Jacksonville residents trapped in home repair scams despite state licenses

Mary Bennett-Harvey thought she was making a smart decision when she hired a contractor in May 2025 to inspect the air conditioning systems at her Arlington home. The Jacksonville resident found Lickety Split through a mailer coupon, and the company's painted trucks looked professional. Six months after her husband's death, she wanted to be proactive about home maintenance.

Within hours, inspectors told the 76-year-old widow that both A/C systems needed entirely new duct work—a $20,000 job. The contractors arranged financing on the spot, having her sign loan papers on an iPad. Bennett-Harvey believed she was taking out a personal loan. Instead, Lickety Split had locked her into a home equity loan secured by a lien on the house she had lived in for 30 years. She didn't discover the lien until June 2026, eight months after she sold the home.

What's happening

Bennett-Harvey is one of dozens of Jacksonville-area residents who say they were defrauded by home-repair contractors who hold active Florida state licenses—credentials the state markets to consumers as the gold standard for reliability.

The Florida Attorney General's office is investigating Lickety Split after receiving 92 complaints about the company's business practices, according to a statement provided to The Florida Trib. Late last year, the AG's consumer-protection attorneys sued a second contractor, Florida Roof Specialists, after investigating nearly 200 complaints. On July 24, the AG filed an injunction asking a judge to force Florida Roof Specialists to stop operating while the suit is litigated, citing a "growing and disturbing trend in the number of liens and foreclosure actions improperly and/or unlawfully instituted" against Florida consumers over the past 20 months.

The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), which issues and renews state contractor licenses, has the authority to suspend licenses for misconduct but has not done so for either company. In 2025, DBPR investigated more than 4,800 complaints of unlicensed activity and completed around 2,000 enforcement actions, but revoked just one company's license for deceptive practices, according to a January press release.

Lickety Split operates under three active state licenses displayed prominently on its website. Florida Roof Specialists' owner, Jeremy S. Rogero, first obtained a contracting license in 2006, then another in 2014. In 2022—two years after the Attorney General's office began receiving complaints—he applied for and received three new contractor licenses. Those licenses are set to be renewed through 2028, according to DBPR's website.

DBPR's rules for obtaining and renewing a state license include checks on testing requirements and a company's financial health, but do not include reviews of consumer complaints or pending litigation. The department initially told The Florida Trib it does not conduct interviews with the media and requested written questions, which were provided. DBPR has not answered those questions or responded to multiple follow-up messages.

Lickety Split and Florida Roof Specialists also did not respond to repeated attempts to reach them for comment over a four-week period, including calls to listed phone numbers, direct messages to company owners, and emails to their attorneys.

How Jacksonville-area homeowners are targeted

Interviews with a dozen customers of the two companies and seven lawyers who have represented scammed Floridians reveal a consistent pattern: door-to-door salesmen or couponed mailers arrive at elderly homeowners' residences in the wake of major storms, offering free inspections. Those inspections invariably uncover major problems. Salespeople then present what sounds like a favorable deal through a flurry of documents—or, in many cases, a blank tablet to sign.

Brenda Fee, a 65-year-old Jacksonville resident, said Lickety Split trapped her into an inflated bill for a replacement A/C compressor. After reporting the company to DBPR, Fee said a department representative told her they couldn't do anything about price gouging but noticed the company's paperwork didn't include a license number. The representative said he would report that violation. No such violation appeared on DBPR's website at the time of publication.

Tammie Reid, 56, another Jacksonville resident, said a Lickety Split salesman insisted on a three-way call with her mother, whose name was on Reid's house. Reid said she was dropped from the call as the salesman discussed alarming water-test results. "They had [my mom] scared and worried," Reid said. By the time Reid reconnected, her mother had agreed to hire the company. A salesman drove to her mother's house immediately and had her sign documents on an iPad—committing to a $45,000 loan. Reid said the company later offered her $5,000 to stop posting negative reviews.

A class-action lawsuit filed in July against Lickety Split alleges the company failed to complete work paid for in full. The lead plaintiff alleged paying $28,676 for a duct replacement project, but said Lickety Split used lower-quality materials than agreed upon and left other contracted work unfinished.

