The friendly guy who’s knocking on your door offering to fix your ice-damaged gutters or wind-blown shingles might not have your best interests at heart.

Reputable roofing contractors are so busy these days that they don’t have time to go from door to door looking for work. In fact, even if they weren’t busy, they wouldn’t do that.

Professional local roofing contractors make appointments with their customers—and those appointments are initiated by you, the homeowner. They will send someone to your house wearing a logo shirt and driving a truck with another logo on it and with Arizona license tags. They’ll climb up on the roof and survey the damage, and when they come down, they’ll give you a written estimate or send you one shortly. Then, you can call the company and make an appointment to have the work done.

Those guys knocking at your door are called storm chasers—or travelers or gypsies. They’re usually from out of state, and they make their living by driving from state to state, depending which one has had a big storm lately or is just thawing out from an especially cold winter.

You’ve probably met one or two of them after the summer monsoon, when they come around offering to fix whatever the rain and wind have damaged. They might have offered you a whiz-bang deal on labor and materials, or said they had leftover materials from another job and could sell them to you at a cut-rate price. They probably put a little pressure on you to let them do the job right then. And they almost certainly asked for at least part of their money up front so they could buy supplies.

The storm chasers are back early this year, preying on homeowners who are having trouble getting a local, qualified roofing contractor out to the house because the good ones are so booked up with jobs from the past two colder-than-usual winters.

My advice: Wait for your regular contractor, even if you have to wait for a couple of months.

Unless your roof is leaking, any damage up there won’t cause you any problems in the meantime. You do need to have that weather-damaged roof repaired; if you don’t, you could void your warranty and your roof could deteriorate much quicker than a “healthy” roof would. But you don’t have to do it today—no matter what that guy who’s knocking on your door has told you.

Not every storm chaser is a scam artist, but some are. Here are a few typical ruses and some friendly advice:

• One guy I know said a so-called roofer climbed up on his roof and came down with a photo of some severely damaged shingles and a hard sell for repair work. Problem was, the photo wasn’t of my friend’s roof. He’s been up there enough times to know where everything is, so he recognized the fraud when he saw it.
• They’ll tell you there’s damage when there isn’t. My friend Rhonda Dave Kinion, who owns Central Basin Roofing in Prescott, has this advice: If you see roofers working on a lot of your neighbors’ homes—they usually post a sign in the front yard showing the name of the company they work for—chances are good that your roof is suffering, too. If no other nearby roofs suffered damage during a storm or a stretch of bad weather, be suspicious when anyone says yours did.
• Check out the license plate on the truck the guy’s driving. If it’s from out of state, turn him away. If the sign on his truck is magnetic and removable, turn the guy away. When you have your roof repaired during the spring, there’s no way for you to know if there’s a problem with the work until it rains again—and that might be July. If your roof springs a leak in July, that out-of-state storm chaser is going to be long gone, and you’ll have to pay someone else to fix your leak. Use a local company that guarantees its work and that you can call back for a touch-up if you need one next time it rains.
• Don’t let anyone convince you to sign on for an inflated price with the promise that the contractor will overbill your insurance company to get enough money back to reimburse you for your deductible. That’s insurance fraud. Some will offer to pay you $1,000 to let them put a sign in your yard, and then they try to get your insurance company to cover that fee. Insurance companies will not pay an outrageous price for the work.
• Say “no” to anyone who pressures you into having the work done immediately or paying up front. Take a day or so to think about it. Schedule the work for a time that’s convenient. And schedule payments so you’re not paying up front—reputable companies don’t need any seed money to buy supplies. Instead, pay in increments as the work is completed.
• Refuse to work with any contractor who is not licensed by the state Registrar of Contractors. You’re breaking the law if you pay an unlicensed contractor more than $1,000—and you could be liable for damages if the contractor gets hurt on your property. Plus, if the guy skips town with your money, you won’t have any way to recoup from the state’s recovery fund, which only covers licensed, local contractors.

Having a weather-damaged roof is hassle enough without having to deal with shoddy work, stolen money or repairs that aren’t guaranteed. Shop locally and shop legally for roof repairs. They’re worth the money and they’re worth the wait.