Hacker News Reader

Comment by joering2 | Hacker News Reader

I recall a buddy of mine worked in construction industry in 80s/Miami Florida. It was “typical”, as he told me that they ordered truck of concrete, and then at the same time filled out the hole with as much garbage as they could. Then covered with concrete using less than 10% what was ordered. Of course rest was sold on black market. First people who were doing it (probably not first but the most “famous”) was Morgan family (constructions) before they switched industry to became Morgan&Morgan Lawyers (for the people).

View on HN

Not sure how well that works in practice. Concrete has an amazingly short window of time that it's usable for, anywhere between 30 minutes and a couple of hours between the time it's mixed and the time it's set. To get a truck of concrete to a second site that is ready to go just doesn't seem like it work to mr.

I was going to say, it’s hard to sell wet concrete on a short window. Min back order window for concrete is 24 hours and the construction crew plans the pours ahead so they are not waiting around for black market concrete. It actually costs a lot more to idle the crew than the price difference of black market

It wouldn't surprise me if what really happened was the concrete forms would bill for a crew and a "truck", send a truck of concrete 20% full, bill the whole thing, fill with whatever instead, and pocket the savings.

There was one instance I remember hearing about. A concrete truck driver was stopping on the way to the site and then adding water to his load to keep it at the right consistency. The result was weaker concrete that lead to some kind of collapse.

> Then covered with concrete using less than 10% what was ordered.

I'm curious about the logistics of this scam. Does this mean the concrete delivery would show up on the books of the concrete company as two orders, one for the 10%, and one (or more orders) for the remaining 90%? Or was the concrete company in on the scam for a kickback so nothing would show up on their books nor the contractors' books?

With so much being automated and tracked these days, is it squeezing out these scams?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com