What I did this weekend: help chase a con man away from my mother-in-law

[derby378]

Here's the background, and you might want to pay attention so you can watch over your own folks...

Yesterday, someone approached my mother-in-law at her home and basically said, "We used to work with your husband, and now we're going to do some repairs on your house." Without obtaining her consent, they cleaned out her gutters, trimmed some tree branches, and filled in a few gaps in her driveway. No estimate, no invoice, nothing - let alone any paper that has my mother-in-law's signature. They said they'd have to come back tomorrow for the rest of the job and could she please pay a little something upfront. They took all the money she had in her purse.

They were gone by the time I arrived. I told my mother-in-law this looked like a scam, especially since they didn't identify themselves as part of any company or obtain her consent, so I came back today to learn these assholes were calling her on the phone and telling her she now owed them $600, which they quickly reduced to $186, and they were coming over to collect, so could she run down to an ATM and withdraw the money because apparently they don't take checks.

Like Hell that was gonna happen. I called 911 and told my mother-in-law to lock the front door in case this guy showed up in the next few minutes. Sure enough, he arrived while I was on the phone with the 911 dispatcher. He knocked on the door and rang the bell, but we didn't answer, and he drove off. He called my mother-in-law's phone, and I answered, telling the jerk that we gave a description of his truck to the police along with his license number, "so you'd better keep running." His answer began with "I don't care..." before I got bored with him and hung up. He tried calling back, so I cut him off with a few words about the Fair Debt Collection Act and threats of harassment charges, and that got him to stop calling us. When the cops arrived, we gave them this guy's cellphone number (thank you, Caller ID), and they had a little chat with this con man and told him they were gonna watch for him, and stay away from this woman.

My mother-in-law is 80 years old. She just lost her husband a couple of months ago. She's got better things to do than fork over her life savings to these vultures.

:grr:

[Name removed]

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[Tippy]

2. God bless you........

[Hestia]

3. I would check and make sure he/they do not put out a contractors lein against

the house. Crooks have been know to do so.

[Occulus]

5. They sound like Irish Travelers to me

Very, very shady group, is the Irish Travelers. This is their typical- one might even say, cliche- M.O.

The OP may want to call the police back with this info. If they did it to his mother-in-law, they've almost certainly done it to other elderly people in the area. Local cops and/or TV/radio stations should put out an alert.

edit: the link is supposed to go to a Google search. It seems to work, but doesn't use the link tag correctly.

[derby378]

9. I don't think there's any chance of that

My mother-in-law signed nothing, wasn't given a written invoice or estimate, zippo. And if anyone connected to this tries to call her demanding a debt, we'll turn them over to the cops, too. Let 'em just try something.

[Name removed]

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[NeedleCast]

6. That's a lot of crazy right there

[uppityperson]

7. you channeling WaStateDeskjet?

[pacalo]

8. The scammers & opportunists do come out of the woodwork when the elderly

women become widows when they are in their most vulnerable state. You did good, derby. Continue to watch out for her.