May Kurimai, 86, of Pinellas County, said a Florida Roof Specialists salesman approached her in her driveway in September 2023 as she unloaded groceries, claiming he could see storm damage on her roof. The salesman promised she would only pay her insurance deductible of $2,500. Work began in January 2024. By January 2025, Kurimai received a letter: she was being sued for $21,000, and a lien had been placed on her home. Emails reviewed by The Florida Trib showed disputed charges for work Kurimai said she never approved—including new gutters and an OSHA supervisor she said was never on site.

Days before publication, after a Florida Trib reporter's repeated efforts to contact Florida Roof Specialists with questions about Kurimai's allegations, the company emailed her daughter to say the invoice was paid and the lien would be removed. On August 17, Florida Roof Specialists filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit and remove the lien.

What the contracts hide—and why it matters to homeowners

Attorneys who specialize in consumer protection say the schemes work because of deliberately opaque contracts and aggressive financing tactics that exploit Florida's complex insurance and lending laws.

"The contracts that they're having people sign have no prices on it," said Annie Rodriguez, an attorney with Jacksonville Area Legal Aid's Consumer and Advocacy Litigation Unit. "A lot of roofers, [Florida Roof Specialists] included, have created this kind of way of doing business that's like an assignment of benefits, but they're not calling that, and they're not following the statute. "

Prior to 2023, Florida homeowners could assign their insurance policy rights to hired contractors, allowing the contractor to file claims and collect payments directly from the insurer. A 2022 law made assignment of benefits illegal because it was being abused, leaving homeowners stuck with bills and lawsuits they never bargained for. Lawyers said some contracting companies, including Florida Roof Specialists, are skirting the law by directing consumers to negotiate with their insurer on the contractors' behalf.

"[Customers] sign a contract, and there's another piece of paper that will say this is what you'll owe out of pocket, and it'll just say their deductible on there," Rodriguez said. "It never says anything else, so they don't find out about these extra charges until months after the job is done. "

Rodriguez said Lickety Split uses a different tactic, locking consumers into loans rather than pursuing insurance claims. She said she has seen allegations that Lickety Split had customers sign waivers preventing them from disputing credit card transactions for discrepancies or overcharges—a violation of the federal Truth in Lending Act. The July class-action lawsuit against Lickety Split alleges the company's "pre-printed waiver provisions are void and unenforceable. "

"Consider the possibility that a contractor accidentally overcharges a customer's credit card or charges a customer's credit card for work that was never done," Rodriguez said. "This [waiver], if enforceable, would leave them no recourse. That attempt to override and preempt controlling federal law is unconscionable. "

Amy Boggs, a Florida property insurance attorney at Boggs Law Group, said the companies operate in a gray area. "They're just a step above the spammers and the scammers that you're getting in your email and text message," she said. "The only difference is they are in fact performing a service. "

Boggs said that having customers sign documents on tablets without seeing the full text is a red flag. "At the very least, there has to be something hardmailed or emailed to the client of a full copy of what they signed at the outset, so [they're] all in agreement. So there can't be a later bait and switch. "

The gap in state oversight—and what it means for Jacksonville residents

Florida ranks among the worst U. S. states both in the number of reported fraud complaints and in millions of dollars lost to scams, according to national data. Local police departments across Florida reported a surge in door-to-door solicitation scams this year.

In 2025, DBPR invested $300,000 in a statewide public-education campaign promoting the importance of hiring licensed professionals. The campaign generated 24 million impressions and featured billboards with the slogan: "Don't be a victim a second time. Hire a licensed contractor. "

But that message rings hollow for Jacksonville residents like Bennett-Harvey and Fee, who did hire licensed contractors and were allegedly defrauded anyway.

"There's a certain level of technical expertise that you expect out of [a licensed contractor]. There's a certain level of organizational competence there to expect," Rodriguez said. "Sometimes people's money is still gone in the wind, even if they use a licensed contractor. "

DBPR says it posts violation complaints under a company's business license on the department's website and encourages Floridians to check them before hiring a contractor. A Florida Trib review found this is done only sporadically. Only one of Lickety Split's three licenses—its A/C license—has a complaint listed. No details are provided about the violation, and it is marked as closed with no information about whether the department took any action.

