I keep seeing how Timmy Walz claims he has been fighting fraud in MN, this is my personal story about fraud and you can decide how much the state helped.

Summer of 2021 I had a call from a pool building contractor, he needed 23 trees dropped immediately, I believe it was a Friday afternoon. I went out with my wife and one employee late Friday after work and worked until 10 30 PM dropping trees. Check never came, it was supposed to be $3,000

2 months goes by and I get ahold of the contractor on the phone, he profusely apologizes and ask if I can come cut one small tree down for him about 1.5 hours away, wanting to be paid for the first job I agreed as long as he was there. We got there, he again apologized and we cut down the tree, once we were done with our work he was gone. Someone who was supposed to be his employee showed up with a $3,800 check, it bounced.

At both locations the contractor had dug a massive hole in the yard, all the dirt piled up, just a mess. When the check bounced I looked up phone numbers for the homeowners and told them they were being scammed, there was clearly no way this guy was legit, they had each paid him close to $75,000 at this point. Everyone called the cops and the state, they did absolutely nothing. The homeowners found more and more other homeowners who had the same scam ran on them, a pool guy who could "squeeze them in" started the work by digging a big hole, got paid and became impossible to contact. The homeowners found $1million dollars+ in fraud and thought that Keith Ellingson and the state would help, they didn't, the counties didn't, no one did.

Jennifer Mayerly from WCCO news finally broke the story in the summer of 2022, Millions of dollars in fraud and homeowners left with a destroyed yard. The state finally took the case after it made the news. Contractor continued to scam people and went to Tennessee when it got to hot in MN. One of the counties finally charged him along with the state but as of 2025 I believe he is still out of jail though he did some brief stints for Violating protection orders.

Minnesota does not take fraud seriously.

Sorry, it goes beyond words how some people knowingly screw others with a strait face. I takes the trust away from honest people. And pieces of trash like him never have to pay restitution. Jail is too good for these guys because they get out and do it again.

I had gotten hammered in a divorce the year before all this, I was in a pretty bad place. This guy got lucky he didn't pull this during 2020 because he would of ended up in one of his holes. Thankfully by 2021 everything was going swimmingly and I was able to write it off and not dwell on it to much.

One of the couples who he ripped off had saved their deployment money from Iraq and decided to use it to build a pool, he stole everything extra they had worked for overseas, over 100k!

Made me mad just reading that.

White guy?

Heard tell of check bouncing and guy went straight to the bank, he deposited enough money in check bouncers account for the bad check to then clear! Better than nothing

That sure is a kick in the crotch. Folks that rip people off like that should be hung from the nearest tall oak tree. Sad when those in charge drag their feet or look the other way.

Chris

Another of many creeps in this country, that never get prosecuted! He should have been put in one of his holes, and covered up!

Yes

I forgot to add his total fraud was over 3 million, so far the only jail time he's done was for beating his wife and violating a protection order

I remember when that story was on the news, and I remember that someone got screwed over on tree removal. I wonder if they were talking about you, or if other folks got hit too

I did an interview for the news. Another small buisness, a rental place sold him two track skidloaders, check bounced and the guy who owned the rental place was paying close to $2,000 a month for two skids they couldn't find, it almost bankrupted him.

There is an answer for guys like this. It isn’t prison obviously since the law could care less. so next best option is a bullet.

Hard to believe that guy is still walking around in a upright position. Trust in your fellow man is getting to be a hard thing to do now a days.

Does that matter? No good is no good, just like ignorant is ignorant.

Need to bring back the Pinkertons.

Well how about our guy "Author" on here. Some woman ( impersonator?) Hit him hard for his house and all. Just 6 months ago I think......jk

"Actor" is who you're thinking of. The story was so sad and almost unbelievable that jbyrd made a comment about it that got him permanently banned.

My great aunt had everything stolen from her as well when she got old, phone scammers wiped her out.

This is a very bad deal that I also know all to well ! I'd go out and work on water wells on two different Indian reservations in good faith and it was a crap shoot if you got paid or not and the tribal court system at times doesn't care or do much .

And the housing authorities for each wasn't any better I couldn't afford to work for nothing so I quit doing it . the icing on this cake was just the other day I received a phone call from a past customer who I hired to help me on a project , and he took advantage of my trust in him and some parts and tools of mine vanished !
He was calling to get some free information on how to retrieve the pipe pump and wire that dropped in his water well !
My response after he told me he had a neighbor who has a service rig , was well I'm sure he can figure out something for you , I'm done with him !

The moral of this story is getting a big deposit in advance in cash or to wait until the check clears at the bank or get a credit card number when it clears the work will get done and if there's a remaining balance a refund will be given .

One guy wrote us a bad check for my wifes small business. He called him a few times and he always said he was going to pay. Then I looked up what the Minnesota law states of writing a bad check. The level of his check was considered a gross misdemeanor. I called him again explaining the next call I make is to the sheriff dept. I said I dont want to make the call but I will. Then I said you will be fined by the state and it will surpass what you us. I had a bank check in the mailbox two day later, he paid extra postage for two day delivery.