‘Everything we've built’: Canterbury business owner fights back after impersonation scam

Wednesday, 22 July 2026

Richard Yeo from Rural Property Solutions Mid Canterbury says a scammer stole more than his company's identity — it shattered customer trust and put four years of hard work at risk.

A Methven business owner has watched four years of hard work unravel in a matter of weeks after a scammer allegedly stole his business identity, leaving customers out of pocket and his once-busy cleaning company now fighting to survive.

Richard Yeo and his wife built their cleaning business Rural Property Solutions Mid Canterbury from scratch, growing it into a company with nine staff and enough work to book jobs weeks in advance.

“We’ve gone from being fully booked … and then as soon as this happened, my phone just stopped ringing. I’ve got one client in the next four weeks.”

Yeo, pictured with his dog Sky, says the scam has taken a financial and emotional toll on his family and business.

Yeo said the scammer copied the company’s logo, advertisements and Facebook presence, then promoted discounted cleaning services in areas which they did not operate in, such as Auckland and Hamilton.

He said customers who responded to the fake advertisements were then asked to pay deposits through Messenger. When no cleaners arrived, many contacted Yeo directly because his phone number appeared on the invoices.

The business only discovered the scam when a legitimate customer asked whether the company had expanded into Hamilton.

By then, the angry phone calls had already started.

“Where are you, you a…hole, you w…er, you scammed us,” Yeo recalled customers saying.

The impact was not only financial. It affected his own mental health, his family and the lives of his nine staff.

“There have been sleepless nights lying awake wondering how we’re going to keep work coming in, how we're going to support our staff, and whether everything we’ve spent years building could be taken away because of one person's actions.”

Despite this, Yeo said it was not the worst thing he has had to cope with.

Yeo spoke to The Press in 2023 about losing seven family members to cancer. He lost both his parents, a cousin, one uncle and three aunties to what he called the “silent assassin” of gut cancer.

His mother died of cancer at 57 and his father at 67, just two weeks after being diagnosed with cancer. His cousin was just 34 when she died - three weeks after visiting her doctor to get a sore stomach checked. It was stomach cancer.

“You learn to deal with it,” Yeo said this week. “It motivates me to be better.”

He said it also helped put the recent scam into perspective. “It’s like, I’ve been scammed but yes, there are worse things.”

Cancellation fears

He said every cancellation now left him wondering whether customers believed the business was involved in the scam.

“Are they cancelling because of the scam? Have they already judged us before hearing our side?”

Yeo said some people had shown incredible support, but others had labelled the business “scammers” and “thieves”, despite it being a victim of fraud.

Yeo says keeping his nine staff going has become one of his biggest concerns.

He was determined to keep the business going. “We won't let one dishonest person define us.

“We’ll be rebuilding our reputation, rebuilding customer confidence, and rebuilding our business, one job at a time.”

Yeo said keeping his nine staff going had become one of his biggest concerns. “I don't have staff. I have family. We're a team.”

His wife had returned to work for another company to bring in some money.

Yeo reported the scam to Netsafe and police but was told tracking those responsible was difficult because scammers often used fake identities and disposable SIM cards in their phones.

Advice to be alert

Netsafe digital harms service manager Alex Yi said business impersonation scams were becoming increasingly sophisticated, with scammers copying legitimate company logos, branding and social media pages to gain people’s trust before asking for money.

Yi said consumers should be wary of newly-created Facebook pages claiming to represent long-established businesses, unusually low prices, pressure to pay quickly, and pages with few followers or reviews.

Before paying a deposit, he encouraged people to independently verify a business by checking its website, contact details and customer reviews, and to contact the business using details they sourced themselves rather than relying on information in a social media advertisement or message.

Yi said businesses should regularly monitor online platforms for fake accounts, use strong passwords and multi-factor authentication, and clearly promote their official contact details. If an impersonation page appeared, it should be reported to the platform immediately, customers should be warned through official channels, and screenshots retained as evidence. Where significant financial harm has occurred, businesses should also report the matter to police.

Police have been approached for comment.