HOUSTON, Texas — On Tuesday, Nov. 13, the Harris County Attorney’s Office hosted a press conference to announce their initiative aimed at educating, empowering and protecting local consumers against common scams.
"It's been reported that Texas is the fourth most scam state losing more than $763 million in 2022 to scams and fraud," Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee explained.
Included in the press conference were about six additional attorneys who represented alleged scam victims. Some of those people were alleged victims of A&L Sheds.
6 News has investigated A&L Sheds since January, speaking with countless people about their experience with the company.
While the company's headquarters is in Houston, dozens of people living in Milam County and McLennan County hired A&L Sheds owner Amanda Sparks to build them sheds. That never happened for almost all of the people who hired them.
Vey Bean, who has spoken to 6 News before, spoke at the press conference explaining how she lost $13,500 to the company after they never completed the work they were paid to do.
"Everything seemed truthful and it wasn't," Bean explained. "I need you all to be very aware and do extra work. I got scammed as a paralegal knowing that I did everything. Anybody can get scammed."
The lawyers representing alleged victims of A&L Sheds said on Tuesday that they believe Sparks has scammed over 100 people and taken over $1.1 million from their customers.
Sparks was arrested at a small claims court hearing in McLennan County in September for failing to refund another alleged victim, Donna Polston, after she was paid $10,000 for a build. She was bailed out in 24 hours.
"If you're a business in Harris County and you're taking advantage of folks through fraud and scams, we will figure out a way to do something about it," Menefee added. "To the folks who are out shopping during the holiday season, we want you to be proactive. We want you to be alert and we want you to protect your personal information."
Moving forward, Menefee said their office will be working with officials in Texas counties to conduct full investigations into every scam that comes to their desk.
"We're very excited about it," Menefee said. "The Consumer Protection division of the Attorney General's office does this type of work and we work closely with them on a number of things. We plan to do the exact same thing with these types of issues."