Evanston police warn that con artists posing as home repairmen may be taking advantage of elderly residents in the area.
The last few weeks have brought at least two cases of “ruse entry,” or gaining access to a residence through false pretense, said Amanda Jones, senior citizen liaison for the Evanston Police Department.
The most recent incidents occurred in the south and west ends of town, but the handful of cases last year were evenly distributed throughout the city, Jones said.
“There is no particular pattern to where they go next,” she said. “They will drive all over the place.”
Con artists, who often work in pairs, lull their victims into a false sense of security by pretending to offer a bargain service, Jones said.
“It’s called a confidence crime because the initial attempt is to win the confidence of the resident,” she said. “Once whoever it is gets into the home, usually the colleague will start rifling around in bedrooms while the initial entrant pins the resident in another room.”
Victims are distracted more by intimidation than by actual force, Jones said.
“If you’ve got a guy or two standing in front of you and you weigh 110 pounds, you aren’t going to protest,” she said.
Jones suggested asking for valid identification before accepting services from repairmen. She said ruse artists target specific people who they think are more vulnerable to their deceptions.
“One thing they look for is someone standing in their front yard, so they can say ‘I noticed you have a few problems with your chimney,'” she said. “They say they’ll fix it for $50, but that turns into $500.”
The scam works best on elderly people who live alone and can’t do their own repairs or find friends or relatives to do them, she said.
“A lot of the times they feel embarrassed, like they should have handled the situation better,” Jones said.
Sgt. Tom Guenther of EPD said con artists target Evanston because of its significant senior population.
“Con artists would tend to gravitate towards communities where these people reside, and that’s what brings them to Evanston,” Guenther said.
Jones said con artists sometimes share victims’ information and also use personal details contained in obituaries.
“The word for this is ‘despicable,'” she said. “To show up and say, ‘Your dead husband ordered this,’ and to say he would want you to have this work done to your house, that’s truly the lowest of the low.”
