Rogue traders from Bristol conned pensioners out of thousands of pounds, a court heard.
Mark Butler, 37, and Thomas Williams, 31, each admitted five Fraud Act offences between August and September 2018.
The victims were elderly residents living at a park home in Falmouth, Cornwall Live reports.
A court heard Butler and Williams, trading as MB Property Services, cold called residents offering maintenance services.
In the first case, the men told a 76-year-old resident the chassis of his park home was corroded and offered to clean and paint it.
They also claimed they would replace six of the existing support jacks which were said to be in a poor condition.
Williams claimed the work would cost £1,500 and, although the resident thought it expensive, he believed it needed doing and agreed to the work.
After only two-and-a-half hours, the men stated the work was complete and asked for the money to be paid.
They asked for the amount to be split – with cheques made out to each of them.
A neighbour raised concerns and a later inspection by a PCSO, on attachment to Cornwall Council Trading Standards, revealed only two of the six jacks had been replaced and the chassis had only been painted in the area around the small inspection/access hatch.
In another case, a 75-year-old resident and her husband on the same site had recently had their external walls re-rendered.
Butler and Williams cold called at the property offering a free maintenance inspection.
They told the resident the floor of the park home was in danger of collapsing, due to the added weight of the new wall coating.
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Again, they offered to clean and repaint the chassis, and replace all the jacks, for a price of £2,200.
The resident, extremely worried by what she had been told, agreed to the work.
She was concerned at the cost but was reassured that the chassis would be fixed and that the floor would not collapse.
On completion Williams told her: “Your house is safe and you have no more problems.”
Not content with this, Butler and Williams then pointed out further issues with the roof felt, gutters and fascia boards and charged the resident a further £1,800 to make the repairs. In total she paid £4,000, which they again asked to be paid by two cheques, made out to each man individually. The work took just over six hours.
It was only discovered later, by a local plumber, much of the chassis had been left unpainted and that only some of the jacks had been replaced.
A Trading Standards investigation revealed paperwork used by the business gave a fake business address and that neither resident had been given the required 14-day cooling off period, which would have given them an opportunity to change their mind or seek other quotes.
In all Trading Standards estimated that, less the cost of materials, Butler and Williams were effectively charging an hourly rate of £294.
Magistrates sentenced the pair to 300 hours unpaid work each and ordered them to pay £5,500 in compensation (£2,750 each) and £2,000 towards prosecution costs (£1,000 each).
