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MOLD SCAMS, MOLD CHEATS, & MOLD RIP OFFS
If you have a mold problem, this will help you avoid being scammed and save you thousands of dollars in costs.
Like any other industry, the mold business has its share of crooks, cons and rip off artists who seek to profit from your lack of expertise.
The worst perpetrators of mold scams are mold removal contractors who also offer mold inspections and mold testing services. Their scam is creating non-existent mold problems and charging you thousands of dollars to fix them.
Here are several of the leading mold scams:
Here are several mold frauds perpetrated by insurance companies
and insurance adjusters---
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Hiring incompetent, low-paid, company-stooge testing personnel to do the least possible mold testing in the least likely mold-locations in an insured's property so that any actual mold is NOT likely to be discovered.
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Utilizing popular but very ineffective air cassettes so that little or no mold will be discovered. Air cassettes test too small of an air sample [150 cubic liters for the most commonly-used cassette] to give a truly accurate insight into a property's real mold infestation problems. Direct sampling of visible molds and mold culture plates are vastly superior to air cassettes in determining the extent of mold problems in a property and in the identification of the molds present.
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If the testing stooges uncover any mold problems, the serious mold test results are not to be shared with the insureds and are to be kept a complete secret forever from the insureds [this common insurance company fraud is one of the causes of actions in the $20 million Ed McMahon lawsuit against his homeowner's insurance company and its two insurance stooge testing and remediation companies. The McMahon defendants kept secret mold test results showing a serious mold infestation in the McMahon residence of the deadly mold Stachybotrys.
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Telling insureds that there is no mold insurance coverage even though there is evidence that insurance-covered water damage is the direct cause of the resulting mold infestation.
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Ozone schemes claim that tenting a home and then injecting massive amounts of ozone gas into a home or other building will kill all of the mold in the building. Ozone can only kill what it comes into contact with. Ozone cannot get at, and thus cannot kill, mold growing INSIDE drywall, wall, carpeting, upholstered furniture, wall cavities, ceiling cavities, and floor cavities. Besides being ineffective at killing hidden mold [the worst type], ozone readily damages all rubber and plastic parts it comes into contact with such as rubber and plastic components of appliances, electronics of all types, exposed electric lines and extension courts, and hvac controls. Ozone is also unhealthy to humans according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. For information on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [one of the major appeals courts in USA] about the ineffectiveness of ozone machines for mold and other indoor air pollutants please visit: Ozone is ineffective in killing mold.
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House cooking is when the mold scammers introduce large numbers of mold spores into the home or other building, and then increase the temperature and humidity [e.g., shut off air conditioning, close windows and run humidifiers full blast] to cause high levels of detectable mold to justify expensive mold remediation work. For a more detailed look at house cooking, please click on: House Cooking.
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The mold scammers will bring back to you mold test results showing big-time mold problems in your home or property. Unfortunately for you, the mold samples are NOT actually from your home but are, in fact, samples that had been intentionally infected [inoculated] with large amounts of mold species from other locations or from mold collections maintained by the scammers.
Many fraudulent mold remediation jobs end with the mold problems as great or greater than before the remediation work was done because of shortcuts taken by the mold scammers and because of flawed remediation techniques, procedures, and techniques utilized by the mold scammers who only care about getting your money, rather than solving your family's mold crisis. One big shortcut is that many mold remediators often rely on ineffective but cheap chlorine bleach as an alleged mold killer. See the discussion on chlorine bleach below.
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Many mold remediation companies utilize cheap but ineffective chlorine bleach as their preferred chemical to allegedly kill mold to cut corners and costs in their mold remediation jobs. Unfortunately, chlorine bleach is not an effective or lasting killer of mold and mold spores. Bleach is good only for changing the color of the mold. Three weeks after treatment with chlorine bleach, mold will return just as strong as before. Learn why bleach is ineffective in killing mold at Bleach and Mold.
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It is too diluted and thus too weak to permanently kill mold.
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What little killing power chlorine bleach does have is diminished significantly as the bleach sits in warehouses and on grocery store shelves or in your house or business [50% loss in killing power in just the first 90 days inside a never opened jug or container]. Chlorine constantly escapes through the plastic walls of its containers.
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Its ion structure prevents chlorine from penetrating into porous materials such as drywall and wood --- it just stays on the outside surface, whereas mold has enzyme roots growing inside the porous construction materials. and
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Chlorine Bleach is NOT registered with the EPA as a disinfectant to kill mold. You can verify that important fact yourself when you are unable to find an EPA registration number for killing mold on the label of any brand of chlorine bleach.
If you suspect you have a mold problem, hire a responsible inspection company that is not in the remediation business. Hire Advanced Mold Inspections.
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