CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. — A contractor was arrested Wednesday by Cranberry Township police after he reportedly ripped off a woman who he was supposed to do work for.
WPXI has learned that Nathan Gamboa, 36, is also facing charges for a similar situation in Bellevue.
Lynn Berger says she first came into contact with Gamboa in April 2023, when she was looking for an insured contractor to do some exterior construction that would look similar to her neighbors.
“All I really wanted was a set of stairs off of my deck,” Berger said.
Gamboa said he was the owner of M&A Contracting and that he could start the work immediately. He quoted her $7,500 to do the job. In May, Berger electronically transferred $6,175 to Gamboa for him to start.
“I felt like it was going wrong but at every turn, he seemed to be meeting some sort of date met,” Berger explained. “It really got wonky when he couldn’t supply any materials and couldn’t start the job because he had a death in his family, he had an injury himself, his children were ill, it was a litany of excuses, one after the other.”
When it became clear to Berger that Gamboa wasn’t going to do the work, she went to the police.
“I hope that he doesn’t get to do this to other people and that it stops here,” said Berger.
While Berger hopes she’s the last victim of Gamboa’s, she certainly isn’t the first. In March 2023, a Bellevue couple filed fraud charges against the Conway man after he reportedly started work on a $9,000 job and didn’t finish it. Bellevue police estimate that Gamboa only did about $1,700 worth of work.
Berger told 11 News she now knows that contractors can be verified through the State Attorney General’s office.
“All you have to do is put in the zip code where the contractor’s business is established and it’ll pull everyone in that zip code. Had I known that it would’ve saved a lot of time, energy and hassle, but here we are,” she said.
Cranberry Township police say there are other active investigations with separate victims and that more criminal charges are pending. Police are also asking anyone else who may have been a victim of Gamboa’s to call their local police and report it.
Gamboa is in the Butler County Jail on a $100,000 bond.
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