Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Elderly Resident Targeted In Home Improvement Scam
An elderly resident of the Loretto area found herself short a couple of hundred dollars recently when she was targeted by individuals perpetrating a home improvement scam.
According to reports filed through the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Department, deputies were summoned to the victim’s Lexington Highway home around noon Tuesday. The eighty-one-year-old victim’s daughter reported two men had stopped at her mother’s home on July 14, inquiring about doing some work.
According to reports, the two men offered to spray the victim’s driveway to kill grass “where it wouldn’t come back.” The victim asked the men how much it would cost to spray the affected area and was told $8 per gallon. She then informed the men to spray on only five gallons of the treatment.
Shortly, she said one of the men came back to the door, informing her she owed them $200. When she pointed out she was supposed to owe them only $40 the man told her “the truck wouldn’t stop spraying.”
The victim told deputies she was uncertain “what the men would do,” so she wrote them a check for the full amount on her First Farmers bank account. She said she wrote the check to the man, who identified himself as “John Johnson Alendrs.” He told the victim he was from Lexington, Alabama.
Reports show that the check cleared on July 15. Bank officials were able to provide deputies with a copy of the check, as well as a photo of the suspect who had cashed it. The teller logged the man’s driver license number and date of birth on the check, as well. When cashed, the check bore the name of “Tony Joles.”
The matter has been turned over for in-depth investigation by detectives with the department’s Criminal Investigation Division.
.
