Wisconsin retirees say a contractor took nearly $8,000 for roof work he never started — then his wife connected them with other angry customers

After exhausting all attempts to contact the company, Cramer made a bold move: she showed up on company owner Dustin Marks’s doorstep. Marks wasn’t home, but Cramer told WBAY-TV that “I did talk to his wife, and she informed me that she had set up a text chain, that there had been numerous people that had been reaching out to her.”

The text chain, evidently, connected around 20 alleged victims, including other retirees, who said they paid Exterior Solutions thousands of dollars for home repair work that never got done — some of whom eventually filed claims in court against the company to recoup their money. WBAY-TV said that Marks skipped two of those court appearances.

A growing threat to homeowners

Moneywise reached out to Marks but didn’t hear back, though his company’s website is no longer active. We also reached out to the sheriff’s offices in Kewaunee and Shawano Counties, which confirmed to WBAY-TV that they’d opened investigations into Exterior Solutions.

Kewaunee’s Sheriff Joski told Moneywise that he is unable to comment on the case, as it is part of an ongoing investigation. The Shawano County Sheriff’s Office did not reply to Moneywise’s questions by press deadline.

But WBAY-TV noted that Marks provided a statement to them, saying “Exterior Solutions was a family owned and operated company going through extensive personal problems.”

They added that he paid off $43,000 in business tax warrants in July and that he had referred at least one of the victims to his bankruptcy attorney. His attorney did not return Moneywise’s request for comment.

The alleged victims in the Exterior Solutions case are still attempting to recoup their losses, while the charges against the company haven’t been proven in court.

But when it comes to confirmed fraud cases, the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) reported that “instances of contractor fraud increased 38% from 2023 to 2025.”

“Home repair fraudsters commonly target vulnerable consumers such as senior citizens, disabled individuals, and first-time homebuyers,” the Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General (OIG) warned.

They, and others, noted that fraudsters also often prey on disaster victims.

Overall, home owners across the U.S. and Canada lost a median $1,405 last year to home repair fraud according to the Better Business Bureau — though, among the top 10% of victims, the median losses jumped to $14,050.

Scammers often employ tell-tale tactics to con their victims, the FTC said, including asking them to sign a blank contract, attempting to convince them to hand over insurance money, insisting on wire transfer, crypto or gift cards as payment and claiming that having a valid contractor’s license isn’t necessary.

But experts also say that there are ways to help ensure that the contractor you hire to fix your home will do the job right — and to try and recoup your losses if they stop showing up.

How to protect your home and money

When looking for a contractor to complete home repairs, the FTC recommends doing background research on potential hires, asking trusted friends and relatives for referrals, getting multiple estimates from different companies, ensuring all agreed upon details of the job are in the contract and to never sign a blank contract or pay the full amount up front.