52] Bob: There is as many complaints about telemarketing as there is home improvement.
[00:27:56] Joannie Wei: Yeah.
[00:27:57] Bob: That is a shocker to me.
[00:27:57] Joannie Wei: Slightly less, slightly less.
[00:28:05] Bob: It’s at that scale, yeah, it’s remarkable.
So yeah, the fact that home improvement is just, just under that is pretty um, startling.
[00:28:29] Bob: That’s remarkable.
[00:28:31] Bob: It’s important to realize that criminals like Tyler Hansen are highly skilled.
He knew his way around home construction.
He even knew enough to show up at people’s homes with fake construction materials.
And scammers, I just want to add that scammers are very, they are professionals.
They are very polished.
They know what to say.
They’ve done this for a long time.
They know how to prey upon people, what they want, what they need.
People, people who have experienced this throw in of scam, they are not alone.
It’s nothing to be ashamed of.
So what does Joannie recommend to them?
Scammers want you to act fast and they, because they don’t want you to stop and think.
That’s part of it.
That’s like the most effective technique they have.
And the first one is always this pressure to act quickly.
So the pause and check it out advice applies to these types of scams, but all scams.
This person’s busy.
He tells you he’s got a lot of other customers waiting.
He needs a decision right away.
Never be afraid to pause and stop.
[00:32:01] Bob: What does Joannie mean by check it out?
We often have Spanish speaking consumers tell us they were forced to sign a contract in English.
Do not ever transfer your deed into your property to anyone without consulting an attorney.
And then the other red flag is loans.
A lot of sketchy contractors will tell you they can help you with financing.
[00:35:24] Joannie Wei: Yes, that is such a great point.
100%, and more and more now as fake reviews are rampant on-, online.
You have to read reviews with a critical eye.
So, you are absolutely right that that jot down of online review can definitely be fake.
The Better Business Bureau is a great resource.
That’s another avenue just to get another source of information about the contractor.
[00:37:37] Joannie Wei: Yeah, that is a really good point.
There’s the, there’s the 100% fraud, right, the scammers.
They take their money and go, they do nothing.
There’s, there are those folks that operate somewhat in the gray area in between.
And then there’s the legitimate contractors that are just incredibly delayed and frustrating.
So it doesn’t always um involve something major like a lawsuit or initiating arbitration or mediation.
A credit card is a great way to pay.
What do you think?
[00:40:23] Joannie Wei: Absolutely.
Absolutely for something like this, absolutely.
[00:41:18] Bob: It, it sure was.
In this case, Royce was asked for 50%.
Roughly, what do you think is a reasonable amount to pay upfront?
So that typically is under a web of the Attorney General’s office.
There are so many tips and resources when it comes to this jot down of scam.
Without all those complaints, Tyler Hansen wouldn’t be in prison today.
He might still be out there taking deposits from vulnerable victims.
It happens to everyone.
We do share information with our local partners.
Uh it’s so important to do that.
Your complaint could save another person from being scammed.
I think that’s the main message.
Oh, the other, the other message I want to highlight is that resources are available online.
And, and if you look for them, and it’s so easy to find them.
Nobody wants a flyer with full of information, you know, that you have to cull through.
That’s not useful.
We design a lot of our materials to be, tell you only what you oughta know.
So education is critical.
I really appreciate the opportunity to share this message to your listeners.
But just the education piece is so important.
[00:46:39] Bob: It’s very, very hard to unscramble the egg.
That is truer words are never spoken.
Call the AARP Fraud Watch web link Helpline at 877-908-3360.
Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next.
That address again is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org.
Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
For AARP’s The Perfect Scam, I’m Bob Sullivan.
