Woman foiled pair's water scam, police say
Police say the suspects were arrested less than an hour later trying to defraud an elderly man.
By EMILY ANTHES
Published August 11, 2005
ST. PETERSBURG - The man at Wanda Hamm's doorstep Tuesday afternoon said that workers had hit a water main behind her house. Your water is probably not safe to drink, he told her. He wanted to come inside and test it.
The 75-year-old St. Petersburg woman was immediately suspicious.
Hamm knew her water lines ran under her front yard, not her back yard. And she had seen recent news reports about men who posed as water department employees, entered the homes of senior citizens and robbed them.
"I kept telling him, "No, you're not checking nothing,"' she recalled. "I said, "Go get the police and come back.' Then he got in the car and took off in the hurry."
Hamm quickly called police, who arrested two suspects Tuesday afternoon.
Hamm was one of the lucky ones. In recent months, the Tampa Bay area has seen a spate of burglaries in which men impersonating servicemen have entered and stolen from the homes of senior citizens.
A new poll reveals that 10 percent of senior citizens surveyed both nationally and statewide last month reported being victims of scams. The poll, commissioned by the Elder Consumer Protection Program at the Stetson University College of Law, revealed that home repair scams were the most prevalent of all types, with 29 percent of elderly victims nationwide reporting them.
"This is a generation of people that are used to being community oriented and they therefore have a much higher trust level and a much lower cynicism level than those that came after them," said Bentley Lipscomb, the Florida state director for the AARP. Scam artists "take their sterling quality and use it against them."
In four incidents since April, two men posing as Tampa Water Department employees have gained entry to Tampa homes by telling their elderly residents that they needed to check their pipes. The men distracted the residents, who ranged in age from 81 to 91, and then stole money from their homes.
Eighteen more cases have occurred in St. Petersburg during the past three months, with robbers posing as power company, lawn care or water department employees, according to police. There have been other incidents in Gulfport, Clearwater and Pinellas Park.
Hamm's common sense may have helped police get what may be the first major break.
After the purported serviceman sped off, Hamm called the police, providing a description of the suspects and the car, she said. An undercover St. Petersburg police officer arrested two men who police said were in the act of pulling the same scam on an elderly man less than an hour later. Hamm identified the suspects, police said.
Police arrested Bobby Marks, 19, and Scorpio Mitchell, 21, Tuesday and charged them with burglary, attempted burglary, and attempted home invasion by false personation. A possible third accomplice was still at large Wednesday, police said.
Police think the suspects may be connected to other local instances of the scam.
"We're in the process investigatively of making those connections," said Bill Proffitt, a spokesman for the St. Petersburg Police Department. "We're carefully looking at each case to see which ones we may be able to charge these individuals with."
Marks and Mitchell were both being held in Pinellas County Jail on $250,000 bond Wednesday.
The data from Stetson's poll of seniors illustrate that such home repair scams remain a threat to seniors nationwide.
"We hear a lot of stories these days about the high tech scams," said Rebecca Morgan, director of Stetson's Elder Consumer Education Project. "We've got to remember that these low tech, one-victim-at-a-time scams are still happening."
The damage from last year's hurricanes made Florida's elderly residents particularly vulnerable to home repair scams, Lipscomb said. Such fraud got so bad after the hurricanes that the AARP printed 1-million circulars for its Florida members with information about how to protect themselves, he said.
"Crimes against seniors are particularly deplorable," said state Attorney General Charlie Crist. "I'm not sure what kind of mind it takes to target one of our senior citizens, but unfortunately a lot of people try to do it."
AVOIDING SCAMSTo protect yourself from becoming a victim of a home repair scam:
Check licenses and credentials of contractors
Verify unexpected visits by maintenance workers with the appropriate agency
Check with agencies if unsure whether service fees are legitimate
Report suspicious activity to the police
Sources: AARP, Florida Attorney General's Office