TOLEDO -- Senior citizens: Watch out. A scam artist is preying on older adults, and he could be on his way to your neighborhood.
He's posing as a contractor, charging high fees for shoddy work. The latest victim spoke with Call 11 for Action problem solver Mika Highsmith hoping to stop others from being scammed.
"Every time it rained, I had a pond out there," Mildred Kuhn said about the driveway problem that had hounded her for months. Of course, at 86 years old, she couldn't fix the problem herself. So, when someone came to the rescue, she took him up on it.
"They came up to the door, and said he could do it for $2 a foot. I figured that wasn't too bad," Kuhn said.
But the man who introduced himself as David S. Broadway from Extreme Asphalt and Paving ended up charging Kuhn $2 an inch, not a foot. Her final bill? $1,972, not the $200 originally quoted.
The worst part is that Kuhn paid him. "I was here by myself. So there wasn't much I could do. So I wrote the check for him," Kuhn explained. And, sure enough, the check was cashed before she could even stop it.
And stopping Mr. Broadway hasn't happened... yet.
"The numbers on his card and his invoice are disconnected," said Karen Walen, Kuhn's daughter.
In the end, Kuhn learned an expensive lesson: always research companies, especially ones that employ people who solicit business by knocking on doors.
"I thought I was smarter than that, but evidently I'm not," Kuhn said.
The case is now in the prosecutor's office. Mika Highsmith will continue to follow the situation. Her warning: Be sure to get written estimates before hiring someone to do work -- and research, research, research!
