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Contractor offering to help scam victims has a checkered past

A contractor who’s offering help to homeowners who were scammed by another roofer has a checkered past itself.

Action News Jax reported on Monday that ELO Restoration is helping five Jacksonville homeowners who say they were victimized by roofer Carlson Enterprises -- installing new roofs and waiving the amount they’d lost to Carlson.

When Action News Jax first checked out ELO Restoration before that story, we found that it had no complaints against its license and had an A-minus rating with the Better Business Bureau.

After upset customers reached out to us, we dug deeper into the company’s corporate filings and found it has changed its name twice in less than a year.

Until September 2017, it was known as Rogero & Williams Roofing Contractors.

Until March, it was known as R&W Roofing Contractors.

The company has been known ELO Restoration for less than two months.

Before it became ELO Restoration, OSHA fined the company $128,000 for endangering workers.

Complaints from customers about workmanship and customer service surfaced all over the internet.

ELO Restoration chief financial officer Pam Williams agreed to an interview on Wednesday morning, but when Action News Jax showed up, she and her coworkers told us not to record.

Action News Jax agreed to hear them out off-camera.

After they called their lawyer, he called Action News Jax and asked us to leave.

ELO Restoration president Derek Williams later sent Action News Jax a statement saying the company was “contractually obligated” to change its name from Rogero & Williams Roofing Contractors to R&W Roofing Contractors because of a “change in ownership.”

Derek Williams said the change to ELO Restoration was made to reflect “a need for a company name that reflected not just roofing, but also restoration as a whole... We have stood by all warranties issued by Rogero & Williams and R&W Roofing Contractors, and will continue to do so.”

ELO Restoration’s website claims it won Angie’s List Super Service Awards every year from 2014 through 2017.

“We have been in the process of changing our name through Angie’s List so they have it on record,” said Derek Williams in a statement.

But an Angie’s List spokesperson told Action News Jax it has no record of any of the company’s three names winning the awards in 2015, 2016 or 2017.

The company also claims on its website that it is BBB-accredited.

ELO Restoration’s two other locations across the country are, but the Jacksonville location is not.

“They are not. And I was not aware that they had that on their website until you just brought that to my attention, so we will address that,” said BBB of Northeast Florida spokesperson Shannon Nelson.

Nelson said the complaints about roofers in Jacksonville have become so rampant that the BBB is not approving accreditation for any Jacksonville roofers.