Queens scammers swindled as much as $80K in single shakedown, councilmember says

City Councilmember Bob Holden issued a warning against home repair scams he says are targeting seniors in his district: Don’t fall for it.

Holden, who represents Maspeth, Glendale, Middle Village and parts of Ridgewood, said scammers posing as contractors “with an Irish brogue” have been soliciting door-to-door, claiming to work for legitimate companies. They’ll offer homeowners unsolicited repairs, and claim to have noticed damage while working on a neighbor’s property, which turn out to be unnecessary, the lawmaker said.

It’s a problem Holden has been fighting for years, but he said the sums of money people are being defrauded of have gotten exponentially larger — in the tens of thousands of dollars.

“We've had actual residents lose — listen to this — $80,000 for a roof. And we have another one in Glendale, Queens – $50,000,” he said. “It's not just what I used to witness 20 years ago, $4,000 to $5,000 scams. Now it's way up there. So this is a heartbreaking thing,”

It recently happened to Kathryn Saffran of Glendale. A man who claimed to be a contractor knocked on her door offering a free look at her roof and said it was full of water, and she needed it drained urgently. He brought down wet shingles and pieces of wood as evidence, she said.

“I got scared when I saw all the water on the shingles and the wood,” she told Gothamist. “I mean, I'm 80 years old, everything scares me at this point.”

It wasn’t until after she had handed over what she estimated was $30,000 in cash in just a couple of days that a bank teller suspected it was a scam. Saffran said she can’t help but blame herself.

“And right then and there. It just clicked in my brain. How stupid I was,” she said. “I’ve been going through a lot of stuff in the last couple of years, my mind has not been as sharp as it should have been, which it should have been. And I'm really mad at myself because of that.”

But Holden said it’s not hard to fall victim to them.

“They're very good at what they do, by the way, they're exceptional,” Holden said. “They have a great line, they make the homeowner feel they’re friends, they start talking about how many children they have, and they find something in common with you, and you trust them.”

Saffran’s story was featured on CBS News. Since then, Holden said his office has fielded nearly a dozen more calls from residents who believed they’ve also been victimized.

Holden said he was hoping to team up with both the Queens district attorney’s office and the NYPD to tackle the issue. He argued that up until now, police officers have not been helpful with the problem, referring to the incidents as a civil matter.

“The biggest obstacle I'm facing in stopping this is the NYPD,” Holden said. “And that may sound shocking because I do support the police. But each time I report this to the precinct, each time let's say the victim reports this when they do find out it's a scam, the precinct will say ‘Oh we can't do anything. It's a civil matter. You'll have to sue the person.’”

He continued, “And obviously anybody knows that if the company doesn't exist, it's a ghost company — you can't sue them. So this is a frustrating thing.”

The NYPD told Gothamist that data on such incidents were not "kept to that level of specificity."

Looking forward, the councilmember said he is proposing a bill that would require individuals and companies to obtain a solicitor license in order to go door-to-door.

The NYPD's crime prevention section advises residents not to open their doors to solicitors and avoid disclosing personal financial information or making cash payments.

This story has been updated with comment from the NYPD.