DBPR says its resources are limited and the department "strives to allocate the use of those resources to maximize the safety, health, and welfare of Floridians and those who visit and do business in our great state," according to a statement provided to The Florida Trib.

The department's lack of enforcement puts pressure on the attorney general's office to bring lawsuits, which can take years to assemble and litigate. While the AG investigates Lickety Split, the company continues to operate under active state licenses.

In its lawsuit against Florida Roof Specialists, the attorney general's office alleged the company "threatened many consumers who refused to succumb to the Roofing Companies' attempts to extort additional funds by placing liens on their residential properties if they failed to pay. " The company had placed liens on 73 homes at the time the lawsuit was initiated.

In response to the attorney general's allegations, Florida Roof Specialists' attorneys wrote in court documents that they "deny the allegation that [they] participated in any unlawful 'scheme' and… deny that [they] had a general practice of making false or misleading damage representations. "

In its June defamation lawsuit against two people it believes moderate a Facebook group called "Victims of Lickety Split Revived," the company denied allegations of fraud, criminal conduct, unlawful business practices, customer exploitation, and intentional equipment sabotage. The Facebook group has more than 3,000 members and features weekly posts documenting unverified allegations about the company's practices.

Lawyers said the companies are known to offer money to former customers in exchange for removing bad reviews. Lickety Split also responds to complaints on the Better Business Bureau website with a standard message: "We here at Lickety Split take consumer concerns very seriously. Upon receiving this inquiry, we immediately reached out to the consumer. After a short back and forth, we now believe that this issue has been resolved. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. "

What Jacksonville homeowners can do

A new Florida law that took effect July 1 made it illegal for door-to-door salespeople to solicit at private homes that display a compliant "No Commercial Solicitation" sign. To be protected under the law, the sign must be at least 8. 5 by 11 inches, clearly visible, contain specific language, and cite the relevant Florida statute (Section 501. 062). Individuals who violate the law face a $500 fine for a first violation and second-degree misdemeanor charges for subsequent violations.

Consumer-protection attorneys advise homeowners to never sign a blank tablet or screen. If a contractor wants you to sign documents on a tablet, ask to see the actual contract document and request a hard copy to read in full. Make sure estimates are itemized and the cancellation policy is clearly stated in writing.

Attorneys also recommend checking reviews from multiple sources. Contractors may remove negative reviews from their websites or settle individuals' grievances in exchange for taking down feedback. Check Facebook groups, Reddit threads, Google, Yelp, and the Better Business Bureau—and ask neighbors about their experiences. DBPR's website may show only a fraction of complaints filed.

Reading a contractor's privacy policy before signing is also important. Contracting companies may collect and distribute personal data without explicit consent. State any objections to data collection in a timestamped email before signing.

Lawyers familiar with construction-industry scams said salespeople often research local churches and name-drop members of the congregation or appeal to shared religious beliefs to appear trustworthy. Be skeptical of anyone who claims community ties as a sales tactic.

Most importantly, attorneys say, do not assume a state license guarantees ethical business practices. "Hiring a licensed contractor gives you the ability to report their misconduct to the Department of Business and Professional Regulation," consumer advocates note, "but it doesn't require the department to investigate or address your complaints. "

What happens next

The attorney general's lawsuit against Florida Roof Specialists is ongoing. The AG's motion for a preliminary injunction to halt the company's operations while the case is litigated is pending before a judge.

The attorney general's office told The Florida Trib it continues to investigate the 92 complaints it has received about Lickety Split but has not filed charges.

The class-action lawsuit filed against Lickety Split in July is in early stages. A separate employment lawsuit against the company is also pending in federal court.

Bennett-Harvey, Fee, Reid, and the Kurimais all told The Florida Trib they intend to fight any legal action against them and challenge the agreements they were pressured to sign.

The cases underscore a broader challenge for Northeast Florida as the region continues to attract retirees and recover from increasingly frequent storm damage. Florida's reputation as a hotbed for home-repair scams has persisted for years, but the combination of an aging population, severe weather, and regulatory gaps has created conditions in which unscrupulous contractors can thrive—even with the state's official stamp of approval prominently displayed on their paperwork and trucks.

"It's way too easy," Bennett-Harvey said. "After hurricanes, everybody shows up to help, supposedly help us, and they reap the rewards of people's pain and suffering. "