Police are urging residents to be wary of builders who turn up unexpectedly demanding payment for building work - after elderly residents at two households were conned out of a total of £570 in the last week.
On Wednesday, 28 October at 08:30hrs, an 84-year-old female resident of Cotswold Road, Sutton, answered a call at her front door from a man asking for £350 payment for roofing work which he falsely claimed he had carried out on her home. The resident, who suffers from dementia, withdrew the money from her Post Office account and handed it to the caller when he returned to her home later to collect the money.
On Saturday, 24 October between 09:30-10:00hrs, an elderly couple - a female aged in her 70s and male in his 80s who suffers from Parkinson’s disease - were told by male caller at their address in Grosvenor Avenue, Carshalton, that he needed access to their side of a chimney which they shared with a neighbour to complete a repair. They handed over the £140 he requested only to be told he needed another £80 for materials - money that was also handed over. He promised to return to carry out the work but never turned up.
On Tuesday, 27 October, a trickster who went to the lengths of climbing up onto a elderly male resident’s roof to show that it needed repairing, had his offer of work declined after the resident spotted that the photographs that the roofer had said he had taken whilst up there, were pictures of shed roofs. The caller left the address in Pine Ridge, Carshalton, empty handed.
On Saturday, 24 October between 09:30-10:00hrs, an elderly couple - a female aged in her 70s and male in his 80s who suffers from Parkinson’s disease - were told by male caller at their address in Grosvenor Avenue, Carshalton, that he needed access to their side of a chimney which they shared with a neighbour to complete a repair. They handed over the £140 he requested only to be told he needed another £80 for materials - money that was also handed over. He promised to return to carry out the work but never turned up.
On Tuesday, 27 October, a trickster who went to the lengths of climbing up onto a elderly male resident’s roof to show that it needed repairing, had his offer of work declined after the resident spotted that the photographs that the roofer had said he had taken whilst up there, were pictures of shed roofs. The caller left the address in Pine Ridge, Carshalton, empty handed.