How a cowboy builder ripped off his customers – and got away with it | UK News

When the exposed Russell McMaster as a cowboy builder last year, angry clients demanded he be prosecuted.

The 64-year-old had accepted about £220,000 from seven customers to complete home improvements over a two-year period.

Instead, he left his customers tens of thousands out of pocket with half-built extensions and renovations.

This week, Ayrshire-based McMaster was due to face trial over an allegation he had defrauded a customer by pretending he would carry out construction work at his home four years ago.

But he was acquitted on Wednesday when the Crown dropped the case. McMaster, it emerged, had handed back £3,000 he was alleged to have taken by fraud.

How did this happen – and what remedies do customers really have when left at the mercy of rogue traders?

Retired social worker Jim McGinley reported McMaster to police in late 2022 after waiting more than a year for work to start at his home in Uddingston, North Lanarkshire.

He had paid the builder £3,000 to “secure his services” for internal renovations.

After a months-long wait for planning consent, Jim says that McMaster became “evasive” and stopped returning calls.

The pair eventually fell out after Jim left a negative online review about his business, VJL Builders.

Believing that he had been “the victim of a con”, he contacted police.

He said: “Police were very diligent and seemed very keen to present it at court… They felt that he was a fraudster, a bogus builder.”

McMaster – full name Alexander Russell McMaster – was charged with fraud, accused of obtaining the £3,000 by pretending he would carry out construction work at Jim’s home.

However, when the case called for trial at Hamilton Sheriff Court, prosecutors announced the case would be discontinued because McMaster had repaid the money in the weeks before trial.

Jim said he had agreed to drop the case after discussions with the Crown.

“The reason we went to court was because we wanted to stop this happening to other people,” he said.

“On discussion with the procurator fiscal, it became clear that perhaps taking the money was the best option. But in truth we felt, and it seems crazy, that we’d let people down.”

This wasn’t the first time McMaster, from Irvine, had been reported to police.

At least two of his former customers contacted Police Scotland in 2023.

They were among seven clients who contacted the about McMaster, who traded under the company names VJL Builders and Alex McMaster Builders.

In those cases, customers who had contacted police were told their complaints were a “civil matter” and directed to trading standards.

North Ayrshire trading standards confirmed it had received seven complaints about McMaster’s businesses in 2023.

One of those complaints came from Chris Jardine.

When we first interviewed him in the autumn of 2023, his loft space was a building site with exposed beams and tarpaulin covering roof tiles.

When we went back to his house in Bridge of Weir last week, not much had changed.

Chris said McMaster was paid more than £30,000 for a loft conversion but abandoned the job midway through, leaving the Jardine family with a hole in the ceiling.

Eventually, he also reported the matter to police and trading standards. He also had assurances from McMaster via his lawyer that he would be repaid £15,000.

No payment was made, and the loft remains as it was.

Chris – who is married with two children – took out extra loans to try and finish the work and said the affair had “crippled” his family’s finances.

“It’s hard to quantify how much money he owes us, because of the extra damage he did,” he said.

“He has taken food out my kids’ mouths. That’s what really annoys me. It will affect us long-term because everything I do will be to pay back the debt he has left us with.”

Another customer, Grant Kilpatrick, told Scotland News that McMaster left him with a half-finished extension and was owed between £15,000 and £20,000.

He said he reported McMaster to police and was also told it was a civil matter.

Police Scotland said each case was assessed on its own merits and that it provided “suitable advice” to both the Jardines and the Kilpatricks.

A spokesperson said that in Grant Kilpatrick’s case, inquiries had been carried out and no criminality was established.

The Jardines and Kilpatricks had both hired a company called VJL Builders in July 2022. The business was registered at Companies House a month later.

While both were pursuing the company, VJL was dissolved in January 2024. It had never filed accounts.

Hazel Knowles, senior project lead for Advice Direct Scotland, said tackling rogue trade was challenging and that “civil action is not always easy”.

“Rogue traders frequently dissolve their companies to avoid liability leaving consumers with little recourse,” she said.

“Consumers do have rights, including the ability to cancel contracts and claim refunds if they’ve been misled or pressured.

“They may also be entitled to compensation for distress – but these rights are only effective if consumers act quickly and seek advice.

“We urge anyone affected to report rogue trading to us and to contact their bank if money has been lost.”

Dr Nick McKerrell, senior law lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University, said there was a greater chance of a successful prosecution where it could be shown that there was no intention or ability to carry out the work, something which could be seen as a “dishonest misrepresentation”.

However, it was more complicated if some work was done, because it becomes more difficult to show that the builder was never going to finish the job.

He said it was not a fair fight in many of the legal cases.

“It’s an individual against a business organisation which can adopt a number of tactics to avoid private law actions,” he said.

McMaster has a string of businesses listed on Companies House under different variations of his name – most of them dissolved.

Previous reporting by the Daily Record newspaper in 2006 and 2013 revealed how his old businesses left customers in debt after closing down.

Only Alex McMaster Builders remains active.

A note on the Companies House website states that a strike-off action had been temporarily suspended after someone objected to the attempt to dissolve the company.

The attempted to contact the builder between December 2023 and February to answer allegations he was a rogue operator.

McMaster did not respond until he sent a text messages stating that he was “unavailable”.

However, we managed to approach McMaster in person outside court this month.

We asked whether he planned reimburse his other customers and whether he shut VJL Builders down to avoid paying them back.

Hurrying away with a friend, he made no comment.