Scammers and conmen have preyed upon Queen Anne and Magnolia residents for years - particularly on the elderly. One man, for example, has repeatedly talked his way into people's homes - where he steals purses and wallets - by saying his wife is having a baby and that he needs to look up the phone number for the hospital.
But an elderly widow who lives in the 1600 block of 28th Ave. W. called the News on Tuesday, Aug. 7, to report that a "tall, very personable man" showed up at her door the night before with a new and very elaborate scam.
The widow didn't want to be identified, but she said the man claimed to be from G.E., flashed what looked like an identification badge and said he had a free offer for her because her house was so attractive.
The free offer was a doozy. The man said he wanted to put in new keypads for the woman's home-alarm system at no charge. The woman has three keypads and suspects the man saw one of them through a window.
But these weren't just any keypads. They were a new kind of G.E. keypad that would be hooked up to a cellphone line instead of a landline like all alarm systems, the widow said. That would allow the woman to use a remote control such as the one for car alarms, according to the man. "You wouldn't have to key in the numbers to activate the alarm," she said. "You can just put it on your keychain."
The man also told the woman she already had G.E. keypads so the work wouldn't be that difficult. That was flat-out wrong. "I called my alarm company, and she said I didn't have a G.E. keypad," the woman said.
The man urged the woman to take advantage of the offer because all landlines were going to be cut down in the neighborhood, "and pretty soon we wouldn't have any landlines," she said of the scammer's story.
The man also tried to get the woman to sign up for the free work right away, claiming that workmen would only be in the area for a day. "He wanted me to sign up last night and do the work today," she recounted last week.
The widow didn't fall for the scam, she said. "The whole thing didn't make sense." But the woman also called the News because she was worried that other elderly residents in an area she described as "a widows' haven" might not be as careful.
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